After a series of teasers for Hogwarts Legacy released, WB Games Avalanche has returned with a full-fledged gameplay showcase during a hands-on presentation. This showcase was presented by Avalanche’s Community Manager Chandler Wood, Game Director Alan Tew, Senior Environment Artist Boston Madsen, and Marketing Artist Andrew Corum, with Guest Host James Whitehead. In it, fans saw many of the features they've anticipated since Hogwarts Legacy’s State of Play presentation.
The showcase does not delve too deep into any one feature, but it is a great gift for fans who have been eager to see more. Hogwarts Legacy boasts an ambitious amount of content, and a single gameplay showcase would surely not be sufficient to share that much. Instead, this showcase concentrates on Hogwarts Legacy’s character creator, a tiny tour throughout Hogwarts Legacy’s castle interior from the Hufflepuff dormitory, and combat.
Hogwarts Legacy’s Character Creator
.png?q=50&fit=crop&w=1500&dpr=1.5)
Through Whitehead, fans can look at Hogwarts Legacy’s character creator. There is a long catalog of custom presets that fans can select as a base, but this character creator has the same bells and whistles as most modern RPGs. Face shapes, hairstyles, and hair color can be selected in subsequent tabs, as well as three different pairs of glasses. It is apparent that other glasses will be made available throughout the game.
There is a tab encompassing freckles, moles, complexion, and other scars or markings that players can choose to decorate their character’s face. The second-to-last tab allows players to customize eye color, eyebrow color, and eyebrow shape.
Then, the final tab discerns final characteristics such as whether the avatar will have one voice preset or another, what their voice’s pitch will be scaled to, what difficulty fans wish to play Hogwarts Legacy on, their character’s name, and whether their character will be a witch or wizard. The available difficulties are Story, Easy, Normal, and Hard, while the witch or wizard selection determines which dormitory the player is placed in.
Hogwarts Legacy’s HUD UI
.png?q=50&fit=crop&w=1500&dpr=1.5)
Whitehead’s character starts in Hogwarts Legacy’s Hufflepuff dormitory, with an emphasis placed on the game’s HUD. On the bottom-right of the screen, players have a diamond of icon portraits detailing their “slottable spells,” from which there are over 20. This diamond can be customized, and up to four customizable diamonds can be saved for the player’s preference.
To the top-left of the slottable spell diamond is a directional-pad pointing left toward what Tew calls an “essential spell,” which in this Hogwarts Legacy gameplay showcase is Revelio. To the right is a grid representing the player’s slottable spell menu. The green bar below represents the player’s health, with a potion beside it that the player can restore health with.
The two bars above the health bar are being kept a secret for the time being, but since they appear next to the game’s insignia, it may be related to the protagonist’s ancient magic in Hogwarts Legacy. Moving to the bottom-left side of the screen, there is a “tool wheel” next to the PlayStation’s L1 button that encompasses the “magical tools that you’re going to be kind of brewing and growing over the course of the game.” To the left of that there is a mini-map to help orient players.
Hogwarts Legacy’s Small Tour of Hogwarts
.png?q=50&fit=crop&w=1500&dpr=1.5)
The character avatar is walked out from their dormitory into Hogwarts Legacy’s Hufflepuff common room, which has its own unique identity that fans already had glimpses of prior. The tour then leads to a circular staircase and outside the Great Hall, where the four house hourglasses are displayed.
There are multiple interactables throughout these interior areas that developers intentionally walk by in order to not spoil too much. Madsen acknowledges that this footage is captured during the summer in-game, since the lighting or aesthetic in the castle’s windows apparently change with each season.
The small tour gives an exterior look at the castle, demonstrating how there is as much accessibility in-and-out of the architecture for players to get around. The tour leads to the central hall, which Madsen describes as a hub players could potentially get lost in. In order to combat how lost players may get, there is a color-coded visual language in place for navigation.
The player can interact with other students, such as Nellie Oggspire and Zenobia Noke. This introduces what branching dialogue looks like in Hogwarts Legacy, as well as how some optional quests may be initiated.
After that comes a brief tour of the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, and other interiors are portrayed while the developers talk about the larger mysteries in Hogwarts Legacy’s world, as well as what gameplay features were considered but ultimately left on the cutting room floor. Finally, the Owlery is pointed out, with a note that locations can typically be visited if they are seen in the distance.
An Introduction to Hogwarts Legacy’s Combat
.png?q=50&fit=crop&w=1500&dpr=1.5)
The tour concludes after entering a clock tower with a massive pendulum swinging back-and-forth. It is here that combat is explored with a bit more explanation through a dueling club. Spell combinations are first practiced on a dummy before three students appear to take on. The elementary spell combination used here is to cast Accio, which draws the enemy near, followed by four successive basic attack spells.
Players can chain other spells into this combo, juggling the enemy midair. It seems like this dueling club will be a great way to learn the ins-and-outs of combat in Hogwarts Legacy, and the field guide will be a paramount resource for fans who wish to gain extracurricular XP and learn about the school they’re enrolled in.
Hogwarts Legacy releases February 10 for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. A Switch version is also in development.