Hogwarts Legacy - One Year Later

In this video, we're taking a look at the incredibly popular Hogwarts Legacy. Avalanche Software managed to deliver a dream come true for Harry Potter fans all over the world with this Open World adventure into the Wizarding World. Hogwarts Legacy was the best-selling game of 2023, and now that it's been one year since the game's release in February 2023, we're taking a deep dive retrospective look into the game. Was this game as good as the hype suggested, or was it hiding behind the facade of the beloved Harry Potter franchise? We get to the bottom of it in this Hogwarts Legacy Retrospective.

Hogwarts Legacy (2023)

Timestamps:
0:00 - Intro
1:23 - Part 1 (Back to Hogwarts)
4:53 - Part 2 (World)
15:12 - Part 3 (Gameplay)
20:49 - Part 4 (Story and Characters)
25:02 - Summary

[Kiwaaka]

Open world game devs need to ditch the collectibles and add more secrets in their place

[dianedesaintpierre]

One thing I find weird is NPCs, you literally get in or break in their home and start stealing their stuff and they’re just like « ok, help yourself! ».

[ayashinightcore]

My only gripe with Hogwarts is that, outside of spells, your choice doesn’t really matter. I wanted to be a dark wizard when I started and while I wasn’t expecting to be on the level of a BG3 level menace. The world doesn’t even react to you picking malicious text in important instances. For example, at the end of the game my wizard flat out says he plans to use the power of ancient magic himself and nobody says anything, not even a worried expression

[Phyramar]

This game ended up being a Gateway for me into the Harry Potter Series in General. I went from Playing the Game to Watching The Movies and now Reading the Books.

[BraveInstance]

It's a fairly linear game, but apart from that it hits all the right notes. A sequel should focus a lot more on the story and include other locations from the movies. I also hope the success of this game has made Warner Bros think about a Lord of the Rings RPG.

[irocz]

The story definitely needed to be more grounded and not so big and massive. Honestly if they fleshed the sabastien quest line out a little more to be the main story and make more school school based quested the game would have been a lot better.

[doris]

I’m not a gamer, just a 66 year old Mom who read the Harry Potter series to her kids and fell in love with the story, and play Animal Crossing on her switch. Hogwarts Legacy is a fantasy come nearly true as it takes me to a place that’s always been in my imagination of where I’d like to be in real life. I’m on my second play through in a different house and can’t wait to play it nearly every day. I really enjoyed your views on the game.

[Arvid]

To all who haven’t finished the game there is a mayor spoiler @10:35

[veridicusmind]

If there is a sequel, I think their focus should be excelling at their strengths: Hogwarts, the castle grounds, the forbidden forest, and Hogsmeade. A point system (as an honor/faction system), a routine for students and professors, curfews, sleeping, sitting, and eating, a studying system for learning and upgrading spells, the ability to be friendly or antagonize your fellow students and teachers would increase the RPG feel and immersion. Some feuds between students and some side missions to intervene in a bullying situation would go a long way.

Also, more secret rooms, corridors, and dungeon basements because Hogwarts exploration is one of the most fun things to do in the game. I think Hogwarts has some leeway for some danger as well: fire-breathing gargoyles as a trap for protected rooms (like the devil's snare in the hidden herbology corridor), etc.

I think competitions like crossed wands and summoner's court should have more rounds and be playable throughout the whole game. Adding a professor or two as bosses would be cool imho. Maybe even mini games like wizard's chess or gobstones.

I understand why they didn't add quidditch, as it would be hard to make an entire sport's game within another game. But they could square this if they program it like a mini game where you are the seeker and the other NPCs just fly around playing the other positions. The mini game is essentially only to catch the snitch. A similar system to the older Harry Potter games.

l also think there should be aurors and dementors deployed in the Highlands if they give you the option to use the unforgivable curses and you choose to use them, and add patronuses so MC can fend them off. Add consequences, make the combat a bit harder and exploration in the highlands a bit riskier if we choose to use the OP spells.

