Hogwarts Legacy Just Broke A 14-Year Games Industry Streak – For the first time since 2008, something other than Call of Duty or a Rockstar game was the best-seller
Hogwarts Legacy Just Broke A 14-Year Games Industry Streak
Would have tried it out if the author wasn't a transphobic piece of shit. Might pirate it.
I did. it was alright. Worth it if you want to explore hogwarts and surroundings.
Also, the erstwhile lead designer was a far right agitator.
It's not worth it, and while the transphobia is absent, the antisemitism is still there
Been waiting to pick it up cheap second hand. Not interested in financially supporting it.
Just... pirate it... 🦜
Honestly, considered it even though I haven't pirated a game in like twenty years. But when I found out the the person who cracked the game is also a hateful bigot, I didn't even want to download their work. Nah, I'll buy it second hand.
Culture warriors would rather play a mid rpg at $80 than admit that JK Rowling is a bigot who is bad at world building.
She is a terrible bigot, and a loud one, and that sucks because she also produced a cultural phenomenon of my childhood, and while the canon of HP is only just barely pretty okay sometimes, it spiralled out from there and SO MUCH of the media and culture I've consumed and existed within since then has been informed by it.
So yeah. If there's any comfort, let it be that any money she gets from this comes from explicitly affirming a trans woman through the work, as well as implicitly affirming any trans players through the character creation options. Small comfort maybe, but she is far away.
That's how I justified it to myself.
That, and there was an entire team of people working on this game for years, trying to make it the best vision of theirs as well as making it fit within the pre established world.
A racist a transphobe and an antisemite walk into a bar. The bartender looks up and says "aren't you that girl who wrote HP?"
JQ Lolling stares unflinchingly ahead and states "Your teacher, Professor Eleazar Fig, dies at the end of Hogwarts Legacy. This happens in all possible endings and can't be changed. Oh and Rookwood is the one who cursed Anne while the goblins were framed. Also, you're also required to quell a slave uprising and you have no choice in the matter."
Is this game really that good? I’ve been holding out on buying it.
No.
It's extremely popular because it is a well polished Harry Potter game; something the world has been begging for for a long time. It does invoke that sense of magic that the films do so well, so if you're just looking to get a fresh hit of the Hogwarts world it's great. There are also a lot of really interesting and well designed characters. Most of all the world, particularly the castle, is beautifully and lovingly crafted.
The game buried beneath all that polish is a pretty basic-ass RPG. It is crammed with filler fetch/find quests. The dialogue system is just another exhaust all options non-system. The combat has some really cool ideas on paper but I personally ended up mostly mashing buttons against one of like 5 generic enemies most of the time. Also the only customization in this RPG is your appearance.
It's not a bad game by any means, but i wouldn't say it's great either.
I got it on sale in December and think it’s worth it. I’m not a huge HP fan by any stretch but was impressed by the mechanics, they’re fun. Though as the game opens up you start to spot the tedious shit all open worlds tend to throw in to keep you busy. I just ignore that shit.
My wife is a big Harry Potter fan but has mixed feelings about it. She described the game this morning as not great but not bad either, with great graphics, but also with an indecisiveness to it that suggests too many cooks in the kitchen.
With that said, that's just one opinion. The game seems outstandingly popular. She felt it's worth the money if you can get it on sale in her personal opinion.
My wife and I had the same opinion. Magical to run around the castle for a few hours and do the early classes, surprisingly good combat mechanics, but then... Nothing.
It is really hurt by the inclusion of brooms. They necessitate a huge world so you can't cross it in a minute, but then it's too spread out and empty. At least in Ghost Recon my world-design-crippling flying devices have rockets and gattling guns.
Thanks! I think I’ll hold off on this title. I don’t have much time for gaming and open world games can be got it miss for me. This one sounds like it might be a miss.
It's a standard open world game. If that appeals to you and you love HP then perhaps.
If you aren't sure, wait for a big sale. I quite enjoyed the game, but other than being a massively-popular IP, I'm not sure why it's getting so much acclaim. It's big, it's Harry Potter (with all the attention to detail that usually gets), and it's an RPG. If it wasn't HP, it'd be another good indie game, and that's it.
I'd say if you've ever wondered what it be like to just wander about the castle, it's well worth it. It's cheaper than going to say universal studios or the Warner Brothers lot in London...
But there's actually very little gameplay in the castle around areas you recognize from the books or movies. It doesn't take long until you're throwing into a very generic game with a thin coat of Harry Potter paint applied. There's a lot of samey quests and combat doesn't really evolve ever.
Thanks, this game seems very skipable. I keep reading lukewarm reviews of it.
It's fun, lemmy/reddit screeches (rightfully so) about JKR's views but that doesn't mean the game itself is bad.
