Why does Hogwarts Legacy hate Hogwarts?

Skipped quidditch, Skipped classes, skipped major holidays, skipped house moments/quests, skipped fighting for your house's success, and didn't have a difficult or repeatable dueling club. I loved the little questions that Ravenclaw girl gives you in the library. They could have had something like that for each class teaching us about the wizarding world and then giving us tests to see if we remember and the better we do the better our house points could be. You pick a house but it never seems to matter which one you're in.

I was the producer for the Hogwarts Castle until I left Avalanche in March of 2021. I think there are many worthwhile observations and criticisms in this video. Should there be a sequel, the developers should take much of what you have to say here to heart.

I was kinda dissappointed at the lack of INTERACTIVE classes. When I found all the classrooms it felt like a waste to not use them. Wouldve been cool if we couldve picked out our classes and interacted within them. And Diagon Alley is also something I missed! And I wish that you could buy more stuff in Hogsmeade, like I have a trillion Galleons and cant even buy a sugar quill. I really wanted to feel like a student. Altough Im happy that you can walk around anytime anywhere you like.

It was so immersion breaking for the cutscene in the Sebastian/ominis questline where Sebastian gets chastised for using unforgivable curses once where I had used them about 15 times in the fight immediately preceding. I agree it was the best questline in the game but the lack of consequences was heartbreaking...

i think what was mostly missed by devs was them forgetting or not realizing that a vast majority of people who wanted to play this game were very excited to BE a STUDENT at hogwarts. The books and the movies showed that yes while a lot of exterior things were affecting our favorite characters lives, the best moments were them showing their affection, being family, and just being kids in a magical castle. I mean the setup was practically handed to these guys to nail that. I just hope if another one comes they see that

They should have added a lesson system like the one in "Bully", where you could decide to join classes or not, completely optional, but actually joining classes rewarded you with new features and gameplay elements.

To be honest I really wish they gave you the option to choose blood status and your family. Wish they would’ve given an option to OFFICIALLY be a Weasley or a Black, Lestrange, etc; would’ve been cool if that also dictated how certain Npc’s interacted with you. Also wish you could find your common room npcs and bring them on missions with you kinda like how the original saints row games let you recruit homies (trials would’ve been exempt from this). Also wish the indulging in the dark arts would’ve had an impact on how npcs view you,?Hopefully they do this in the sequel.

The intercutting of scenes in these videos is what keeps me coming back. They’re masterful, it must take hours to find the right clip for each joke and I love it! Great job man!

There was a huge lack of secret passageways in Hogwarts. Plenty of hidden rooms and chests but the castle should have actual passages that would act as shortcuts throughout the castle

My main issue was the severe lack of consequences. It's well established in the books and movies that students shouldn't be outside of the common rooms after hours, but outside of a few missions I can walk around everywhere without anyone batting an eye. Not to mention leaving the castle in plain view of everyone. Then there's the ability to use the dark arts anywhere and the most you'll hear is "Please don't do that"

I think my favorite part of the game, besides Sebastian's side story and exploring Hogwarts, was hearing the "bad guys" reactions to getting cursed. I'm actually surprised the "bad guys" didn't react more to the fact that the main character is a child. I personally feel like the optional exploring outside of Hogwarts could have worked if more characters reacted to it and reacted to what we were doing. For example, you barely ever sleep in the common room and I think it would be more interesting if characters pointed that out, or acted worried. Basically if being out and exploring effected the the plot or at least side conversations, it would have been slightly more enjoyable. Not to mention we kill so many people in that game only to turn around and be a normal student with no moral repercussions. Maybe if our character started become less and less lighthearted and fun the more we killed, it would have been more interesting. That's just how I felt while playing the game.

12:07 “Deek thinks you should be proud of all the potions you’ve brewed!” 🙃

This pretty much mirrors my thoughts exactly. I wanted to be a student in this game. I didn't need a shoe-horned "chosen one" storyline. I wanted to start as a first-year and go to class, be required to actually learn stuff in order to progress my character, and spend several in-game school years becoming a great witch or wizard while exploring and constantly uncovering new secrets in Hogwarts, which was beautifully crafted. Every time I left Hogwarts in this game, I no longer felt like I was playing a game in the Harry Potter universe. Just felt like any other generic open world game.

The first hours of being a student and discovering Hogwarts and Hogsmead were definitely the best part of the game ! I grew very frustrated when the game kept asking me to leave the castle for every quest. They spend so much time and effort making the castle only to force the player to not play in it...

I hope these type of videos get really big and start circulating. If the sequel had more focus on the school and its secrets, then I think we'll all be so happy. You're right, this game had so much potential. Imagine what they could do now that they have all this feedback.

Completed HL like 2 hours ago, and I can't agree with you more. I loved exploring the castle, collecting at least one of each type of beast, and the side-quests with Sebastian and Ominis. However, the endless grind for crappy loot and the repeated merlin trials, slaying goblins, felt repetitive, and I actually started ignoring most of it after level 20, since the game was no longer a challenge. From there, I finished the main story in one go.

The game needed some outdoor areas, Hogsmeade, the forest, the lake, the train station. Maybe even a visit to the Ministry. But other than that? Yeah, you're completely right. Hogwarts is a *magical castle*. It has exactly as much space as you need or want.

I wished for more interactive NPC, more classes, more in Hogwarts missions, more missions like the Polyjuice one. The polyjuice one was very HP and what a student would do. Too many caves and not enough missions in Hogmeades as well. I also wished we could have a core friend group.

I really really hope that whatever we get next (a sequel, DLC, or another game completely) will have a ton more things to do in the castle. Like you said, I feel like the amount of work designing the castle deserved ten fold the amount of things we do within the school itself. And not just more quests and secrets, but built out systems like attending class, more characters and a better companion system, grades, more complex spell mastery, in a way that adds immersiveness and makes it feel like your character is actually a student in the school that's growing as a witch/wizard with it. I think at the core of any story set in the wizarding world is a coming of age story and these would greatly bolster that theme.

Here’s hoping the updates they just announced will address some of these issues. I’d love to see them do more with characters like Nattie, Ominis, Gareth, and Imelda. They were all so fun and interesting, I’d love to get more stories and adventures with them.