Hogwarts Legacy Reviews

They have changed the Terms and Conditions that if you agree, means they can collect your data and sell it. If you don't agree you can't play the game.

I know that everyone uses your Data nowadays but being forced to accept new terms of agreement after hours of playing the game? Also what they track is rediciulous: - Images or recordings from your device -Films, TV shows, and videos that you view (including title and genre, watchlists you compile, and searches you conduct), webpages, apps, and ads you see and interact with, as well as the accounts you link together, including recordings of your interactions with our Services, which may include mouse clicks, mouse movements, keystrokes, and page scrolling.

The update on the 31st of January killed more or less the game. Before it worked fine, but now it tries to force you to agree that all your data is collected. There is a button with “Do not sell or share my data” but this only gives you the following webpage: https://www.wbdprivacy.com/do-not-sell-or-share-request/ The interesting point is, the content if you connect from Germany to it: “The Warner Bros. Discovery Privacy Center is Not Available in Your Region To learn more about your privacy rights, visit our Privacy Policy” The 75% discount was an OK deal for the game since it had ingame advertisements for other Harry Potter games [Lego] and the “deluxe” update [it is worth less]. It also crashed multiple times, especially if you used the fast travel system. I invested more then 50 Hours and now the game is only a waste of hard drive space. I’ll try to get a refund since it is unplayable.

It's a fun and beautiful game. Generally runs well on Linux too! But for the love of all that is good in gaming: * Stop advertising your other products with in-game pop-ups * Stop introducing privacy policies with no options to opt out from your data collection racket * Stop releasing updates that break the game for thousands of people

I want to start out by saying that my thoughts about this game are very mixed. There's as much good as much as bad about this game. The best way I can summarize this game to you is [b] very repetitive[/b] but also [b] graphically stunning[/b]. It's for both new and diehard Harry Potter fans but it'll exhaust and bore the heck out of you. There's far more side content that main content and I didn't complete the main content consecutively so my understanding of the plot may not be that perfect. [h1] About Hogwarts Legacy [/h1] Embark on a magical journey throughout the wizarding world during the late 19th century, about a century before the years of the Harry Potter series. In Hogwarts Legacy, you'll be playing as a wizard or witch who has been admitted to Hogwarts as a fifth year student - which is very rare, usually no student is admitted to Hogwarts so late. Along the way to Hogwarts for the first time, you're spied on by a man named: "Rookwood" and later on attacked by a goblin named: "Ranrok" who believes you possess something that others don't. After the unfortunate encounter and following your initial arrival to Hogwarts, Hogwarts professors sort you into a house like in the Harry Potter movies and decide to execute a fast-paced education program to teach you everything you're supposed to know from year one to five. At the same time, you embark on an "extracurricular" journey to find out what Rookwood and Ranrok is after and prevent them from getting their hands on it. If you want more details, you can read this as well but beware that it contains [b] very major spoilers [/b]: [spoiler] Throughout the game, you'll learn that you can wield ancient magic that almost nobody else can wield. Centuries back in the past, a little girl named Isidora had her village destroyed. If I recall correctly, her brother died during the destruction. Hogwarts professors wielded ancient magic to restore the village back to normal, undoing its destruction. Some years later, Isidora would grow up to become a Hogwarts professor teaching along with her saviors and she'd learn to wield ancient magic as well. Her father had been silent since her brother's death, so she wanted to find a way to cast a spell to rid her father's pain. Eventually, Isidora succeeded and decided to store some of her new magic used to cast the spell in Goblin silver (you can consider the silver like a chest or reservoir to store things). Later on, everyone would learn that the magic also makes people emotionless, so her colleague professors urged her to stop using it but Isidora refused so her colleagues killed her by force using the unforgivable curse Avada Kedavra. The colleague professors would then contain the remains of the ancient magic beneath Hogwarts. Ranrok is after goblin silver. Because of this, he's been researching every goblin reservoir location and drilling inside of them, hoping to acquire the ancient magic for malicious purposes. Rookwood is just a partner of Ranroks with mutual interests. Rookwood is being used by Ranrok to find reservoir locations. It is your job to stop Rookwood and Ranrok! Learn how to wield ancient magic and put an end to Ranrok's intentions before immense power falls into the wrong hands! [/spoiler] [h1] My Review of Hogwarts Legacy [/h1] I'm writing this after having completed the main story, having gained half of the achievements and having completed 80% of my collection. It's a graphically stunning game, it really is, the graphics are what's carrying this game - the map and environment designers really gave their best at creating Hogwarts, Hogmeads and the rest of the world. In fact, I made great use of Photo Mode at times, it's just that beautiful but the repetition is what ultimately ruins the gaming experience. The repetition drew me nuts, the number of repetitive tasks is way beyond the industry average for a RPG game as well. I'm not thrilled to do 100% completion because everything else I need to do are just repetitive tasks. But putting repetition aside, I had fun casting all the spells (especially unforgivable curses), attending classes at Hogwarts, exploring Hogwarts castle and the rest of the open world and defeating enemies. The plot was kind of cliché but I didn't mind. My favorite main mission was the third trial for its unique style and my favorite side mission was all of Sebastian's missions. I didn't like most of the side missions because many of them were saving creatures or items from caves which felt really repetitive and boring after some point because there's too many of such missions. I found it odd how the team made use of the southeast portion of the World Map but left the southwest empty. Maybe in the future, more content could be added so that the southwest is put into use. I wish we could change the color of gears, that would be such a useful feature. [h1] My Pain Points About Hogwarts Legacy [/h1] 1. [b] My ultimate pain point is the repetition. [/b] There are nearly a hundred Merlin trials - which is absurd, and tens of everything else like caves, balloons, goblin outposts, stargazing telescopes, landing platforms, etc. I was so sick and tired of entering caves with spiders. This game is a horrible choice for those with Arachnophobia! [b]My point is, making us do the same thing X times doesn't make it a good game.[/b] 2. Most gear to equip on your avatar are ugly in my honest opinion, and there's not a lot of house-based gear, other than house scarves and some rare robes. 3. I have maxed out my gear slot and it's still not enough for me to hold my gear. Because of this, I can't hold a bunch of gear that I find appealing. Why not extend the Merlin trial challenges so that it matches with the amount of Merlin trials on the map? 4. There aren't a lot of different puzzles. For example, you could have done a different puzzle for each of the three different lock levels and you could have introduced more ways to complete Merlin trials. 5. There aren't a lot of different types of enemies. I know that there's multiple species of the same enemy type (for example, there are more than 10 species of spiders) but there aren't a lot of different enemy types. I think it's just Goblins, Ashwinders, Poachers, Trolls, Spiders, Dulongs, Wolves, Infamous Foes, and Inferius. I've never read the Harry Potter books, so my presumption is that the lack of enemy variety is to stay aligned with the books - this might also explain why there are cats but no dogs in the game, but, this is what happens when executed in a game - it causes the player too feel bored of the same enemies. 6. NPC facial expressions often don't match the NPC dialogue tone - it's really hard to tell if a NPC is happy, angry, afraid etc. just by looking at their faces. I think this has to do with how mouths and eyebrows don't bend. Also, I dislike how NPC facial expressions switch to a serious look once the dialogue is over. I remember somewhere outside but nearby Hogwarts I witnessed a woman crying for losing someone close to her and her face suddenly became normal and serious once the discussion was over - that just seemed unnatural and unsettling to me. 7. Mission specific issues: - In the personal shop mission at Hogmeads, playing with the Poltergeist on the foyer side is buggy. Progression takes too long. The time between defeating mannequins and the Poltergeist spawning new mannequins is too long. In the same mission, after talking to Penny later on at the end of the mission, she can clip into a corner of the desk inside of the shop. - In the castle mission with Onai, the second wall to climb is too high and very hard to climb even with the crate placed, it took me a long time to climb, I don't even remember how I succeeded. I think I glitched to the top. That was a pain. Later on in the same mission, after you land the birds, in a cutscene, Onai's brown highwing clips through her as it flaps its wings. [h1] Overall Rating: 6/10 [/h1]

Discovered that they harvest your data. Any company that does this to their games will end up with me getting a refund. Bad, bad practice WB. Enough of our data is being harvested as it is without a media company adding to that. For that reason I'd steer well clear of this game unless they change their practice in the future.

