Despite Harry Potter being one of the most popular franchises on the planet, it hasn’t exactly delivered the goods when it comes to video games. Back when the adaptations of Rowling’s books were being released in the 2000s, there were various licensed games on offer, but they didn’t exactly set the world on fire.
More recently, 2012’s Harry Potter for Kinect worked about as well as any other Kinect game did (badly) and the mobile title Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery faced intense criticism for nickel-and-diming its players through micro-transactions. So, yesterday’s leak of what looks like a triple-A action RPG for current-gen consoles, which is rumored to be titled Harry Potter Magic Forever, knocked everyone’s socks off.
The footage was released by Reddit user VapeThisBro, who claimed he was asked to watch footage from the game in order to conduct market research. Now, usually these sorts of thing are NDA’d up to the hilt, but he says he was never asked to sign one and nobody searched him for a phone.
He promptly uploaded the footage, posted it to Reddit and made a lot of Harry Potter gamers very, very happy. Though some suspected it might be faked (I thought it looked way too professional for that), its validity was confirmed by Warner Bros. filing a takedown notice on it on YouTube.
Rumours are that we may be getting a new Harry Potter role-playing game after this video leak from a reddit user (who claims that they were approached in a shopping mall to watch the trailer and complete a short survey) #potterhead pic.twitter.com/dtV3e3WAn2
— Social Ghana (@socialghana) October 2, 2018
Alongside the footage we also got this summary:
“Set in the 19th Century (1800’s) Wizarding World, this 3rd person open-world action RPG game centers around your character with unique abilities who has earned a late acceptance to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. You are a newly arrived 5th year student to Hogwarts that demonstrates a latent gift for magic with a unique ability to track and identify remnants of a pottant ancient power.
Upon arrival, strange events begin to materialize In the Forbidden Forrest and trouble begins o brew within the castle walls. Together with Professor Elezar Fig, you embark on a journey through both familiar and never before seen locations to bring to light the truth behind these mysterious occurrences. On your quest you will craft potions, master new spells, and discover fantastical beasts. You will battle Dark Wizards, Goblins, and other supernatural enemies and uncover the truth about your destiny – the Fate of the Wizarding World lies in your hands.”
Word is that you’ll get to design your own student, get sorted into a house during character creation and make decisions about how you’re going to approach the story as you go. Presumably, you can be a gallant Gryffindor, a studious Ravenclaw, a scheming Slytherin or uh, whatever Hufflepuff kids do (I guarantee nobody is going to pick Hufflepuff). While there were initial reports that this was being developed by Rocksteady, it seems that it’s being worked on by the Utah-based Avalanche.
Now that this video of the Harry Potter game has leaked and everyone’s talking about it, I’d bet a full announcement is currently being brought forward by Warner Bros. The video looks pretty far along in development, too, so maybe an owl could drop off our invitations to Hogwarts for Fall 2019?
