By Pierson Luscy | LTVN Reporter/Anchor
This review may contain spoilers.
Before its release on Feb. 10, “Hogwarts Legacy” had a massive amount of hype surrounding it as one of the most in-depth Harry Potter games, and it lives up to those expectations in every way.
There have been many iterations of the Harry Potter franchise in the video game world since the first book was released. All of them looked as if they were lacking potential because of how large the game is, but “Hogwarts Legacy” capitalizes in every way.
To start off, this game is absolutely massive. Players can go through a weekend’s worth of this game without scratching the surface.
As everyone’s Hogwarts journey begins, your character is sorted into a house and your journey is set from there from the perspective of that house. You are sorted based on a characteristic you best identify with, but if you are unhappy, you can manually switch houses.
From there, you begin learning basic spells to help along the journey throughout Hogwarts, but it eventually shifts based on your house.
Each house has designated quests only available to that house. Gryffindor has the most quests with Ravenclaw having the fewest, but each has its own house-specific side quests that are unique.
If you are interested in going to Azkaban, however, the only way to do that is to join Hufflepuff.
Through each quest and spell class that you take, you will continue to unlock more spells to choose from in your journey. You can mix and match what spells you would like to use when facing an array of enemies.
The great part about this game is that it’s not targeted towards only the audience that has indulged deeply in the Harry Potter franchise; the game is targeted towards all gamers and people who have watched or read any bit of Harry Potter.
There are numerous callbacks in the game that bring back where each reference came from, and the level of detail hidden within the game almost requires more than one play-through.
This game is certainly in the conversation as the best open-world game of 2023 and very well-considered for game of the year because of its different take on the Elder Scrolls style of depth.
I highly recommend this game, not only to Harry Potter fans but to all gamers alike, because there is so much waiting to explore and not a single person’s gameplay will be like the others’.
Hogwarts Legacy is available on the PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch and PC.
