Today’s Hogwarts Legacy gameplay showcase took would-be students through a tour of Harry Potter’s iconic castle while spending a few minutes on features like combat, quests, and more. Fans expected a faithful recreation of Hogwarts’ classrooms, but today’s gameplay footage confirmed that the team did their reading when designing locations that fans have and haven’t seen in other media. For example, one side of the castle we didn’t see much of in the Harry Potter movies is the Hufflepuff common room and its accompanying dorm rooms. Certain details were ripped straight from the source material, including the color of the nightstands and the engravings on the wooden fireplace mantel.
Beyond aiming to be the best way to explore any video game version of Hogwarts, Hogwarts Legacy looks to blend the books and movies to create the best of both magical worlds. Part of giving fans a chance to enter the spellbound school means they’ll create their own character before picking up their first book. We got a look at some of those character creation tools today, and we saw the game’s heads-up display (HUD), too. While the HUD can be customized for players who wish to add or remove certain elements during gameplay, players will only be able to alter their character’s superficial elements after beginning the game.
As the Hogwarts Legacy gameplay showcase made its way through the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, over familiar and rickety wooden bridges, and into hidden castle secrets, we got a look at some of the other students. Your Hogwarts classmates will zip overhead on their flying broomsticks while others hurry to their next class, books in hand. Some classmates can give quests, with one student, Lucan, offering combat training missions. We’ve still got around three months until launch and some elements could change, but Hogwarts Legacy has never looked more alive than it did today in this gameplay showcase.
The entire Hogwarts Legacy presentation lasted around 45 minutes and contained a better look at the castle’s intricacies, the combo-heavy combat, collectibles, and the Wizard’s Field Guide. Each moment is accompanied by commentary from members of the Avalanche Software team, including Game Director Alan Tew, Senior Environment Artist Boston Madsen, and Community Manager Chandler Wood.
Check out how the team has created a faithful Hogwarts in the full stream while we wait for Hogwarts Legacy to come to PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X | S on February 10, 2023. A Nintendo Switch version is on the way as well, though it does not have a release date yet.
