The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios Hollywood is amazing, with a huge fan base all around the world and huge amounts of merchandise created for fans to collect. Over the years, “Harry Potter” has released video games about the movie franchise. Most of them are not as exciting as the films, with them having their flaws. However, “Harry Potter ” fans finally got a closer look at the Hogwarts that they had wanted to get by being able to explore the castle, to the forbidden forest, to small towns around the area. 

Developed by Avalanche Software and published by Warner Bros., “Hogwarts Legacy” was released on Feb. 10, which is what “Harry Potter” fans are excited to see since this will be an open-world game. 

“Hogwarts Legacy” is a role-playing action game released on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, and on PC. The story takes place 100 years before the arrival of Harry Potter and his adventure. Players begin by creating their own personalized character and naming the character whatever they want. From there, the adventure starts as players head to Hogwarts and join the wizard academy. 

Players will be asked a series of questions as soon as they put on the Sorting Hat. The Sorting Hat will be there to put you into either Gryffindor, Slytherin, Ravenclaw, or Hufflepuff. These are the four Houses of Hogwarts. Players can eventually choose what house they want to join, despite the Sorting Hat choosing for the player. Once the players choose what house they want to join, they can no longer switch after.  

Learning and exploring is a crucial thing on “Hogwarts Legacy” as players attend classes to learn spells and brew potions, and run around helping students with tasks. A lot of places and locations fans will recognize will be in the game. For starters, you can head to Hogsmeade and purchase potions, a wand, and some butterbeer. The Forbidden Forest is also on the map where some of the most dangerous creatures live. The most impressive one is the dining hall as it looks exactly what it looks in the films. Tons of rooms and locations will be explored by players as they progress through the game or can set aside the quests and discover them on their own.

 Huge fans will have a hard time putting down the controller as players will have many side quests and main quests to do, such as puzzles and unlocking secret areas around the Hogwarts map. 

Combat in this game is everything people can imagine and expect.  With spells and curses, players are able to defend themselves in combat from creatures and enemies. The wand combat is smooth but can get very repetitive. Adding combos on the attacks can make it look better by having a lot of spells on display. 

“Hogwarts Legacy” finally did the big open world map its justice in making a game that tons of Harry Potter fans have been wanting. Endless hours of gameplay and exploration awaits players to discover. While multiplayer is missing, there is still a ton of gameplay to do for the single player experience.