Over the past few months, players have had ample time to discover Hogwarts Legacy and all that it offers. This, of course, also covers the scope of Hogwarts Legacy gameplay, and we all know gameplay is one of the fundamental parts of the game.
The Hogwarts Legacy gameplay has received mixed reactions from fans and critics alike. Some applaud its innovation when it comes to certain elements of the Wizarding World while others deem it unremarkable. Overall, it’s hard to create a game that will suit everyone’s tastes in the first place.
It’s for that exact reason that we bring you the full scoop on the Hogwarts Legacy gameplay. Is it innovative? Does it lead us to any new experiences? How much gameplay can I truly get out of the game? These are all questions we’ll answer in this article, so keep reading to find out more!
First Look at Hogwarts Legacy Gameplay
The Hogwarts Legacy gameplay happens in a third-person perspective and the game itself is in the RPG genre. The whole point of the gameplay is really what fans have been asking about for the past couple of years: the chance to explore Hogwarts, take classes, meet with other students, and study magic all on their own.
And we think Hogwarts Legacy delivers on this point fantastically. For what it’s worth, the gameplay is truly immersive in the sense that it sucks you into the world of witchcraft and wizardry. What we’re trying to say is that basically, every Harry Potter fan’s biggest wish has come true with the release of Hogwarts Legacy.
The game offers the typical Hogwarts student experience. Players can choose their Hogwarts house as well as attend classes where they learn to cast spells and brew potions. They can also hang out with the other students and form relationships with them. With a high enough friendship level, these students can accompany the player on their journey throughout the game.
What is Hogwarts Legacy Gameplay Beginning?
Upon selecting the New Game option, you will immediately be presented with a letter informing you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts as a fifth-year student. You get a little bit more information on your predicament before the start of your term and the game takes you to your character creation screen.
Once you’ve finished creating your character, you can select to start your journey, which throws you straight into the first cutscene of the game. In these first few minutes, you come to understand that Professor Eleazar Fig has already come to pick you up and take you to Hogwarts. On the way to the school, we also learn that starting school in the fifth year is rather unusual and, according to many, late. This gives us a little bit more backstory on the player’s character.
With a little bit more introduction to the main storyline, we are then interrupted by a sudden dragon attack. This leaves our fifth-year student in the middle of a cliffside in the Scottish Highlands along with Professor Fig. Of course, this is where the gameplay truly begins.
The Path to Hogwarts Gameplay
Upon landing in the Scottish Highlands, a small cutscene will play out before the player needs to heal. This is also where the player has their first input. You will receive a decent guide for actions like healing, looking around, moving, and fighting.
As far as the actions you’re supposed to take to finish the quest go, all you have to do is follow the objectives that should appear on the lower left side of the screen. First, you’ll have to follow Professor Fig to the ruins to explore them.
He also has you cast your first spell to destroy a magical barrier, after which you’re back to following him through the ruins. Upon exploring them, you will happen upon a private entrance to Gringotts Wizarding Bank where a few goblins will take you inside.
After encountering a statue whose reflection is only visible to the player character, your task is to activate it. Unfortunately, the statue will attack you once activated, which is where you get a taste of the fighting gameplay in Hogwarts Legacy. Once you’ve defeated all the statues, you’ll find that you’ve been separated from Professor Fig.
Once you’ve come face-to-face with a few more statues and defeated them, you should be reunited with Professor Fig once more. Here you will come across a Pensieve memory of Percival Rackham.
Moments later, you will be met with the main antagonist of the game, Ranrok. He tries to take the locket you’ve found, but you manage to escape along with Professor Fig. It’s clear that your character has a much bigger purpose than simply studying at Hogwarts, though you must get there first to learn all you can.
Well done, you’ve completed the first quest of the game and you’re ready to really start the game!
Hogwarts Legacy Gameplay Trailer
Before any game’s release, there are lots of different trailers coming out. However, one of the most important trailers is the gameplay showcase, where players get to see what the game truly looks like. Hogwarts Legacy is no different in this aspect.
Although the following video is actually a PlayStation State of Play Official Gameplay Reveal trailer, it doesn’t really make a difference. What matters is that players who haven’t bought the game yet are able to see what the gameplay looks like.
The 15-minute video features cutscenes, general gameplay aspects, and even character creation. The narrator details pretty much the entire experience you will have along with a few choice moments from the game that should only serve to hype you up more.
We even get a few snippets of the main quest line and what enemies await us in the game. If you already have your eyes on a few choice characters you’ll be focusing on, you can also catch a glimpse of them and a bit of their story here.
Perhaps the best part of the gameplay for us might be the Vivarium, where you can tame and keep magical beasts. These beasts are very useful all throughout the game. It definitely helps that you can use the Vivarium as a sort of farm considering how beautiful the scenery is.
What are the top 5 Hogwarts Legacy Quests?
While there are over 100 quests to complete in Hogwarts Legacy, we bring you five of our personal favorites. They are in no particular order.
#1: In The Shadow of The Relic
If you’ve always wanted to learn Avada Kedavra, then you need to get close to Sebastian Sallow as soon as you can. This is the seventh of nine relationship quests for the character, so you’ll have to get pretty far.
The quest has a concerned Ominis and Anne meeting you at the catacomb to help with Sebastian’s strange behavior. The quest takes a dark turn and showcases the darkest parts of Sebastian’s personality. If you use Sebastian and his knowledge of the Dark Arts as an opportunity to learn Avada Kedavra, we can hardly blame you.
#2: The Centaur and The Stone
If you’re as big of a fan of Poppy Sweeting as we are, you’re no doubt going to love this quest. It’s around halfway in her relationship questline, so you don’t have to worry about going too far if you’re not that interested.
