The upcoming Harry Potter RPG Hogwarts Legacy has been getting a lot of hype lately. Sadly, that's been bad publicity, like lead designer Troy Leavitt's resignation this month after his YouTube channel became more popular. On the channel, he expressed opinions that seemed pro-GamerGate, anti-feminist, and favorable to men accused of sexual harassment. This isn't the game's first PR issue, and some players are now vowing to boycott the Hogwarts legacy entirely. The popular gaming forum, Resetera, announced "a total ban on threads for in-game promotional materials... no threads for trailers or official announcements, no hype threads, no swiping on your ends. Features." What does this mean for the game's business prospects, and for gamers who think the long-awaited Harry Potter RPG has gotten too toxic to touch?
Harry Potter and the game of your dreams
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(Image credit: Warner Bros) It wasn't supposed to be this way. The Hogwarts legacy would destroy the often patchy reputation of the Harry Potter games, which often alternated between flimsy cinematic ties and mobile money holds. Reviewing the iOS game Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery, UK newspaper The Guardian called it a "blatant shakedown... made to the limit unplayable by its hyper-aggressive monetization". Cette criticizes également été émise sur d'autres jeux HP, tells it that Pokémon Go-esque Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, qui a été decrit par Metro GameCentral as "déprimant" en raison de son "desir constant de vous secouer pour de l 'money.' “Immersive open-world games appeal to all gamers, but are especially appealing to LGBT+ gamers, for whom they can be safe spaces to escape. But for some in this community, the wizarding world doesn't seem like it doesn't. be so good. safer." Given this background, the news that Avalanche was making a Harry Potter game was greeted the same way a drowning man greets a lifeboat. Avalanche Software is the former Disney studio that created the Disney Infinity series, great references for a studio tasked with developing an open-world Harry Potter game and its sequels. Hogwarts Legacy's appeal is simple: as an open-world RPG where you play as a Hogwarts student who discovers magical abilities in the XNUMXth century, it lets you inhabit the wizarding world in a much more immersive way than any game before it. . While the reveals so far have been heavy on cut scenes, what we've seen in gameplay is excellent. The images we've seen so far suggest that Hogwarts Legacy will be an impressive game with well-done characters and surprisingly creepy monsters. The game world is vast, including not only the titular school for wizards, but also the nearby town of Hogsmeade and the Forbidden Forest, and since this is an open-world adventure, no two players will have identical experiences. You'll be able to customize your character, more on that in a moment, and as you progress through the world, you'll choose allies and enemies and make choices that will irrevocably change your path. And of course, there is magic to be learned and unleashed. Immersive open-world games are hugely appealing to all gamers, but they're especially great for LGBT+ gamers, for whom they can be safe spaces to escape. But for some in this community, the wizarding world doesn't feel so safe anymore.
Harry Potter and unpopular opinions
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(Image credit: Warner Bros.) When developers do problematic things, the studio can fire them or pressure them to quit. But they can't do that with the author of the franchise. JK Rowling is increasingly vocal about her views on trans issues, which many consider insensitive at best and downright transphobic at worst, and these views have been criticized by many Harry Potter movie actors. , as well as Harry Potter fans. Potter. Two fan sites have distanced themselves completely from the author, and Warner Bros. has responded to the ongoing controversy by stating that Rowling is not "directly involved" in the game, though of course she benefits financially. With some fans vowing to boycott future Potter products, Hogwarts Legacy was embroiled in controversy and some LGBT+ gamers, myself included, wouldn't touch it with a barge. Can the Hogwarts legacy win us back?
Harry Potter and the multiple sources of income
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(Image credit: Warner Bros.) The latest Hogwarts Legacy titles follow reports that the development team is working to make the game more inclusive. Speaking with Bloomberg's Jason Schreier, anonymous insiders said that players will be able to "customize their characters' voice, body type and gender for school dorms." "Perhaps instead of praising Avalanche for eventually including a more diverse character creator, we should ask why this isn't the norm." Trans and non-binary people didn't exactly greet the announcement with glee, and that's partly because we've been here before. Cyberpunk 2077 took a similar approach with a much more adult accent, but it didn't do it particularly well: characters sexed you based on your voice, and in-game trans representation was often as bad as social media. The character creator also had what seemed like a very fun take on a schoolboy body modification, allowing you to give yourself bigger nipples or style your pubic hair, but without changing your body shape. The Hogwarts character creator promises to be better (and not R-rated), but your placement in the school still depends on choosing between the binary option witch or wizard, even though wizard is a neutral word that encompasses witches as well . This is because the Hogwarts Legacy was not created with trans or non-binary people in mind. The trans options in the character creator seem to have been modernized in the same way that Dumbledore turned out to be gay without his sexuality being mentioned in the books or movies. In this context, the character creator is more like `` Rainbow Wash '' - sticking a rainbow flag on something like a marketing gimmick or PR damage test. And there's another lesson we learned from Cyberpunk 2077. What developers promise reporters isn't necessarily what ends up in the game you're playing. There is no guarantee that the promised options will make it to the final cut. Although creating trans characters is part of the game, it's not a huge step forward: when games like Borderlands 3 allow us to play as smart, intelligent trash cans or non-binary robots, asking games to reflect the diversity of real human beings . shouldn't be too much to ask. Perhaps instead of praising Avalanche for eventually including a more diverse character creator, we should ask why this isn't the norm.
Harry Potter and the Tarnished Legacy
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(Image credit: Warner Bros.) Is Hogwarts Legacy a game we always want to play? It depends a lot on "us" which you are talking about.
"I can't separate The Boy Who Lived from the woman whose initials appear as a hashtag in the biographies of some of the most hateful people on social media."
While some Harry Potter fans are suspicious, Felicia Grady of the MuggleNet fan site told Bloomberg that "based on what I've seen from fans, I think Rowling's comments have had an effect on the level of excitement. we have…we have seen feedback from fans that they no longer wish to financially support Rowling or the brand” – not everyone thinks or cares about these things. When a fan happily looks at an HP product at a fast-fashion retailer, they usually don't wonder if it might have been crafted by child labor in a sweatshop in Asia.
It's not just a Harry Potter thing. How many of us are looking to the developers of the latest triple-A title to verify that they haven't been accused of horrible things? How many of us can even name the big studios involved in #metoo controversies in recent years, or those whose tight deadlines mean their staff are being abused? Controversy or not, Hogwarts Legacy will always sell.
I think some trans gamers will play too. Maybe they can separate the art from its creator, or maybe some of them will wait until the game is available on Xbox Game Pass before paying for it directly; maybe some buy it outright because they want to reward developers who haven't bashed SJWs on YouTube. And it is absolutely perfect. I am not asking for the game to be canceled or for anyone to boycott it, or any trans or non-binary person I know.
But I hope people who aren't trans or non-binary can understand why some of us don't play it no matter how many changes Avalanche has made to try to make it more inclusive. Amid a small conservative backlash against trans people and unprecedented legal attacks on our rights and healthcare in the US. UU. And the UK, I can't separate The Boy Who Lived from the woman whose initials appear as a hashtag in the biographies of some of the most hateful people. on social media, the woman whose blog is quoted approvingly by some of the same kind of right-wing politicians who demanded her books be burned.
So for this gamer, trans woman, and mother of two young gamers who loved the Potter books, it's a hard "no" for Hogwarts Legacy: she's just as welcome at home as I would be at JK Rowling. There are other open-world games that I prefer to play, games that I can play with a clear conscience, games that provide an escape from a world that seems pretty horrible to a lot of trans people right now.