---{ Graphics }--- ☐ You forget what reality is ☑ Beautiful ☐ Good ☐ Decent ☐ Bad ☐ Don‘t look too long at it ☐ MS-DOS ---{ Gameplay }--- ☐ Very good ☑ Good ☐ It's just gameplay ☐ Mehh ☐ Watch paint dry instead ☐ Just don't ---{ Audio }--- ☐ Eargasm ☐ Very good ☑ Good ☐ Not too bad ☐ Bad ☐ I'm now deaf ---{ Audience }--- ☑ Kids ☑ Teens ☑ Adults ☐ Grandma ---{ PC Requirements }--- ☐ Check if you can run paint ☐ Potato ☑ Decent ☐ Fast ☐ Rich boi ☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer ---{ Difficulty }--- ☐ Just press 'W' ☐ Easy ☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master ☑ Significant brain usage ☐ Difficult ☐ Dark Souls ---{ Grind }--- ☐ Nothing to grind ☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks ☑ Isn't necessary to progress ☐ Average grind level ☐ Too much grind ☐ You'll need a second life for grinding ---{ Story }--- ☐ No Story ☐ Some lore ☐ Average ☑ Good ☐ Lovely ☐ It'll replace your life ---{ Game Time }--- ☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee ☐ Short ☐ Average ☑ Long ☐ To infinity and beyond ---{ Price }--- ☐ It's free! ☑ Worth the price ☐ If it's on sale ☐ If u have some spare money left ☐ Not recommended ☐ You could also just burn your money ---{ Bugs }--- ☐ Never heard of ☑ Minor bugs ☐ Can get annoying ☐ ARK: Survival Evolved ☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs ---{ ? / 10 }--- ☐ 1 ☐ 2 ☐ 3 ☐ 4 ☐ 5 ☐ 6 ☐ 7 ☑ 8 ☐ 9 ☐ 10

With the latest update, the terms of service now include a section where they can, without notifying you, disclose your personal information (IP address, personal information, chat logs, payment information and other information) to third parties. When I tried to opt out of this, I got redirected to a page which informs you "The Warner Bros. Discovery Privacy Center is Not Available in Your Region." I've sunk 80+ hours of time into this game, which is now being held hostage unless I agree to give them my person information. Very disappointing. For reference here's the relevant section, straight from their terms of service: "You understand that WB Games may, with or without notice to you, disclose your Internet Protocol (IP) address(es), personal information, chat logs, payment information and other information about you and your activities to third parties, in response to a request by law enforcement, a court order or other legal process, or if WB Games believes that doing so may protect your safety or the safety of others. If you are a user outside the United States, you also consent to the transfer of your data to the United States."

After the new update (the one with mods) i can't pass the "Do not sell or share my personal information" quest. EDIT: More info about the issue here https://steamcommunity.com/app/990080/discussions/0/599643178892562658/ and here https://steamcommunity.com/app/990080/discussions/0/599643178892569931/