But when you do get to the end of this quest, you’re in for a treat. In fact, you’ll get to witness one of the rarest events in the Wizarding World, the Mooncalf Dance. These cute little creatures and Poppy’s enthusiasm upon seeing their dance make this one of the most wholesome quests in the entire game.
#3: The High Keep
If, like us, you’ve always been truly fascinated with hippogriffs, The High Keep will be one of the best and most interesting quests for you. As part of the main quest, you meet with Natsai Onai and head to Falbarton Castle to retrieve a letter. Along the way, you notice that poachers had captured Highwing, a hippogriff close to Poppy Sweeting, and another unnamed hippogriff.
Upon retrieving the letter and rescuing the hippogriffs, you are rewarded with one of the best sights in the game. That means a scenic flight over the Wizarding World with the Hogwarts castle in the background and Natsai as well as the player character shouting with joy over the thrill and exhilaration of the moment.
#4: In The Shadow of The Study
Considering Sebastian Sallow’s relationship quests are the most popular in the game, it’s hard not to see why. In The Shadow of The Study is the second of nine quests you get when you befriend Sebastian. This one has everything to do with learning Crucio, also known as the Torture Curse.
In fact, the player character learns Crucio by having Sebastian cast it on them himself. This is the quest where we can truly see the implications of the Dark Arts and what it means to use these spells on another being. The quest designers have definitely done well with enunciating the gravity of the situation.
#5: Ghost of Our Love
Ghost of Our Love is a side quest in the game that gives the player some treasure as payment. As the title of the quest says, it explores a charming love story. All you have to do to trigger it is find the Map with Floating Candles.
While the quest itself isn’t too difficult to get through, it features a few interesting and challenging riddles and puzzles. The end result is worth it, though, as you end up at a romantic couple’s table and with a good story to chew on.
Is there Hogwarts Legacy fighting gameplay?
If you’re more of a visual learner, we think the video below is a pretty good representation of the Hogwarts Legacy fighting gameplay.
It’s safe to say the developers have done their best to make the combat in Hogwarts Legacy as dynamic as possible. There’s never a boring moment with so many spells to cast, items to consume, and combat abilities to master.
With an array of enemies and specific methods of defeating them all, you’ll be spending a lot of time in combat. However, the smooth animations and general flow of the combat make this an extremely satisfying task.
How many hours of gameplay will Hogwarts Legacy have?
The amount of gameplay you’ll get out of Hogwarts Legacy really depends on your playstyle.
If you’re a player who only likes to shoot through the main story without spending any time on exploring or side quests, you can expect 26 hours of gameplay. However, adding side quests to this number will give you around 43 hours of Hogwarts Legacy gameplay.
It’s important to note that the game doesn’t truly end after you finish up the main quest. It only returns you to the common room of the Hogwarts house you’ve chosen and tells you to continue any side quests you may wish to. Theoretically, this means you can spend as many as 300 hours in the game just living your best wizard life.
What is the fastest time to finish Hogwarts Legacy?
As with any game, there have been those who have attempted speedruns of Hogwarts Legacy. These categories are divided into 100%, Any%, All Quests, and Kill Ranrok. There are also separate lists based on the chosen difficulty as well as the platform the player is playing on.
For our list, we’ll only be looking at PC players who have finished the game on Story difficulty, as these are the fastest results. The following players currently hold the top three World Records in their respective categories.
Kill Ranrok:
- Lillyx3 – 3 hours 39 minutes 26 seconds
- Allineediscake – 3 hours 56 minutes 03 seconds
- Bbyblue – 4 hours 2 minutes 23 seconds
Any%:
- Lillyx3 – 7 hours 21 minutes 43 seconds
- Nixxo – 7 hours 27 minutes 7 seconds
- ComplexBeaver – 7 hours 40 minutes 45 seconds
100%:
- ComplexBeaver – 13 hours 7 minutes 30 seconds
All Quests:
- Lillyx3 – 7 hours 52 minutes 57 seconds
As we mentioned, the main story’s gameplay time is around 26 hours. Knowing this, it’s amazing that even the slowest speedrun clocks in at just over 13 hours. Still, we should mention that it is a 100% speedrun so it’s still very impressive. These players must really love Hogwarts Legacy.
How long is Hogwarts Legacy 100%?
We can’t leave out the players who love completing games to their fullest. To that end, we’ve also taken it upon ourselves to find out how long it takes to 100% complete Hogwarts Legacy.
If you want to nurture every herb, attend every class, and more, you’re looking at about 66.5 hours of gameplay. This may or may not be a grueling task for you. It all really depends on whether you’re just looking to show off in front of your friends or striving to see everything the game has to offer. Good luck!
Has anyone finished the Hogwarts Legacy game?
Considering we know what happens at the end of the game and have all these statistics, it’s safe to say lots of people have finished it.
However, that doesn’t help the fact that Hogwarts Legacy only has a 25% completion rate on Steam. Some fans defend this with the fact that most RPGs have low completion rates. However, others argue back that such an easy game should have a higher completion rate.
Hogwarts Legacy is definitely not a hard game to get through. But still, it does take some paying attention to the story. Oh, and of course, it really helps if you’re a Harry Potter fan.
Is Hogwarts Legacy worth playing?
For the average Joe, Hogwarts Legacy might not feel like too big a deal. If you think magic is cool and you’d like to try wizardry, you should give Hogwarts Legacy a go.
On the other hand, if you’re a big Harry Potter fan and you’ve been asking for this experience for years, you won’t be disappointed. In terms of making the player feel like a part of Hogwarts’s history, this game does its job extremely well.
The game has even received its fair share of patches over the past few months. The developers are working hard to polish the game and improve the experience for players even months after release. That’s always a good sign of a great game and an even better development team.
