Image: Warner Bros. Games
Hogwarts Legacy’s new gameplay showcase shows off instakill Avada Kedavra curses, magical creatures and broom flying.
Developer Avalanche Software recently showed off a new gameplay showcase for Hogwarts Legacy, the upcoming open-world game that lets players live out their Hogwarts fantasies to the fullest. The new gameplay we saw today took viewers through the endless possibilities of the Room of Requirement, what lies around the outskirts of Hogwarts and the ability to murder wizards and witches with the Avada Kedavra curse.
Here’s the video:
Yes, in case you missed it: Hogwarts Legacy will allow players to use all three of the Unforgivable Curses. That includes Crucio (the torture spell), Imperio (the mind control spell) and Avada Kedavra (the instant murder spell). Not only can you create your own wizard/witch to play as in the game, but you can also turn your protagonist into a trigger-happy murderous psychopath - though it’s unclear if choosing to indulge in the Dark Arts will have any consequences in the story campaign.
The gameplay showcase kicked off with Avalanche taking to the skies around Hogwarts on a broom. Seeing as the game is set in the 1800s, long before the Harry Potter books, these books lack the flying power of the later Nimbus 3000 and Firebolts, but players will be able to improve on them throughout the story by visiting an inventor. It’s worth noting that the visuals we were shown here are absolutely gorgeous. The enviroment surrounding Hogwarts is based on the Scottish Highlands, and it looks cosy in the warmth of spring and much colder in the freezing winter.
Players can either travel on a broomstick or pull a Hippogriff out of their bag much like Newt from the Fantastic Beasts movies, and use them to travel outside of Hogwarts where there’s a vast open world to explore. These places are mostly populated by small villages, forests and green fields, where players can follow puzzles laid down by older wizards or pursue other sidequests to upgrade their gear.
The rest of the showcase focused on the Room of Requirement, an iconic location in Hogwarts itself that takes different forms depending on what visitors require from it. The Room of Requirement allows you to create cosmetics, but it also contains the Vivarium - a magical zoo-like space where all the magical creatures you collect on your journey call home. You can play with your new animal friends using a toy box or collect resources from them to upgrade your gear. In a way, that makes this both a Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts game - all in one.
The showcase went deeper into combat when Avalanche showed off the Dark Arts Battle Arena, which is sadly locked away behind a $10 paywall for the game’s Deluxe Edition. Hogwarts Legacy has three combat arenas that lets players battle other students for cosmetic rewards, but the Dark Arts Battle Arena is uniquely situated in the Forbidden Forest - and the stakes are pretty brutal for any students who venture within. Each arena gives the player a specific loadout of spells to use, and the Dark Arts Battle Arena saddles you with the Unforgivable Curses.
So, yeah. If you want the Dark Arts cosmetic set, you’re going to have to torture and murder a bunch of Hogwarts students in this arena. It does go against the general tone of the Wizarding World, but it’s far from the worst controversy this game has had to deal with.
Hogwarts Legacy will launch on February 10, 2023 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC. However, the game has been delayed for last-gen PlayStation 4 and Xbox One platforms and will now be released on April 4 there. The Nintendo Switch version is coming out even later on July 25.
