A journey that will seemingly take at least 10 years to accomplish is beginning at the end of this year in HBO Max’s Harry Potter TV show, with each season adapting a book from the series and its reveal trailer demonstrating that a lot of the same iconography will be inherited from the nostalgic theatrical franchise. The scene where Harry is attending school in the Muggle world juts out more prominently than the rest due to how unique and unfamiliar it is, and it would ironically be quite magical if the Muggle world was represented in Hogwarts Legacy 2.
HBO’s Harry Potter Is Exploring The Muggle World Further
By adapting each book into a roughly eight-episode season, with each episode being approximately an hour long, the show will almost triple the total runtime of all eight Harry Potter movies. Therefore, HBO Max’s Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone should realistically be able to adapt any of the content from the book that the movie did not, while also extrapolating on different events and characters to flesh them out and allow them to breathe.
For instance, there is a high likelihood that Harry will not have even boarded the Hogwarts Express at King’s Cross’ Platform 9¾ in the first episode of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Instead, like what the movie does, the first episode may center on establishing Harry’s abusive Dursley home life in Little Whinging.
A scene in HBO Max’s first Harry Potter trailer demonstrates that we will see Harry being bullied by Dudley Dursley at an ordinary Muggle school, which will presumably be in this first episode (and maybe one of the show’s opening scenes) before wax-sealed enrollment letters flood their home and Hagrid appears to inform Harry that he is a wizard. If the first episode truly does lean on the Muggle world to then have it greatly juxtaposed with the magical one that Harry and audiences will be reintroduced to, it would be a bold and brilliant storytelling strategy.
All it will take is a single premiere episode of a young Harry being mistreated by his so-called “family” everywhere he goes in order for his arrival at Diagon Alley and Hogwarts to feel incredibly magical, and Harry Potter video games like Hogwarts Legacy would be wise to leverage the Muggle world similarly. That ship has sailed for Hogwarts Legacy, but its sequel could be all the better for it.
Harry Potter Games Ignore Muggles (Somewhat Rightfully)
It is no surprise that Hogwarts Legacy and countless other Harry Potter games have elected to bypass the Muggle world in favor of the magical one. Of course, fans do not play Harry Potter games to be immersed in an authentic portrayal of London.
They play Harry Potter games because they want to be immersed in the rich, magical Wizarding World, but particularly Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and its charming environs in the Scottish Highlands, including the Forbidden Forest and Hogsmeade. However, there is a narrative strength to seeing the Muggle world and acknowledging its existence, allowing the Wizarding World to be a literal outlet for escapism.
In fact, Muggle world gameplay sequences would be neat if they were treated like Assassin’s Creed’s modern-day sequences outside the Animus. They would have to be balanced tremendously well and have an actual purpose, or else they would feel needlessly stale and restrictive, but there is an argument to be made that Hogwarts Legacy 2 could have a far better narrative than the first game if it wove Muggle world sequences into it.
Hogwarts Legacy 2 Needs An Excellent Protagonist
Hogwarts Legacy’s protagonist is remarkable and interesting as a wielder of Ancient Magic. That said, a lot is left to players’ imaginations regarding what their backstory is and how they reached the point where players find them at the beginning of the game.
We know that the protagonist is enrolling at Hogwarts late as an unconventional fifth-year entry, and yet their life before being attacked by a dragon while riding in a carriage flown by thestrals is completely neglected in Hogwarts Legacy’s story. Knowing what one character’s life might have been like before their magical journey began does not always need to be pivotal to their lore, but it could assist in reinforcing a character’s exposition nonetheless, as it has with Harry’s torturous upbringing.
Players also missed out as Hogwarts Legacy did not feature Diagon Alley, where shopping and purchasing required class materials would be phenomenal in a modern, AAA Harry Potter game.
Seeing a protagonist’s Muggle-world upbringing could be satisfying if they, like Harry, are children who have experienced an affinity for magic, but naturally do not believe that magic could be real. The problem with this approach, which Hogwarts Legacy circumvented with its complicated protagonist, is that the story and what players are able to achieve in gameplay may need to be made more lighthearted or watered down if the playable character was a child.
That is certainly not to say that Harry Potter doesn’t have horrific and dark subject matter in its earliest installments, though, with life-or-death Wizard’s Chess and a serial-killer basilisk to contend with in the Philosopher’s Stone and the Chamber of Secrets alone (not to mention the Prisoner of Azkaban, where things truly become harrowing). This begs the question: if the protagonist of Hogwarts Legacy was a few years younger than they are, would it have made a considerable difference?
If the sequel’s protagonist comes from Harry Potter’s Muggle world, such as being Muggle-born themselves, it would be terrific to see it represented somehow, even tangentially. Likewise, a gameplay sequence in the Muggle world would be fun if players either could not rely on magic or risked a narrative penalty—like incurring the wrath of the Ministry of Magic—for getting caught drawing their wands and casting spells in the Hogwarts Legacy sequel.
- Released
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February 10, 2023
- ESRB
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T For Teen Due To Blood, Fantasy Violence, Mild Language, Use of Alcohol
- Developer(s)
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Avalanche Software
- Publisher(s)
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Warner Bros. Interactive
- Engine
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Unreal Engine 4
- Cross-Platform Play
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Hogwarts Legacy doesn’t have crossplay or crossplatform support
- Cross Save
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you can freely use your saved data between each console as long as you are connected to the internet and signed into the same account where the saved data was created
- Number of Players
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Single-player