Hogwarts Legacy has officially cleared Zelda as 2023's best-selling game worldwide

It's honestly amazing how well this game sold considering how mid the gameplay actually is. Having a popular IP really helped.

Eh, people don't buy for the gameplay mechanics most of the time, they buy for what they see in the trailers and read in the descriptions. Being the only videogame available for this IP, having the WB marketing juggernaut behind it, releasing at a time of the year without much competition, coming out on every single platform - it would have been weird if this game wasn't the best selling one in 2023.
- Exactly. You don't know what the gameplay is until after you buy the game, unless you are savvy and watch reviews or something, which hardly any consumers do.
- Are you saying that marketing works?!
My wife, whose entire history with video games is Sims 3, Animal Crossing: NH, and Pokémon Go, played through this game start to finish and loved it. It wasn't really made for "gamers", it was made for Harry Potter fans that wanted to play a Hogwarts game. It didn't succeed as a gaming revolution, it succeeded in bringing non-gamers to buy it.
Personally, I love that she got into it whether it's mid or not, because it introduced her to a lot of the mechanics necessary to play "real" games in the future. And she had a lot of fun.
- I'm both a gamer and HP fan.
  I thought the game was great, and I didn't really realize the depths of people's distaste for it, I guess.
  Was it crazy revolutionary? No, but it was fun.
- the last video game my mom played before hogwarts legacy was like...pac man in the arcades. it was amazing to share our progress together and bond
I thought the gameplay was awesome. To me, a really impressive entry to a potential series. What did you feel were the weak points in the gameplay?
- I found the combat to be serviceable, and at some points I had fun with it. But it kind of got repetitive really quick. Like once you learn the core mechanics, they didn't really introduce a lot after that to keep you on your toes. But the main problem I had with the game came from the quests, they just felt so monotonous. I love exploring the castle, but finding every little collectible just felt tedious and didn't really seem to have any payoff.
  All things I hope can be improved with an eventual sequel, I'm definitely glad I picked up the game. But it's not something I've ever considered revisiting once I beat it.
The IP was my only interest. Games like this I get bored with so I generally avoid. But the views of the school looked great and I've always wanted to walk around it, like the fantasy version of it. I've been to the real set and walked around that which is cool. My only complaint is I bought it on PC so I didn't get to see Azkaban.
- What do you mean? I played on pc and went to Azkaban, what very little there was to see anyway
- Azkaban is not based on platform but house, join Hufflepuff to see it.
What can you say gamers love anti-Semitism.

I'm playing this game right now and it's honestly a six out of 10. The only reason to launch the game at all is because of the world design which is top notch. So top notch it scores all of those six points, because the plot characters story and gameplay are all a let down otherwise. This is the type of game that will disable the controls for your magical flying broom and then tell you that you need to climb a wall. I wish it wasn't so successful so they didn't think this formula was so good, because if they made the game actually good AND a Harry Potter property, that would have really been something special. But as it is now, it's just an uninspired video game painted in a pretty coat of a popular franchise. I'm sure we'll get a sequel.

