The newest trailer for Hogwarts Legacy at Playstation’s recent State of Play has fans more excited than ever for the game’s release in the holiday season, 2022. The trailer shows off Hogwart’s vistas and a vast array of creatures and characters, such as dragons, Hippogriffs, goblins, and elves, along with teasing many different gameplay features and nods toward the books and movies.
There has always been so much to discover from Harry Potter games, whether that’s hidden easter eggs making callbacks to the books or movies, interesting production details, hidden mechanics, or secret endings. Many of these things in prior games have been forgotten about or are even completely inaccessible. It’ll be interesting to see if the new game will take any inspiration from the prior games and how it will stand out from them.
Secret Ending
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone was released in November 2001 on the original Playstation and if players were able to grab all of the collectible wizard cards and beans in the game they would were rewarded with a secret ending. This ending Included an additional quidditch match and a sinister laugh from Voldemort himself.
It seems as though achieving all of the collectibles is considerably difficult making achieving the hidden ending all the more desirable. Many fans and players could have easily missed that there was another ending, especially considering how few did achieve getting it. Hopefully Hogwarts Legacy has a few more secretive endings of its own.
Pottermore And Playstation
The official Harry Potter website, Pottermore, was released in 2011 to much popularity and praise from fans who wanted to immerse themselves in a variety of activities such as learning spells and potions. However, few know that the website was created in collaboration with Sony and Playstation, meaning, that Playstation’s Book of Spells could affect a player’s Pottermore.
The collaboration between the wizarding world and Sony is still seen today, with Hogwarts Legacy being primarily advertised and pushed by Sony. The integration between Pottermore and Playstation back in the day had some awesome potential for recreating the magic of the series. Players will have to wait and see if this collaboration pays off in the form of a great game later this year.
Wizards Unite Hidden Horcruxes
Harry Potter: Wizards Unite is a Pokemon-GO-inspired mobile game and includes several hidden Easter eggs. One stand-out one is the inclusion of some Horcruxes being held by the founders of Hogwarts, including The Diadem of Ravenclaw, The Cup of Hufflepuff, and The Locket of Slytherin.
These are some awesome callbacks to the books and three of Voldemort’s Horcruxes. Little Easter eggs like this can be easy to miss, even for the most astute of fans, but they make a world of difference in building the world that is so beloved. It looks as though Hogwarts Legacy will follow in a similar spirit of presenting many callbacks and Easter eggs from the books and movies.
Who Released That Trailer?!
With the release of the tie-in game for Deathly Hollows Part 2, the marketing team took a rather unconventional approach to release new content about their upcoming game by having celebrities release the initial trailers. Emma Watson released the initial trailer and a few months later, Rupert Grint followed them up by releasing the second trailer.
Unless someone was a die-hard game fan back in 2011, it is very probable they would have missed the unconventional advertising. EA leveraging their available star power was a smart tactic and one that’s hard to complain about. It’s exciting seeing beloved characters talk and promote a beloved property and it would be great to see some returning faces for Hogwarts Legacy later this year.
Tom Riddle’s Biggest Fear
In the game, Lego Harry Potter Years 1-4 players can access a Boggart that reveals each of the character’s biggest fears. These include a Dementor for Harry, a spider for Ron which the player can give rollerskates, Voldemort for most other characters, and funnily, as a little Easter egg, Tom Riddle’s biggest fear is Harry Potter.
After trying a variety of characters against the Boggart, players most likely gave up, feeling as though they had seen all of the variable forms the beast could take. This little detail may not drastically change how someone might play the game but little humorous details like this give the Lego Harry Potter games a very humorous tone.
Lego Harry Potter Story Changes
TT Games decided to take some creative liberty in the storytelling of Lego Harry Potter. Such changes include providing assistance during the Triwizard Tournament from Hermione and allowing Cedric Diggory to survive longer into the fight at Little Hangleton graveyard. Such changes were likely to allow for a consistent two-player co-op.
Many of these changes are relatively subtle and easy to miss but only the die-hard fans would be able to call out every discrepancy. This being said, the availability of couch co-op in the games appears to be an important feature. Hogwarts Legacy has confirmed that it will have no co-op, so players will need to return to Lego for their fix.
Scanning Faces Into Hogwarts
In 2012, Harry Potter for Kinect was released for Xbox and Eurocom, with a very interesting feature. In the game, the player had the ability to scan their own face using the Kinect cameras and make themselves their character’s face. This exciting feature was however hit or miss in execution, often resulting in nightmare fuel.
The game was received relatively poorly and the vast majority of Xbox players both didn’t have the Kinect and didn’t purchase the game. For this reason, this scanning feature slipped under many fans’ radars. The use of new technologies to further immerse the player into the wizarding world is a very exciting proposition and is something that should be continued.
The First Harry Potter Game
While fans may be fully aware of the movie tie-in game Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, they probably missed what was the true first game; Lego Creator: Harry Potter. This game was released earlier in the year 2001 in correlation with the Lego sets. The game was released only on windows and had a much more sandbox-like approach.
These sandbox-building elements have become a staple of the current Lego games and especially the two Lego Harry Potter games, but the game was largely overshadowed and is forgotten by the majority of fans.
Finding Scabbers
In 2004, the first Harry Potter mobile game was released with no build-up, and it was called Harry Potter: Find Scabbers. The tiny Java game played like Pac-Man as the player chased down Ron’s lost rat, Scabbers, while avoiding dementors and Aragog’s baby spiders alike.
There is not much out there about this game, as seems to have been missed by most outlets and also had very few players. Not only was it a strangely obscure game but it also played terribly according to reviewers. Thankfully, future mobile game creators did not take inspiration from this one and have created some otherwise very enjoyable but often derivative games, such as Wizards unite and Harry Potter: Puzzles and Spells.
Hogwarts Legacy Karma
The creators of Hogwarts legacy have announced that their game will contain a sort of “karma” system in which certain spells, friendships, and even story points can be altered by the good and bad decisions players might make throughout the game’s story. Examples include being able to learn Avada Kedavra or taking certain characters on the player’s adventure, hopefully including characters like Grindelwald or Dumbledore.
The team over at Avalanche Software and WB Games seems to be implementing some very interesting combat systems and other mechanics. The variability this karma system will add should allow for plenty of replayability.
