What We Really Want From a Harry Potter Video Game
A little bit of the Witcher 3, a little bit of Grand Theft Auto V …and maybe even a little bit of Persona could create the perfect Harry Potter experience.
Hey, Warner Bros! It’s me, Megan!
Like most annoying millenials with too much time on their hands (read: crippling bouts of anxiety and depression caused by a socially induced sense of dread and worthlessness), I am casually obsessed with Harry Potter.
By “casually obsessed,” I mean that I am NOT someone who will:
(1) Go to a Harry Potter Convention. Is that a thing? It must be……*clickity clackity clickity clackity* Okay, I looked it up. There is and it’s called “LeakyCon”… ew.
(2) Buy robes in my House color, which is Ravenclaw by the by if that wasn’t totally obvious by my highfalutin attitude. I live in SoCal and it’s too hot for that stuff. I really…don’t know how people at Universal Studios walk around in robes and sweaters in the summer. YOU MUST SMELL SO BAD, DUDE.
(3) Buy a wand. Because they are over $60.00 if you want A SNAZZY ONE and, even if I did get one…Lord knows I’ll lose it.
However, I am obsessive enough to get overexcited with a new game, “book” (looking at you, Cursed Child) or movie/fan-film comes out.
For example, as some of you may know, I am currently playing the new mobile game “Hogwarts Mystery” and enjoying it for all the wrong reasons (goofy facial animations, suggestive dialogue, etc.) See my Instagram for the full experience.
Hogwarts Mystery is…okay? It exists. It’s a Harry Potter thing. The Guardian described as a “shameless shake-down” and that’s a fair assessment. It’s certainly NOT the immersive Harry Potter experience it was advertised to be. You’re stuck in a linear narrative no matter who you “choose” to be in the story, gameplay involves tapping on things on the screen with “energy” (which refills overtime though you can pay to refill it immediately) and there is hardly any actual MYSTERY to what is going on. It’s basically jazzed up Harry Potter fan service which, admittedly, tends to work very well on me. It’s Warner Bros. and company trying to make more money, which is all of what Harry Potter is (if we’re being real). I get it.
BUT GUESS WHAT.
I will never give in to these little “micro-transactions” you’re trying to get me to fall prey to in Hogwarts Mystery. I don’t care about advancing farther in the story because it’s not as engaging as it should be. