Unlike other major franchises like Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter has struggled to see success in its video games. Part of this issue stems from the games, except those for mobile devices, being simple remakes of the movies unlike the Middle-earth and the slew of Star Wars games that have released over the years.
But this is only one of many issues as to why the Harry Potter games would not hold up in the world of modern-day gaming. As a highly-anticipated AAA game to be announced, there are several areas in which the open-world RPG can improve from past Harry Potter titles.
The main issue and criticism that most games received was their lack of originality. Even the LEGO Harry Potter games, which were the most highly-rated by critics, were called out for being simple copy-cats of the movies or novels, though this is true to LEGO games’ style. Based on the information that’s known about the upcoming game, however, this isn’t something that fans should be overly concerned about.
Thanks to leaks, assuming the development will continue on the same track, it’s believed that the upcoming Harry Potter RPG will be set in the 1800s, and players will have a completely original character creation system, meaning it won’t be just another recreation of Harry and his friends’ adventures. Currently, the player character is set to be a late-accepted student to Hogwarts starting in their fifth year, and they have a unique ability “to track and identify remnants of a potent ancient power.” It will feature a completely new set of professors and students and leaves a lot of room for class schedules, clubs and sports, side missions, and lore to be tinkered with, so there’s very little possibility that the story will be anything like what’s already been released inside the franchise.
For any Harry Potter fan, it was once their fantasy to experience Hogwarts first-hand as a student, and the Harry Potter RPG will be the closest they will get to fully flesh out an original witch or wizard of their own. Going along with house selection and the option to fully customize the protagonist needs to be an expansive skill tree or set of trees because the Wizarding World features so many different occupations and talents like Potions, Charms, Transfiguration, and even the Dark Arts. And the leaks have shown that there will likely be eight different wizard classes to choose from.
Skyrim is a great example of fully-flexible options of where the player can input a skill point, freely choosing between one of eighteen different skill trees. Persona 5, which is also centered around school life, has an interesting method of allocating skill points. Choosing how to spend in-game time and class time determine how skill points are arranged. Alternatively, players could focus on build type to their personal preference. Whatever the developers decide, no Harry Potter game has implemented a complex skill tree to this degree, so players will be looking for this mechanic in an open-world AAA game.
A sporadic number of the Harry Potter video games were noted to have fun side missions—Order of the Pheonix, for example, was always keeping the player busy—but this comment also varied from critic to critic. But side missions are really where the upcoming Harry Potter RPG has a chance to shine. What many fans are looking for in this experience looks to be the open-world elements of the game.
While it’s limited to Hogwarts (and surrounding areas, such as Hogsmeade and perhaps Diagon Alley), it should give the player free rein to explore the grounds, interact with others, and complete quests at their leisure. Some fans looking forward to the RPG suggest that it be interesting to see house-specific and faction-specific side missions. For example, the option to join the Quidditch team (Chamber of Secrets was noted for having a fun free-flight mode that should be reprised) or the Potions Club could unveil a number of new quests available to the player character.
Every game, except for the mobile game Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, is criticized for having either a limited set of spells or limiting the way they are used. Some video game installments did allow for new, video-game exclusive spells to be learned by attending classes, and this trend should be continued in the upcoming RPG, but there needs to be a much more intuitive way of using them.
Spells can be broken down into two major areas: combative spells and non-attack spells. Where critics felt the Deathly Hallows games ultimately failed was in its usage of combat, saying that while it made an attempt at being an exciting action RPG, it devolved into a third-person shooter, with Harry yelling “Stupefy!” thirty times per minute. Though canonically, Harry is an offender of using this spell often, there are many more attack spells to be chosen from. Perhaps the developers can take a page from Fallout‘s VATS system, by slowing down time so players have a chance to choose from several combat spells, maybe in an organized wheel. Whatever the case, spell selection shouldn’t be limited to the player unless it simply hasn’t been discovered in-game yet.
As the rumor from industry insiders and journalists currently stands, the Harry Potter RPG was supposed to be announced at this year’s E3. In lieu of the canceled conference, the game was supposedly set to announced sometime after DC FanDome, which was just last weekend, so hopefully, fans will get a formal trailer reveal soon.
The Harry Potter RPG is slated to release in 2021 for Ps5 and Xbox Series X.
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