Harry Potter fans who had long-awaited an RPG set in the Wizarding World were finally rewarded for their patience this September with the announcement of Avalanche Studios’ upcoming Hogwarts Legacy. The game will allow players to take on the role of a student at Hogwarts in the late 1800s, exploring iconic locations inside and beyond the school of witchcraft and wizardry.
However, Hogwarts Legacy faces a few huge challenges if it’s going to be as robust an RPG as it is a rendering of the Wizarding World. One of the biggest hurdles Hogwarts Legacy will need to overcome is its customization system. The setting makes a few options seem obvious, even necessary for a Harry Potter RPG. Despite this, those very same customization options may be among the hardest features to execute in the game.
House
Figuring out the House system in Hogwarts Legacy will be among the biggest challenges in the game. Even figuring out how to present the option will be a challenge when it comes to recreating iconic experiences from the books and movies. It’s well-established that students do not know their house until the Sorting Hat is placed upon their heads. This means that Hogwarts Legacy will either have to break the immersion of that scene by directly giving players the opportunity to pick their Hogwarts house, or the game will have to assign houses in a different way which could be frustrating for players who want to choose directly.
Not only that, but different houses would imply different starting experiences including different peers and dorm-mates, different experiences of sporting events if they’re included in the game, and so on. Some difficulty with the house system may be avoided if players do not start in their first year of Hogwarts. However, this has problems of its own.
Age
The player’s age in Hogwarts Legacy may present another challenge to Avalanche. If Hogwarts Legacy's timeline takes place over multiple years, the studio may have to figure out a way to make the player character immersively age, without their design significantly diverging from the character as originally customized by the player. If players are given the option to customize their character between years, the problem of figuring out how to gracefully age characters will still apply to NPCs.
It’s possible that Hogwarts Legacy will get around this problem by having the events of the game take place across just one or two years, likely in the middle of the school experiences, such as third and fourth year. This presents another problem, however. Limiting the game to just a few school years to avoid the aging problem will mean that certain experiences will have to be locked off as the school year progresses. For example, players would only be able to explore Hogsmeade in its iconic snow-covered rendition during segments of the game set in winter as the story progresses.
It’s possible that Hogwarts Legacy could follow a trend seen in Red Dead Redemption 2. Red Dead utilized chapters that moved the story forward through time, but allowed the player total freedom within those chapters to explore for as long as they wanted before progressing to the next time period via the main quest. However, while this works for a character-driven narrative like Red Dead’s where the characters aren't supposed to be customizable, it could risk making Hogwarts Legacy feel too focused on its main story when many players will want to forge different paths through the game.
Blood
Blood is a huge part of the Wizarding World. The difference between the war pure-blood wizards, half-blood wizards, and muggle-born wizards are treated would be even more pronounced in the late 1800s, especially if the game takes place under pure-blood supremacist headmaster Phineas Nigellus Black, who served his tenure for some time in the late 1800s.
Many players will want the option to be able to choose their blood in Hogwarts Legacy, and the option has the potential to help increase the game’s replay-value even if it only affects some superficial dialog. If the option is not included, the game will likely need to make a decision about the blood of the main character anyway, as it is still a major part of the Wizarding World which the character would know. If players aren’t given the option, however, the game may feel too prescriptive when it comes the protagonist’s backstory.
Voice
The main character’s voice – or lack-thereof – will have huge implications for Hogwarts Legacy. First, it is possible that the character will have no voice at all. This would follow a trend of silent RPG protagonists in games like Skyrim and Dragon Age: Origins. However, the focus on a cinematic third-person perspective in the Hogwarts Legacy announcement trailer makes it likely that the main character will have a voice of some kind in a similar way to the Mass Effect franchise.
If the main character has a voice, some players will likely want to be able to pick from a few options as they can in games like Dragon Age: Inquisition. This could allow players to choose different tones or even different accents for their character. However, this would also mean that Avalanche will have to record all of the protagonists’ dialog multiple times, which could prove costly.
One of Hogwarts Legacy’s biggest challenges will be balancing character-driven storytelling with the level of character customization afforded to players. The more customization, the more that story will need to accommodate different possibilities if it’s going to remain feeling like a tight narrative as opposed to simply a sandbox world to explore. Fan expectations for a Warner Bros.-backed Harry Potter game will be high, but whether or not Avalanche can truly provide a strong roleplaying experience in that world has yet to be seen.
Hogwarts Legacy is in development for the PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.