[heatherallen]

Totally agree with you on all points. Missing some huge things for me. Biggest are the lack of character development, lack of character reactions from NPCs, pointless dialogue choices that have no influence on the outcome… etc. I was totally thinking during the story section about TLOU and then you said it… ND is the king of narrative.

[Mira-vvui]

Im really thankful that you can pet the cats in the game but i kind of hoped for more interaction? Like actually taking care of your pet (owl, rat, rat) and the bedroom where kind if boring too.
It wouldve been so cool if you actually received the important messages with an owl.

[Animalistic]

Dude said the daedalian keys reward wasn't worth it...
Man I look pimping in my glowing house robe 🤣!

[ambientjules]

These retrospective 'one year later' or 2024' reviews are my favorite style of game reviews at the moment, probably ever. They're incredibly underrated. So many outlets are no doubt pressured to have their reviews out by release and most certainly don't take the time to actually soak in and enjoy the game due to deadlines and timing for uploads to squeeze the most out of views due to a game being hot at release.

Your type of reviews have no type of pressure whatsoever and are thorough and informatively delivered with several months of experience to really flesh out the game to someone like me who likes to backlog games.

Thank you for your hard work and will continue to support channels like yours, more especially those uploading in 4k!

[mrelcordero]

Honestly the story was the biggest let down for me in the game. Which is surprising because I thought making the world and gameplay would’ve been the hardest to develop but they absolutely nailed those parts imo. I felt like we didn’t really need to be this “special” one in the story and they could’ve made it better by trying something different because it feels far to like the book story imo. Amazing game tho for me.

[nathanjosephmoore]

I’m about 30 hours into my first play through. I only wish that rather than the pause and wait to move the day/night cycle you could just go to sleep in your room at the end of a day. Also if there was a way to sit at your table in the great hall and eat with your house that’d be awesome.
Besides that the game is incredible 9/10 haha

*update: I finished at about 65 hours, it’s still easily 8.5/10 in my opinion. I’m a casual gamer, not an authority on video game quality. Just my personal opinion on how much I enjoyed it. lol

[PapaRoach]

I want Backgrounds for your character, like can I be a pure blood slytherin. Or a muggle born hufflepuff. I think having most quest be done with your classmates from your house. My first playthrough was Ravenclaw and it felt awkward having a griffindor and hufflepuff be my main interactions. Like I you could easily switch natty and poppy with any other house member and most of the quests could make sense.

[KNG_of_ReVeNGe]

The first 10-15 hours are absolutely game of the year material, if not more. But at some point it just falls off so immensely.. :/

[ABurntMuffin]

definitely didn't have the replayability I wished it did, and I'm dying for a HP game of old where you actually GO TO SCHOOL (there was a little of that), but as a standalone it had a just complex enough combat system, plenty of side systems and puzzles to dig around with and most importantly it was fucking gorgeous. I loved every inch of that world. Love love loved it.

[Oogie]

Basically, Hogwarts Legacy is Fable. If you've ever played fable 3 you'll notice that the map page is similar, the menu music is similar, quest layout is similar. If I didn't know any better, I'd say Portkey is the reanimated Lionhead studio.

[peggymoexd]

I was laid off from my job of over 4 years RIGHT when this launched. I was extremely upset and most likely depressed. I loved that job and [I thought] everything was going great, just to find out at 10pm on a random tuesday I was being let go just because of finances. This game was all I did for weeks basically. Both me and my wife got a copy and we were obsessed. The funny thing is, I'm not even that hardcore of a fan. I've seen the movies and read a few of the books probably 20 years ago, and I've been to the wizarding world at universal, but I think the fact that this game managed to capture me like it did, someone who's not a die-hard harry potter fan, speaks to how well it was crafted. This game and Animal Crossing New Horizons are 2 extremely nostalgic games for me now, not because they remind me of playing them during my childhood or something, but because of how they both did such a great job of making me forget reality when reality sucked hard. (btw ive had a new job for a while now and im good)