I would have loved to have this game as a kid. It may be a 6 out of 10 but most of the other harry potter shovelware they shit out when the movies were coming was at best a 0.2 out of 10. The only arguably not that bad one was the prisoner of azkaban movie based game.
- IDK. Most of the early games were actually pretty entertaining. I fairly recently played sorcerer's stone on the gbc, and it was still pretty fantastic.
I'm curious, what open world games do you rate as a 9 or 10? I'm not saying Hogwarts did anything revolutionary, but it did most things pretty solidly. It's been a while since Ive played an open world game that does a good job on making the world actually feel alive.
- Witcher 3 I'd rate 9/10.
- Subnautica gets a 9/10. Fallout 2 and 3, if we're specifically going RPGs. NieR: Automata for action RPGs. Look at Persona for school influenced RPGs. I'd have geeked out so hard if we got even Persona-style class experiences in Hogwarts Legacy. Instead, all we get is completely contextless montage cutscenes.
- Not the person you asked, but for me personally to rate some open world games:
  Hogwarts: 4-5/10. It's pretty damn bad IMO, beyond the fan pandering.
  Avatar Frontiers of Pandora: 5-7/10, it's a slightly worse Far Cry (which is already damn tepid) but looks insanely pretty which makes it a good braindead time waster.
  Cyberpunk 2077: Originally 2/10, laughably underdesigned and so buggy it felt like industry-criticizing sarcasm. Nowadays 7/10 if including the expansion, still quite buggy but not in a bad way, and the redesigned combat and character systems feel artificial but pretty fun. City still too dead and underdesigned, sadly.
  Skyrim: 6-7/10, damn impressive at the time, but only briefly as the game was shallow as all hell, even in its best moments. Still impressive but it's all on the mods and hence the players, not the game designers.
  Witcher 3: 8-9/10, essentially same design flaws as modern CP2077, but given its fantasy world suffers much less from it, of course the empty countryside is, well, empty.
  Subnautica: 10/10, amazing horror vibes, good progression, not too open and not too confined, focus on exploration.
  Outer Wilds: 10/10, completely open and pure exploration, reductive game design done perfectly right.
- Red Dead Redemption 1 and 2 are both up there for me.

I pirated the game. The first part in the actual school was really fun. But once you get out into the world, you quickly realise that it's just another generic open world game with outposts, collectibles, and general busywork that you've seen in every other open world game. It got boring very quickly for me and I never finished it.

I also pirated it, and yeah, I definitely got my money's worth from it. I tried to have fun, but it's the poster child for "mile wide, inch deep."
Maybe they can reuse the environment for a better game in the future.
I agree. The magical feeling of being a student at Hogwarts soon evaporated as soon as you got a broom and didn't really need to visit Hogwarts again and instead just fight endless random enemies, which gets pretty easy as you level up.
I was also disappointed by the endless voice acting. There was so much pointless talking and you couldn't really control the outcome, all options seemed to result in a positive outcome when I just wanted to be a badass Malfoy but you're not allowed, you jave to be a goody goody Hermione, juat in Slytherin clothes.
I was very interested in mods for this game, people found all kinds of fun cut stuff that would've elevated this game so much like companions having commentary for several quests when you used a mod to bring them, and having actual consequences for using the dark arts. But it's impossible to implement.
- Technically it’s possible, but you’d have to reply on the cooperation of empress and that’s… not gonna happen.
- I loved the mod that turned all those animated paintings into anime vtubers, so goofy

It's multi-platform, uses one of the biggest IPs of an entire generation and seems to do it quite well too. Everything else would have been more surprising to me.

I'm shocked the online outrage from gamingcirlclejerk didn't work
- It's like the sub made for taking the piss out of gaming criticism and critique did what it was supposed to do.
- I used to love that sub, but these days they are only focused on the outrage culture. Nothing inherently wrong with that, I like to laugh at people who take their video game waifu too seriously. I initially joined that sub because it seemed like the best place to have level-headed conversations about overhyped games, like the Witcher 3. Everywhere else seems to love that game as if it’s the second coming of Jesus, but if you find some places that didn’t like the game, they swing a bit too hard on the opposite site, so you can’t have a conversation with them either. I found plenty of people in that sub who loved that game, but knew where the shortcomings were.

I wonder it's because it attracted a bunch of people who weren't into games, but are huge Harry Potter fans.

It's also on every platform, including the Switch, while TotK is just on the Switch.
- Yeah this feels like a Look What They Have to Do (release on every system) to Mimic a Fraction of Our Power (be Zelda) meme.
- I think you just nailed it, this is exactly why.
- Yep it's an unfair comparison. If Zelda was available on all platforms then it might have been a different story.
Honestly it was just a good game. I saw it attracting both Potterheads and non-Potterheads. (I would not consider myself a Potterhead).
Does it have a bunch of replay value? Not really (neither do a lot of games). But man, that initial playthrough was just really good. It also looks like I clocked 113 hours on the game, so that's a pretty decent return to me.
Also, despite the source material and the author, it had a lot of very inclusive elements, which were a nice touch.
- if you seriously think this game was special, I have a far cry themed bridge to sell you

I guess all the twitter drama around the author matters less to the real world. It's impressive to see how a vocal minority can completely distort what is happening offline.

Hogwarts came out a quarter of a year earlier and released on every platform compared to Zelda only being on one.
I wouldn't take that as a indictment that J.K.'s terf bullshit didn't have an impact on sales.
- Yeah, and the fact that people basically can't talk about this game without mentioning it got boycotted because one of the people who makes money from it is a massive piece of transphobic shit is a small step forward all on its own
- Doesn't seem to have had a big impact I'd say
- Echo.. Echo.. echo..
It happens every time. Pokémon Sword/Shield and Scarlett/Violet had the biggest launch in the franchise's history despite being (justifiably so) heavily criticized by pretty much everyone online.
People shit on microtransactions and always-online games but the top charts always show online multiplayer games are among the most played.
It doesn't make the criticisms any less valid; it just means that the general public is usually ignorant of them.
- Or just don't care that much
JKR is a very vocal TERF that basically wants trans people to dissappear. A lot of people dont want to financially support her because of that. That most people seemingly either dont care about trans erasure or even worse, bought the game specifically because theyre the type to do shit just because people with a conscience told them they shouldn't, says more about most people than it does that "vocal minority"
- Oh pipe down, I read the entire thing when it was recent and in no way does she want what you claim. She has an open letter on her own website outlining her views.
  Over the course of the years since this happened it has grown, morphed and people are now probably also saying she would be the one herding the trans people into the gas Chambers.
I think that the masses are mostly disengaged with terminally-online type discourse. The only reason I knew JK Rowling was TERF was because of reading it on here, so if you are only on social media to follow your old high school classmates on facebook, you'd probably never find out
- The masses are largely disengaged with LGBT rights in general, but the declining rights of transgender people in the UK (and the US) shows this is not just a "terminally-online" kind of issue. She is not the only one responsible, of course, but her outspoken antagonism towards transgender people is influencing people.
  It concerns me when people can't differentiate "this issue does not affect me" from "this issue does not exist". Even calling matters "terminally-online" in general is a bit questionable when whole ass presidents get elected by meme campaigns these days.
The game has a minor character who is trans too. It uses the world she invented but does not borrow her real world views
- Just because a minority is depicted in a work of art does not mean that depiction was made in good faith. Americans are familiar with that concept because of our dark history of minstrel shows and blackface performances.
  When the trans woman character's name is Sirona Ryan, it calls into question whether she is meant to be a character or a caricature.

Zelda was more fun though

Zelda would have been even more fun if it was available on every platform instead of just Nintendo.
- That's it, I never played Nintendo games because I never had their hardware. For me personally it's just not worth getting into their closed ecosystem. Basically same reason I never had anything apple.
- The same can be said for many games over the years then, but I don't like thinking that way.
  If there's a game I want to play, I'll get the hardware needed to play it
- It's available on PC.
  PC gamers even got it before nintendo ones.
I only played the unpatched version with the dupe glitches, that was super fun.
Genuinely curious which game has more "Hours Played". I'm willing to put money down on it being Zelda.

Hasnt Nintendo like, not released digital sales for TotK? I remember reading that recently.

Not a cope post, I don't care if you play the terf game, just actually curious.

The terf game?
The owner of the Three Broomsticks is trans... ?
- When the series creator is vocally advocating to marginalize transgender people and financially supporting other members of the hate movement, it takes more than a token NPC to make up for it.
  Most likely that character is an insincere PR move from Warner Bros, but some trans people also pointed out that naming her Miss Ryan was probably done in bad faith. If anything, sounds exactly like the kind of tasteless thoughtless naming that JKR is infamous for.
- Thank god tokenism is here to save the day again.
- That's not what "TERF" means.

