Summary
TheHarry Potterfranchise is in a strange place right now. While the series creator is continuing to use her online presence to spout endless hatred at marginalized groups, and in the process is pushing away more fans by the second,the Wizarding Worldstill remains one of the most profitable franchises in the Western world of entertainment, with theme parks and merchandise all raking in huge profits every day. And in a rather surprising turn of events,Hogwarts Legacycan also be added to that list.
Released back in February of this year, fans and the general gaming community had predicted thatHogwarts Legacywould be a solid hit for the franchise, but many had never expected it would reach the monumental heights it has.Hogwarts Legacyis still currently the best-selling game of 2023, somehow beating outZelda,Star Wars,Diablo, and more for the top spot.Hogwarts Legacyhas been the most successful Wizarding World project in a while, and if it’s taught Warner Bros. anything, it should be that the future ofHarry Potterlies in the world of gaming.
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Games Like Hogwarts Legacy Should Continue to Build Out the Wizarding World
During the 2000s and right up until the start of the 2010s,theHarry Potterfranchisewas easily one of the biggest in the world, with all of its movies and books being worldwide sensations upon their initial release. But onceHarry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2released in 2011, the franchise took a bit of a hiatus. But as is the case with anything successful in the entertainment industry, it’s only a matter of time before a sequel or prequel gets made, and that’s exactly what happened in 2016 with the release ofFantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.
Whilethe firstFantastic Beastsmoviewas a solid blockbuster that provided plenty of nostalgia, it didn’t perform too well with critics, and that would only be a sign of things to come. With each subsequent sequel, theFantastic Beastsseries has gotten progressively worse, and the box office has followed suit. Now, what was intended to be a five-movie series has been cut short, and theHarry Potterfranchise has been left in an almost limbo-like state.
Back in April of this year, HBO announced that it would be producing an ambitiousHarry Potterseries designed to adapt the entire saga over the course of the next 10 years. While this sounds like an intriguing idea on paper, there are some pretty big criticisms surrounding the project. The tamest criticism surrounding thisHarry PotterHBO series is that fans have already seen and read these stories countless times over the last few decades, and they don’t really need to see it all again. But some fans believe this series has some more nefarious purposes aside from just milking the series for every last drop. Some fans believe that, as J.K. Rowling is attached as Executive Producer, this series is her attempt to overwrite the movies, as many of the series' stars have been pretty vocalagainst Rowling’s hateful rhetoric.
ThoughHogwarts Legacywas obviously still connected to Rowling, she apparently had little to do with the actual creative process, and some fans felt as though that was enough for them to pick up the game. It also helped thatHogwarts Legacywas a genuinely good game, and the first piece of Wizarding World media in a while that actually fleshed out the universe and its history in a meaningful way. Moving forward, it seems like a much smarter move to just let games likeHogwarts Legacycontinue to build out the Wizarding World, as opposed to forcing out some disappointing movies, or an overly ambitious TV series that no one really asked for.
Hogwarts Legacyis out now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S, with a Switch version releasing on November 14.
