The Persona series uses daily routines to emulate the experience of studying for midterms by day and tormenting perverts by night. There are no shortage of ways to think outside the box when crafting a “school” premise. It’s the first clue that Hogwarts Legacy doesn’t have a lot of ideas about how to make Harry Potter feel special in a video game. There’s not much depth to the education aspect here as “classes” only play out as 12 checklist-driven subquests, each of which rewards a new spell for completing some challenges while out in the world. That perfect premise is the first area where some expectation setting becomes necessary. Set in the 1800s, the story focuses on a generic fifth-year student who’s tasked with taking down a brewing Goblin rebellion in-between their school duties. If you’ve ever found yourself fantasizing about being whisked away to Wizard school as a kid, Hogwarts Legacy grants that wish. The only unique aspect it brings to the open-world genre is franchise branding, making for a shallow experience that doesn’t offer much more than wish fulfillment for fans unable to let go of a dream. Despite having access to an entire universe of possibilities, its sole trick is using magic to cover up tired video game clichés that feel entirely disconnected from the vibrant source material it’s adapting. Hogwarts Legacy delivers a perfectly competent adventure, but its most unforgivable curse is its lack of imagination.

Strip away all those aesthetic trappings like wallpaper from your childhood bedroom and you’ll find something cold and clinical cleverly disguised by warm nostalgia. Looking in as an outsider, though, I can’t help but feel like developer Avalanche Software has cast an effective illusory spell. Every corner of it is stuffed with some visual reference or lore tidbit for fans to pore over as they finally get their chance to role-play as a Hogwarts student. The glitzy open-world adventure game goes to painstaking lengths to bring the franchise to life. For some of the series’ most die-hard loyalists, I’m sure Hogwarts Legacy will be a dream come true.

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