Never got into Harry Potter since I was too old. This game was really fun to just explore and I constantly felt a forward momentum. Some of the stories were good, and some were awful.

I would absolutely play a sequel just based on the well done sense of discovery alone. I just wish more of what you found was impactful instead of cosmetic.

On the one hand, I agree about wishing there was more to find than a new color cloak, but on the other hand I think it's a neat way to keep the game approachable to more casual gamers (and to try and get as many Harry Potter fans to get it as possible). That being said, I would have liked if there were more challenge, and something other than just flat stat improvements could have been a way to keep that interesting if they had higher difficulties.
- I get it, but it doesn't have to be just pure stats. Could have been mild ability improvements or something or maybe changed some of the effects or visual things that occurred around you. Hell, even walking speed improvement or something like a tone to help you locate hidden items.
  There's a lot they could have done considering we're dealing with magical items! Still had a pretty good time with it overall though.

If you have nothing else to play and want a simple open world game set in and around Hogwarts, it's perfectly servicable as long as you pirate it. Don't expect to be blown away by it though.

I assumed that after literally nobody or any media outlets have talked about it since release. Telltale sign of bang on average game. Probably great for potter fans and boring for those who don’t care or haven’t seen the films/read the books.
I would - and I hate my saying this - rather recommend Avatar then. Yeah it's a Ubisoft game. I know. Yeah, it needs a beefier machine to actually look really pretty.
But oh my fucking hell is it pretty when cranked up. And it helps the generic open world gameplay a lot to be this awesome looking. Fun to just wander around and take in the scenery, even when you leave the jungle areas and go to the plains and see the wind-swept grass and all.

Has anyone played both? Im loving zelda at the moment and wouldn't mind moving onto this next

Hogwarts is fun for about 30 hours roleplaying as a wizard, as a casual potter fan. I got really bored of it after that and never finished the game. At its core it really is very generic, it's really propped up by the IP. That's not to say it's bad by any means but its not got the depth of Zelda.
- I think the biggest issue for me was how large the map was. They did the castle and hogsmede very well, but then threw in a bunch of filler content in the other towns. If they had stuck to the more core areas only, the game wouldn't have gotten so stale later on.
- I'm kinda curious in what way Zelda (assuming TOTK) has more depth. Combat wise HP has stealth, an attack typing system, comboing, special moves, and more if I recall correctly. TOTK does have a variety of weapons and you can craft weapons, but it generally boils down to just whacking away at things. You could also mention the ability to make vehicles/automaton, but the time to build things (until you find ultra hand?) mixed with limited resources made that more of a pain/chore than fun.
  I could go into other mechanics, but ultimately I think TOTK would be rated worse if it wasn't for the Zelda branding carrying it.
Zelda is the better game. Problem is (sales wise) the Zelda franchise isn't nearly as popular outside of gaming circles, and access to this game is locked to those that own a Switch, whereas HL is on all platforms
I played both. Both are excellent games, and both also have flaws.
I think Zelda was by far the better game - HL isn't really on the same level as it at all, design-wise, story-wise, or or in terms of things to do.
HL's strength is definitely the world itself - the Hogwarts and Hogsmeade areas in particular are both incredibly well done and very faithful to the source material. The other areas are just alright.
I'd say HL's weaknesses become most apparent if you're a completionist. Things can get very repetitive if you're going for 100%. I did, and I honestly think you'll like it a lot more if you just don't.
It's still lots of fun though. Zelda was my most played game in 2023 and HL was kind of far behind, and everything else combined would still probably be a distant third.
I absolutely agree with the other people saying HL is generic and propped up by the IP. But for me that was enough.
- The story of HL is also one of its weaknesses. It's a generic chosen one story with unmemorable characters.
I have. Hogwarts Legacy has really good graphics but it's honestly pretty generic, it only sold so well because there are millions of harry potter fans out there.
- I mean clearly that’s not the only reason, right? If it were, every previous Harry Potter video game would’ve sold just as well.
Zelda has tighter gameplay and holds your attention longer.
HL is decent.

