Despite the danger dragons present, the creatures often serve as a source of sport and entertainment in the wizarding world of Harry Potter, and a new clip from Hogwarts Legacy highlights this in the form of a dragon fighting pit. Readers and Harry himself got a first-hand lesson in how dangerous a dragon can be during the events of The Goblet of Fire, where the young dragon was barely able to successfully complete the first task of the Triwizard Tournament. However, it appears the game will present dragons in more of a sympathetic position given how wizards of the late 1800s put the creatures to use for the sake of entertainment.Hogwarts Legacy is the latest game set within the Harry Potter universe, dropping players into the famous wizarding school over a century before the Boy Who Lived passed through its halls. Players will take on the role of a new student to the school as an ancient and mysterious power begins to emerge which could threaten the existence of the entire wizarding world. The players' character is one of only a few wizards capable of harnessing this power and must uncover the truth behind its emergence if they wish to stop the potential cataclysm it could cause.Aside from the adventure players will be thrust into, Avalanche Software hasn't been shy about showing off the wider wizarding world it has crafted inside Hogwarts Legacy between the places players can explore and activities awaiting in places such as Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley. The dragon fight pits will be among them to shine a spotlight on what kind of entertainment the magical community seeks out. A new clip on Twitter from user Harry Potter Film shows the fighting pit in action, with two dragons ready to do battle while a packed house watches on.
The tweet implies the fighting pit reflects a darker side of the larger wizard community, serving as its equivalent to animal fighting rings deemed cruel and illegal in how the animals are treated and forced to fight each other. More dedicated Harry Potter fans can discern this notion from the tweet referencing Charlie Weasley, one of Ron Weasley's older brothers who works at a dragon sanctuary during the events of the books. He is said to be one of several characters, alongside Hogwarts' groundskeeper Hagrid, who is fond of dragons and wishes to see them treated with more dignity than how the larger magical community treats the creatures.
It remains to be seen how these fighting pits could play into the game and the adventure awaiting players as they explore the larger wizarding world. As mentioned above, the pits reflect the dark underbelly of the wizarding community and could serve as a location where players meet and interact with dangerous wizards of the time on par with names such as "Mad-Eye" Moody or Gellert Grindelwald. Avalanche Software has a massive world at its fingertips, though, and could find any number of reasons to bring players to these pits over the course of the game.
Hogwarts Legacy is scheduled to release on February 10, 2023, for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S, April 4, 2023, for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, and July 25, 2023, for Nintendo Switch.