Hogwarts Legacy: From goblins to gameplay, here’s how to play

It’s finally here. After more than five years in development, multiple delays, and even a leak or two, fans are finally heading back to Hogwarts.

Hogwarts Legacy is set to land on consoles on February 10 and anticipation for this video game is already sky-high. Boasting a talented voice cast, frankly astonishing visuals, and an intricate plot, it’s tipped to be one of the biggest game releases of 2023 and for good reason.

If, like me, you can’t wait to dive in, here’s everything you need to know, from the gameplay to the player choices available to you – and why you should be excited about it.

What’s the plot of Hogwarts Legacy?

Forget thoughts of hanging out with Harry Potter. Hogwarts Legacy is set in the past – the 1890s, to be precise – in a version of Hogwarts before either Dumbledore or Voldemort.

However, evil is still very much present in the Wizarding World, and the player may even have a hand in helping to shape how much it flourishes.

You’ll be assuming the role of a newcomer to Hogwarts school in their fifth year, who has a mysterious ability to control arcane magic, and holds the key to an “ancient secret that threatens to tear the wizarding world apart”. This magic is making a mysterious resurgence and nobody knows why – except, perhaps, for you.

Oh, and as it’s set during the time of the Goblin Rebellion, expect that to feature, too. Between battling its leader Ranrok and facing down Dark Wizard Victor Rookwood, there’s a lot on your plate – and that’s before factoring in your lessons and making friends.

What’s the gameplay like for Legacy?

Get ready to run around Hogwarts like a manic XP fiend, thanks to the Field Guide. This will be given to the player at the start of the game for adjusting to life at Hogwarts; alongside acting as a menu and map of the castle and grounds, it will reward people with XP for exploring locations around the castle or solving mini challenges (such as casting Levioso on certain statues, or finding missing components of paintings). Certain locations around Hogwarts will also yield ‘Field Guide Pages’ when the right spell is cast at the right time - and it’s your challenge to collect them all.

With bags of XP coming your way (you also get awarded points for completing quests), you will level up over the course of the game, which in turn will allow you to learn new abilities and buff your stats.

And will there be spells? You bet. The player starts the game with the ability to master Basic Casts (the equivalent of Stupefy) but will slowly unlock and learn more spells as the game progresses. Of particular import are Protego, Accio and Levioso (the game’s equivalent of Wingardium Leviosa) which will allow you to break through opponents sheilds and solve quests around the castle and grounds to boot. However, you’ll also learn spells like Descendo, Incendio, Petrificus Totalus and Flipendo, and an Unforgiveable Curse or two, if you decide to follow the path of evil (though you need to be level 28 to learn Avada Kedavra, which means it’ll be around the end of the game).

All of this will prove handy for fighting opponents in the Dark Arts Battle Arena (or indeed the tamer Crossed Wands Duelling club in Hogwarts), but none more so than the Ancient Magic you can wield from the start. This takes the form of a swirling blue glow that allows you to lob boulders and other weapons at enemies - or even perform a special attack that can wipe out an enemy by itself.

Explore a sprawling world

The game’s developers have promised that players will have a sprawling open world at their fingertips – and indeed, Hogwarts especially looks gorgeous, with a castle and weather that changes to match the seasons. People will also be able to explore Hogsmeade, the Forbidden Forest, and the sinister Knockturn Alley – as well as areas like the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw common rooms, as sections of the Scottish Highlands, where Hogwarts is located.

Speaking of which, these Highlands are simply bursting with things to do. Alongside finding tiny wizarding hamlets populated with merchants, civilians and loot boxes, there are also crumbling ruins and dungeons that need solving in order to find the treasure hidden at their centres. If you’re really keen, there are also the Trials of Merlin: easily-solvable mini-quests hidden around the landscape that let you unlock extra gear slots or upgrade spells - and there are also numerous bandit camps populated with rogue goblins and baddies for you to take out.

The grounds around Hogwarts is also teeming with nasties to defeat: giant spiders are lurking in old caverns, and Dugbogs stand ready to attack if you stumble across them at the wrong time- though learning spells that they’re vulnerable to, like Incendio, should help with that.

It’s a big old world: fortunately, Hogwarts Legacy also lets you zip around the landscape with a broomstick or even a Hippogriff, rending travel nice and easy. There are also ‘fast travel’ points available via handily-placed ‘Floo Flame’ markers.