If you are WB, I can't see how you compare the performance of this game vs the performance of Suicide Squad (which had similar development time) and not rethink your approach to future licensed titles

I pirated it and played for maybe two hours. It was boring and the controls didn't feel good. Uninstalled shortly after.

Nooooooooo!

I mean both were good games, but Zelda is just legendary status and on another level. It holds a special place for me, and they somehow nailed it out of the park yet again with TOTK. I don't know how they keep doing it! They have some geniuses over there.

Completed both 100% and they're such great fun games.

Hogwarts was awesome to walk through the wizardry world. Battling wizards, poachers, spiders, etc. Finding all the secrets and going through the story. Finished the game in a week, I just couldn't put the controller down.

Very curious. I played for about 10-15 hours and was just bored, but I’ve never been a huge potter head. Glad people like it though

I bought it and was hoping for more leveling up and more RPG elements but it wasn't.

I really liked the side quests though. It felt like every single one involved going to a cave, finding out the NPC's friend/relative was dead, and then report back. It definitely didn't get old after the first dozen or so.
Also, the Merlin trials were great. Hundreds of locations, but only like 6 different puzzles.
I haven't played a game where the devs copy/pasted that much in a while.
- I really liked the side quests though. It felt like every single one involved going to a cave, finding out the NPC’s friend/relative was dead, and then report back. It definitely didn’t get old after the first dozen or so.
  Sounds exactly like Skyrim tbh...

poped in to say transrights! that'll be all

fuck harry potter, read terry pratchett
- Can I just read Pratchett without fucking anyone? I'm ace and it's just really smelly and uncomfortable.
- Bit unfair, because when compared to Terry Pratchett, just about everything else gets tossed to read more Pratchett. 😅
  (not that I disagree, Pratchett is best)
okay

I thought it was a great game that captured the spirit of the books & movies so well. Thankfully all the mock outrage and virtue signaling didn't affect its sales and probably boosted them.

mock?
- Yes. Some game "reviews" were such absurd, performative straw man attacks at JK Rowling that they bordered on parody. I'm thinking of the Wired one in particular but others were equally bad. The irony is these diatribes clearly helped the game, or rather, this really good game sold well in spite of that crap. Ultimately these websites just undermined their own reputations.
- Considering one of the main hubs for outrage was /r/GamingCirclejerk who themselves use the defense of "lmao this list of streamers playing wizard game totally isn't an invite to harass them. This is a joke subreddit why are you taking it seriously?!".
  I can hardly blame people for thinking the outrage was fake. Some of it was so over the top it was insane
  That said, fuck J.K Rowling, and fuck her opinions

🤮

where do we find the stats for zelda?

Millions of people have bad taste. Shocker

Smug gamer thinks what others like is wrong. Shocker.
- Supporting transphobes is wrong. Millions of people supported a transphobe. For me, that's not being smug, it's being terrified
- No smugness here, just disappointment.

The open world Zeldazes were over hyped but still, really? I haven't played it myself but watching others play, it didn't seem all that great.

It really isn't. They want you to play through each house but it's literally the same story regardless of which house you choose.
The game is only fun until the hype of exploring Hogwarts fades. Then it's just your average mid tier adventure game.
It only survived because it's Harry Potter.
Edit: The broom flying was cool af though I'll give them that
Edit 2: Something I've always brought up about this game is, once you get petrificus totalus it turns into Harry Potter and the Assassin's Creed
- Edit 2 is what I needed to hear to know that this is definitely not for me.

Embarrassing.

Oh just now?… wow they had to work real hard to top a game that released on a single console.

Serious question. Who'd win, wizard trying to cast a spell or sovereign citizen with a gun?

If the sovereign citizen's gun is as real as their documents, then the Wizard.