HogLeg's success is pretty crazy if you think about it. Ignoring the sales we've looking at today, take yourself back to the launch of HogLeg. It kept up pace with Fallout 4 in terms of active players and achievement completion rates. This is huge to me. They're both singleplayer RPGs, so they're both vying for the same type of audience.
But.
Fallout 4 was a hugely anticipated sequel to one of the most renowned series in all of gaming. Harry Potter had almost no presence in gaming beyond nostalgic shovel ware titles.
Fallout 4 was developed by gaming darlings, a company known for producing huge open worlds with strong volumes of content. HogLeg was developed by shovelware developers with no major releases in their history.
Fallout 4 is a first person looter shooter, one of the most ubiquitous and successful genres out there. HogLeg is an action roleplaying game, still admittedly a safe genre but doesn't have the genre conventions that makes it possible for anyone with FPS experience to pick up a Fallout.
And finally, Fallout 4 targeted gamers. It's a gamer's game, you know? It's for lore nerds and RPG fans and tacticool nuts and all the rest. HogLeg was for Harry Potter fans. It needed to drag fans across media types to secure a big enough audience.
I truly, truly did not expect HogLeg to find the success it has. And to be honest, it's quite a mid game! It's a visual accomplishment and adherence to the universe means that it's a treat for any Harry Potter nerds, but the rest of the game is as close as generic as it could get.
And finally, Fallout 4 targeted gamers. It's a gamer's game, you know? It's for lore nerds and RPG fans and tacticool nuts and all the rest. HogLeg was for Harry Potter fans. It needed to drag fans across media types to secure a big enough audience.
This is... perhaps, the very formula for its success. Perhaps the gaming crowd isn't that big. Perhaps, HL was not chained to a particular demographic and instead had the freedom to appeal to a wider audience.
I know of people who picked up a controller for the first time in their life because HL was a Harry Potter game... just saying.
Yeah, I feel like their logic is circular. Choosing to actively ignore the fact that the game is based off one of the most popular book series in the entire world is frustratingly dense, and feels like they're stanning for the sake of it. From what I understand, the game is ridiculously repetitive, and is genuinely riding solely off of the popularity of the book series.
Wow. Good comparison. Didn't realize how close they were. In both being average games too.
Number 5 in switch after just a few weeks is crazy
Might have to check this out!
Hogwarts Legacy is not Game of the year....
🤮
To no one's surprise.
You're on the beehaw instance, bee nice.
It makes absolute sense that people are passionately against this game, which puts money directly in the pockets of not only a very vocal transphobe with a huge following-but one who actively finances anti-trans causes. The game itsself has its own incredibly problematic issues, but I focus on the transphobia because that's what your comment was concerned with.
Quite frankly, yes, we want acceptance. But "acceptance" of trans people as people who have human rights should be the bare minimum. That is in no way comparable to pushing back against this game, or pushing back against JKR.
"Moderately related" as in "written by and with royalties paid to"
People, and trans people especially, absolutely have good reason to not want to buy a product that directly funds a person who is actively hostile to their existence.
You can't deal with critical comments from a community who are directly affected by the actions of a major stakeholder? That's pathetic.
Ya. I choose not to support bigots whenever possible. Im such a loser.
I can’t believe this made so much money. If I had a pc, I still wouldn’t pirate it. Millennials need to collectively get over Harry Potter.
Yeah people really need to stop having fun in ways I disapprove of, totally with you on that.
I've seen the movies and read the books, and I'm not a millenial. I also don't have time to play all the games I'd like to, so I can take a pass on supporting the person spreading hate and occupy my time playing something else, instead.
Sorry, are the neighborhood kids on your yard again?
I can absolutely believe it made that much money.
Millennials? Kids under 10 still go batshit for it!
The youngest millennials should be in their 30s. I doubt enough of them have the time or money for this to blame the whole generation.
Another way of saying you have deep empathic issues
Tbh that's a low bar to pass. The newest CoD flopped pretty bad and Rockstar has been too busy with GTA6. Almost every other notable release was either a flop or a smaller studio or indie title.
While that might be true, 2023 was an year filled with great games and yet Hogwarts Legacy is first, and Call of Duty is 2nd.
As for notable games of the year that weren't flop (in no particular order):
Not to mention:
They may not be to your taste, but they all rated very highly. I haven't included any Nintendo games, cause they don't share digital data. Their numbers are based only on physical sales.
That's actually fair. I barely pay attention to AAA gaming to begin with, so most of these games just weren't on my radar. I just thought "oh, Starfield was the big hyped flop of the year, of course there wasn't much AAA competition"
Those Nintendo releases this year we're bangers:
Plus the DLCs for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe came out this year.
Great year for gaming IMO. But yeah, all of these are niche enough that I wouldn't expect any of them to be top sellers.
On the other hand, I know at least one non-gamer that got a Switch just to play Hogwarts Legacy.