Discovering side hobbies

There are plenty of side quests to get involved in over the course of the game, and some of the most exciting are duelling, potions and animal-raising. Unlocking and brewing new potions will require you to travel around the world and defeat various magical beasts to find specialist ingredients for brand-new brews; you can also grow your own ingredients in the Hogwarts greenhouses (and later on, the Room of Requirement).

In terms of duelling, there are several ways you can indulge your passion for it: towards the start of the game you’ll unlock the ability to play at the Crossed Wands duelling club, where you can pit your abilities against fellow students and work on chaining spell combos together against practice dummies. Later on (in addition to battling the baddies littered around Hogwarts and its grounds) you can also join the Dark Arts Battle Arena to battle fearsome AI enemies. Be aware, though: it’s only available with the Hogwarts Legacy Deluxe Edition or the Collector’s Edition.

However, it’s the animals that have gotten most fans excited and to that end Hogwarts Legacy has plenty to offer. The Room of Requirement’s Vivarium is where you can collect, tame and train your own animal posse, including cats, Hippogriffs, Thestrals, Mooncalves and Graphorns (some of which, like Hippogriffs, you can ride; others, like Chinese Chomping Cabbages, you can deploy in battle against enemies). These animals will also provide raw materials to be used in crafting and Potions, such as milk and fur - and even better, if you want you can even breed your own animal babies, making this a firm favourite with everybody who’s ever loved Pokémon.

However, Quidditch fans be warned: despite the many Quidditch posters littered around the castle, it’s firmly off the menu.

Choose your fate - will you go over to the dark side?

One of the most exciting things about Hogwarts Legacy is just how much players can decide their own fate. Forget Skyrim – at the start of this game, you can decide your avatar’s gender, appearance, voice, and body-type, before choosing which House you’re sorted into (though by answering some basic questions, you do get a House ‘suggested’ for you that you can then change if you want). You can even decide what kind of wand you end up getting, if you want to chat specifics about wood types and length.

This goes even further when it comes to how the plot unfolds. Players will be able to choose if they stick to the path of the good, or ultimately embrace their worse side and become a Dark Wizard, and this applies to the quests as well. You can choose to help out fellow students dotted around the castle (one quest involves finding a girl’s lost diary) or you can really double-cross them instead (for instance, by keeping the diary or selling it back to her for a reward). This isn’t limited to students; you can also choose to lie to teachers if you really want.

This freedom applies to the friends that you make (a Gryffindor or a Slytherin, for instance) and your alignment (in fact, pursuing one potential friendship could lead to you learning an Unforgivable Curse). Be warned, though: there are multiple endings to the game, so that may well impact your happily ever after...

There are famous voice actors, like Simon Pegg

Game studios can’t afford to cut any corners when it comes to voice acting – not any more, when bona fide actors like Kit Harrington or Rami Malek have taken their turn at the mic. Correspondingly, this multi-million pound game boasts its own fair share of exciting acting talent to voice the inhabitants of Hogwarts.

Some of the highlights have to be Simon Pegg (who plays the snide Phineas Nigellus Black, the most unpopular headmaster Hogwarts has ever had) and Heartstopper’s Ben Croft, who will voice the male version of the player’s avatar. Oh, and Luke Youngblood (who played Lee Jordan in the films) will be back, this time to voice a student called Everett Clopton. Whew.

What have people been saying about it?

Regardless of your views on the Harry Potter franchise’s controversial author, anticipation for this game has been high and the reviews have been rather split. The Evening Standard called the game a magical experience and awarded it four stars for its “breath-taking” graphics, while the Metro said that it was “the best Harry Potter video game ever made”, praising its open world and sense of freedom.

However, the Guardian and the Times have been less complimentary. In its two-star review, the Times said that the game failed to “cast a spell”. Similarly, the Guardian said that the open-world outside Hogwarts was missing personality. “The player character, whose appearance and nature is left up to you, is too blank (and posh) to be memorable; the friendships they develop are not meaningful or believable, and even the most likable characters just feel like quest-givers,” she wrote.

Where can I buy it and what platforms is it on?

Hogwarts Legacy has ended up with rather a staggered rollout due to multiple delays.

For the PS5, Xbox X/S, and PC, the game will be launching on February 10 as planned.

However in December, it was announced that those with a PS4, Xbox One, or Nintendo Switch would be getting their versions later - April 4 and July 25 for the Switch, and this seems to be confirmed when you try to pre-order.

Regardless of which platform you use, get it on Game, Argos, or Amazon, prices are around £50 to £60, available for pre-order.