I absolutely loved hogwarts legacy personally. Any other year it would have won more awards, just that Baldurs Gate and Alan Wake were even better. We really were spoiled in 2023

Yeah, lucky us, the largest transphobe in the world sold the most popular game in the world. As a trans person, I feel so spoiled and lucky!
- She didn't sell the game, she only lend the IP.
  Avalanche Software nor Warner Bro's are anti-trans. As shown in the game where you can make a full fledged trans protagonist including your pronouns.
- Boo hoo.
Meh I wouldn't be so sure about that.. a lot of it was absolutely forgetable.

Culture wars sell games. If not for all of the noise surrounding JK Rowling, the right wing contingent of the internet probably would have passed it over as "a game for kids". If comment sections are any metric to go by, everyone that played it either thought it was completely mid or bought it to own the libs.

Why you downvoted? You're right. They're mean fucking trolls with the character of a child. They're obsessed with triggering others. This is their MO.
I came here to write something along the lines of "fuck that Nazi terf piece of shit" but saw your comment first.
- What's hilarious to me is that, while the downvotes mean nothing in the long run, I'm hardly sharing a unique opinion, even on this thread.
- Because they are wrong? You don't actually think everyone that bought it is a trumptard do you? Please touch grass, twitter drama isn't relevant to the real world.
Correct. I've never bought a video game in my life and I ain't about to start but everyone had a take on that shit, it was so tiresome, I imagine for a lot of babytrans/babylgbt it might've been a shock that people will choose a game of their beloved childhood corporate intellectual property over being allies and that being allies was to a lot of people always virtue signaling, but I was far too cynical to let that bother me at that point.

Oh no, but what about the boycott...

What about it? None of us are surprised that people chose a childhood memory over respect for trans people as human beings.
- What a ridiculous take. First of, outside of certain parts of the internet most people aren't even aware of the issues surrounding Rowling, secondly you can very much acknowledge that she's a terrible excuse for a human being while still enjoying a game she had nothing to do with (yes, she gets royalties, but she has the kind of fuck you money that multiplies by merely existing anyway).
- If you stand by what you preach you should basically stop buying anything. No matter what, a billionaire is getting your money, and they are all pieces of shit I promise.
- Tons of people worked on the game who aren't bigots. Artists, programmers, designers etc. Buying the game supports them, too.
  Also, someone decided to make the owner of the Three Broomsticks trans.
- It's genuinely amazing to me how some people are obsessed with the idea that buying a videogame based on the works of an author that wasn't even involved in making the project makes you transphobic.
  Would it shock you that 99% of corporate officials are bad people? I guess we should stop buying anything ever because some percentage of money can go to people I don't like.
When has a boycott ever worked? For the most part people don't have principals unless their very livelihoods are directly threatened.
- Never, it is just free advertising

Hogwarts Legacy is a 7.5 of 10. It's a fun game. But it's not revolutionary or break new ground. I hadn't played Tears of the Kingdom.

The two things the boycott did is to make the trans community look bad and made people hate them. The final thing was to give the game free advertising.

Here's a video about the Harry Potter IP. Like who owns the rights to the games, books, plays, and so on.

EDIT

...boycott did is to make the trans community look bad and made people hate them.

I was talking about the harassment and doxing of people who played/streamed Hogwarts Legacy during the boycott.

If you hated trans people because some people online told you to boycott the product of a piece of shit celeb, not gonna lie dude you were a shit person and it had nothing to do with seeing the backlash to the game.
No joke, if this drama in any way altered your opinion of "trans folk" as a concept, you need to sit yourself down in front of a mirror and not get back up until youve fixed the rot in your personality. Utterly brainless take.
- I was talking about the harassment and doxing of people who played/streamed Hogwarts Legacy during the boycott.

The people who tried cancelling the game are the reason it sold so well and that is hilarious. Everyone was talking about it, any advertising is good advertising

PS I pirated my copy

Brain dead contrarians that have no thoughts and opinions of their own beyond "how do I piss people off?"
- The boycotters or the people who played the game?
  The downvote button doesn't answer my question, I actually have no idea what you meant...