This review is a little biased because this is the first Harry Potter universe game I’ve fully completed and gotten 100% achievements in. First of all, I’m so glad this isn’t another game where you just play as Harry Potter. Instead, you get to create your own character and fully experience the world of Hogwarts. That alone made it worth playing for me. [h2]Gameplay[/h2] The developers clearly put a lot of love into this game, and it shows. [b]Hogwarts Castle[/b] is absolutely stunning so much so that it actually made me tear up at times. Everything feels alive, from NPCs casually using magic to paint pictures or prank each other to weird potion experiments happening in the bathrooms. I could spend hours just listening to NPC conversations. The game has three main areas: - [b]Hogwarts Castle[/b] – Easily the best part of the game, full of detail, personality, and magic everywhere. - [b]Hogsmeade[/b] – A charming, lively village that’s fun to explore and next to the castle. - [b]The Open World[/b] – This was hit-or-miss for me. It has some interesting moments, but compared to Hogwarts, it feels less polished and emptier. It honestly felt like two different teams worked on these areas—the castle is [b]bursting with life[/b], while the open world feels [b]weaker in quality[/b]. Most collectibles and side quests take place in the open world, which was fine, but I personally would’ve loved more focus on the castle itself. That said, side missions were actually fun and never felt like a chore. The Forbidden Forest, while well-designed, didn’t feel as scary as I imagined it would be. This game also has [b]a ton[/b] of collectibles and optional content for 100% completion. Unfortunately, three of the achievements require replaying the game three times up to a certain point, which felt like a grind and should honestly be removed. Spiders. Spiders everywhere. Every five minutes, the game throws you into another cave full of horrifying spiders. Thankfully, the devs included an [b]Arachnophobia Mode[/b] for those who can’t handle them. [h2]Combat[/h2] I’m absolutely in love with the combat. It’s even better on Hard difficulty, but Normal strikes a great balance between fun and challenge. Honestly, this game has ruined traditional mage/wizard combat for me nothing else feels as good after playing this. The spell combos, dodging, and enemy variety make every fight feel pretty dynamic. Although opinions on this are mixed, I personally really vibed with it. [h2] Story[/h2] The story was [b]okay[/b] nothing special. It’s your typical "kill the bad guy to save the world" kind of plot. The side quests and relationship quests were way more engaging than the main story, and I actually found myself more invested in those. [h2]❌ Cons[/h2] - [b]Major Lighting Issues in Interior Areas [/b] : (As of new update on January 30th 2025) Many caves and rooms are blindingly bright, like a flashbang directly to the eyes—completely white screens that are painful to look at. If you have epilepsy, be careful. This is a weird bug since these areas are fully enclosed with no sunlight source, but the moment you step into certain spots, it’s like staring directly into the sun. - [b]Performance Issues[/b] : I’m running this game on an RTX 4060 at 1440p, and while it looks great, it has some serious issues: [b]Texture Pop-in / Loading Issues[/b] – My biggest complaint. This is a well-known PC bug that happens even on the lowest settings. NPCs, grass, and objects suddenly pop into existence right in front of you, completely ruining immersion. What’s frustrating is that the game used to run way better at launch, but the last update (around six months ago) broke a lot of things, and they never fixed it. Some examples of texture pop-in issues: - NPCs suddenly appearing a few steps away when I turn the camera. - Half-invisible cows in Hogsmeade. - Grass abruptly loading every time the camera angle changes during a conversation or cutscene. - Even opening the menu and returning to the game makes textures freak out. >[b]Edit[/b] : As of the new update on 30th January texture pop in issues is mostly fixed, its still here and there but nothing immersion breaking. [b]Ray Tracing is a Mess[/b] – Turning on RT causes micro-stutters and makes texture pop-in even worse. It’s simply not worth using in this game currently, it used to be way better before. >[b]Edit[/b] : As of the new update on 30th January, they added ray reconstruction, DLSS 4 to this game. RT performance is a bit better but its still a mess in open world areas. [b]Winter Season FPS Drops[/b] – For some reason, when it snows, my FPS gets cut in half. It’s a massive bummer because winter in Hogwarts should feel magical, but instead, it just lags. (I have not checked this in the new update) - [b]Low Replayability[/b] – While each house has an exclusive quest, replaying the whole game just for one extra mission isn’t very appealing. However, the upcoming PC modding update should help with this issue. I'm honestly depressed this game is over I want to experience it more :( >[b]Edit[/b] : New mod update did not help with this but there's rumours about them adding possible new story content to the game, nothing concrete tho. If they ever fix these issues, this game would be so much more enjoyable. [h2]Final Thoughts[/h2] I just want to thank the devs for creating such an amazing game. It was one of the best gaming experiences I’ve had. Despite its flaws, I still highly recommend it. This game is worth picking up at full price and even more so at a discount!