This week was a great one if you’re a fan of the Harry Potter franchise. In case you missed it, there was a new Harry Potter game announcement during the latest PlayStation 5 showcase. Hogwarts Legacy is a new RPG game that will take players to a wizarding world of the past and will allow players to fulfill their wizarding dreams. Though apparently, J.K. Rowling, the author of the Potter-verse, won’t be involved in what seems like the biggest Harry Potter-related project since the release of the 8th movie. And there’s a good reason for this…
If you were following the news, you might already know that J.K. Rowling is not the most favorite person on the internet right now. This is due to her litany of transphobic tweets in the past and a weirdly aggressive essay on transgender people that made some fans of the series really angry. Many people felt insulted, alienated, and even angry towards the author of the books due to her stance. The wounds go even deeper – J.K. Rowling recently released a new novel called Troubled Blood that portrays a male serial killer dressing up as a witch in order to prey on other women. So yeah… No surprise that many fans of the Potter-verse are not really keen on playing the new game by Warner Bros. and get even more transphobic slurs in the form of a video game.
Due to these concerns, Warner Bros. had to react quickly and issued a statement saying that the author of the Harry Potter books doesn’t have any direct way to influence the game’s content. The statement claims that Rowling has had limited involvement with Hogwarts Legacy’s story and development since Warner Bros. is “fostering a diverse and inclusive culture”. In the game’s FAQ section there’s a separate section dedicated to this. It states:
J.K. Rowling is not directly involved in the creation of the game, however, her extraordinary body of writing is the foundation of all projects in the Wizarding World.
This is not a new story from J.K. Rowling.
In any case, J.K. Rowling already divided the Harry Potter fandom and for many, this statement won’t be enough. Some already are calling for game boycotts, while others say that it’s unfair towards developers to form Avalanche and Portkey Games’ who already condemned the author’s remarks. However, the fact is that J.K. Rowling will still get her share of money from Hogwarts Legacy game sales… That’s the world we live in.
So yeah… It’s a weird situation to be in for the developers of the game. Even as players we’re a bit bamboozled. Hogwarts Legacy seems like a dream come true if you were an avid Harry Potter fan. Even if the game is great, we’re pretty sure that his Metacritic score won’t be that great.
In any case, there’s still some time for J.K. Rowling to change her mind and resolve this weird situation. Hogwarts Legacy is scheduled to be released in 2021 for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/s.
