Calling all emotionally fatigued zillennials, are you tired of simply existing? Do you want to lose yourself forever in Hogwarts? Perhaps kill a man? Then I have some good news! The gameplay trailer for the much anticipated Harry Potter game Hogwarts Legacy is out and it’s darker than we thought.
Full disclosure: I am not a gamer girl. The closest I have ever been to ‘gaming’ has been playing Mario Party on my brother’s Switch which I’ve done maybe six times in total. I don’t own any consoles, I have never picked up a Playstation controller and I don’t even have games on my phone. The only game I play is psychological manipulation, baby! (I’m kidding, obviously.)
Despite this, I have never been so excited to overcome my gaming allergy. Only one thing could force me to face my fear of the unknown and it’s the temptation of living my escapist dreams.
Warner Bros. and Avalanche released the Hogwarts Legacy gameplay trailer on Friday morning and in a fun development for murderous binches like myself, you can actually use a killing curse. But not without a cost.
The trailer is almost 15 minutes long and takes you through the gameplay, key elements and storylines of Hogwarts Legacy.
There’s a lot going on. Obviously, the first thing I noticed was the gorgeous animation and world building.
Outstanding showing for Hogwarts Legacy
• Launching Holiday 2022
• WAY more ambitious then I ever expected. The scale of everything is ultra impressive
• Visuals look GREAT
• Basically a dream game for Harry Potter fansIf this is as good as it looks it will be gigantic pic.twitter.com/k45aqTjhBD
— Benji-Sales (@BenjiSales) March 17, 2022
Hogwarts looks cosy as ever, there’s plenty of cool new fantastic beasts and heaps of ways to customise your avatar. Will this be the first time I ever get to make my avatar actually look like me, a dark-skinned hijab-wearing gal? Only time will tell.
Here’s something spicy, though: the game is actually set in the 1800s, during a goblin rebellion. Meaning there’s no Whomping Willow, no Dumbledore, or really no familiar faces at all aside from ghosts. Sorry to all the Marauders fans still waiting for content.
Anyway, back to the goblins. Bit of an odd focus for the game considering transphobic demon J.K Rowling‘s depiction of the creatures was criticised as antisemitic.
Despite that, it looks like the goblin war is the major story arc of the game.
While wandering around the expansive world, you can come into contact with and fight goblins and/or other dark forces. Or become them? It’s certainly a possibility considering the end of the trailer shows a player avada kedavra the fuck out an enemy.
While that sounds sinister, I think it’s a really exciting choice by the game developers. Harry Potter fans are pretty fkn old these days so creating content that’s darker and more fun for adults shows the game can keep up with its audience.
