“DOES IT GET ANY MORE COZY than Hogsmeade?” The first time you hear this refrain in Hogwarts Legacy, the new blockbuster video game based on the Harry Potter franchise, you may find yourself agreeing with your character who has just said it. The higgledy-piggledy Hogsmeade Village is indeed cozy, a market town filled with a plethora of shops selling various wizarding wares. Then, as you hear the phrase for the fifth, tenth, and 15th time, you may begin to feel as if the long-in-development video game is trying too hard to convince you of this fact. Its repetition sums up almost the entire emotional register of Hogwarts Legacy—the wish-fulfillment fantasy of inhabiting the Potterverse it offers and the lack of confidence with which it does so. This is an insecure game, one you can tell is buckling under the weight of everything that accompanies it: the internet discourse, fan expectations, and J.K. Rowling herself.
When Hogwarts Legacy was announced in September 2020, it appeared that developer Avalanche Software was cooking up an open-world role-playing game to finally scratch the magical-boarding-school itch after years of subpar adaptations of this kind. The trailer spoke of players adding their “own story” to the “hallowed walls” of Hogwarts and “shaping the future” of the Wizarding World. For a generation of readers who grew up wishing they’d received a Hogwarts acceptance letter, it seemed like the next best thing. Warner Bros., the owner of the Harry Potter IP, clearly wanted this game to appeal to everyone and all playstyles, and that first preview tried to preemptively address the divided cultural waters into which it would be released. “Magic,” the trailer said, “binds together our long history.”
Bu hikaye New York magazine dergisinin February 27 - March 12, 2023 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Giriş Yap
Bu hikaye New York magazine dergisinin February 27 - March 12, 2023 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Giriş Yap
LIFE AS A MILLENNIAL STAGE MOM
A journey into the CUTTHROAT and ADORABLE world of professional CHILD ACTORS.
THE NEXT DRUG EPIDEMIC IS BLUE RASPBERRY FLAVORED
When the Amor brothers started selling tanks of flavored nitrous oxide at their chain of head shops, they didn't realize their brand would become synonymous with the country's burgeoning addiction to gas.
Two Texans in Williamsburg
David Nuss and Sarah Martin-Nuss tried to decorate their house on their own— until they realized they needed help: Like, how do we not just go to Pottery Barn?”
ADRIEN BRODY FOUND THE PART
The Brutalist is the best, most personal work he's done since The Pianist.
Art, Basil
Manuela is a farm-to-table gallery for hungry collectors.
'Sometimes a Single Word Is Enough to Open a Door'
How George C. Wolfein collaboration with Audra McDonald-subtly, indelibly reimagined musical theater's most domineering stage mother.
Rolling the Dice on Bird Flu
Denial, resilience, déjà vu.
The Most Dangerous Game
Fifty years on, Dungeons & Dragons has only grown more popular. But it continues to be misunderstood.
88 MINUTES WITH...Andy Kim
The new senator from New Jersey has vowed to shake up the political Establishment, a difficult task in Trump's Washington.
Apex Stomps In
The $44.6 million mega-Stegosaurus goes on view (for a while) at the American Museum of Natural History.