![]() ![]() The game, to its credit, isn’t the least bit restrictive about gender presentation or identity. ![]() Instead, I’ve spent around 15 hours with the game, enough to feel like I have a solid foundation upon which to base my impressions. Without the extra time that early code would have afforded me, I wasn’t able to finish the story or come close to fully exploring the world. Of course, you may argue that it’s the role of publishers and publicists to cultivate good press for their games, but I wish they would see the value of the games crit ecosystem as not so much an extension of their own PR efforts to be gamed for positive buzz, but as a place that lifts up the medium of games as a whole by taking them seriously. Like a number of other outlets, we weren’t furnished with early code, in what I can only assume was an effort to ensure that early reactions to the game would be mostly positive. Just as I think a good Star Wars game or The Lord of the Rings game should pull players in even if they’re not already experts on the history of the Jedi or the nature of the Maiar, I feel that if Hogwarts Legacy is going to work, it should work for newcomers as well as those who once loved the series so much that they got Harry Potter tattoos they now regret.Īlso, lastly, this is not a review. I’m not here to judge how well Hogwarts Legacy crams in bits of fan service. I know that the Weasleys I’ve met are ancestors of the ones in the books, sure ( Hogwarts Legacy takes place in the 1890s), and I recognize plenty of other family names and nods to magical dynasties, but for every reference I catch, I’m sure that a dozen fly over my head. While I remember the broad strokes of the series’ narrative, I’ve forgotten most of the smaller details, so I’m not going to catch every reference and Easter egg. As a player and a critic, I approached all of that with an open mind.Īt the same time, I’m not a die-hard fan, steeped in Potter lore. I understand the appeal of a game like Hogwarts Legacy–the chance to step into an immersively detailed recreation of a place one loves from books and films and craft your own compelling story by attending classes, making friends, learning spells, getting into mischief, visiting Hogsmeade, exploring the castle, and finding yourself at the heart of a conflict that threatens the wizarding world. (I am trans, which makes her attitude about trans people particularly hard to overlook.) I was already older than the series’ target audience, but I liked them fine, and thought that they deserved to become new classics of children’s literature. Rowling would one day become known as much for her transphobic ideology as she is for being the author of an outrageously popular series of children’s books. I read the Harry Potter books around the time they came out, back when I was blissfully unaware that J.K. Normally I wouldn’t go to such lengths, but given the intensity of the conversation around the game, I think it’s important that readers understand where I’m coming from. Harry Potter and meīefore I get to the game itself, I want to be clear about my relationship to its world. So I prepared to take the unusual step of enrolling at Hogwarts as a fifth-year. I think that the cultural impact of the game is so vast, and the issues swirling around it so important, that it demands thoughtful critical engagement, and that requires playing the game. I respect this viewpoint, but I don’t share it. Some have argued that the right way to cover Hogwarts Legacy is not to cover it at all.
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