Though it's been nearly seven years since the last of the Harry Potter movies hit theaters, the franchise continues to be a popular one. Warnes Bros and Jam City recently released a free-to-play RPG mobile game called Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery, letting players experience Hogwarts during an era that hasn't been covered by the books or movies. While this free to play mobile game has proven to be a hit, longtime Potter fans have begun to pick apart some of the inconsistencies with the game's lore.

The confusion within Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery stems from the era that the game takes place in. Setting players in 1984 Hogwarts, a period of time between the villain Voldemort's rise to power and when Harry Potter actually attends school, fans have noticed that the game contains a certain degree of callbacks to the popular books and movies. Unfortunately, some of these winks and nods to the fanbase don't line up with the time period of the game and the established universe created by author J.K. Rowling.

One of the biggest complaints from fans is with the flying broomstick known as the Firebolt. Brought up in a question for the player character's 1984 flying class, the Firebolt technically didn't exist at this point, being produced in 1993 and eventually gifted to Harry in the movies. Other examples of this lore disconnect involves Dolores Umbridge, a former member of the Ministry of Magic and short-term professor featured in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. For Potter fans, Umbridge wasn't employed at Hogwarts until 1996, so for a question to list her as a possible answer left fans a little confused as NPCs and characters shouldn't know anything about these things at this point.

Still, the problems with its lore are relatively minor when compared to player complaints over the use of microtransactions. In this free-to-play game, players have the option to purchase items like gems, which unlock cosmetic items, or energy which controls how many missions players can undertake in a given session. Currently, many players feel that the game puts too much of an emphasis on this energy system, going as far as designing player progression to run out of energy at certain missions. Players can then opt to wait a certain amount of time to slowly regain energy or take a shortcut and directly purchase more.

Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery is available on Android and iOS devices.

Source: Polygon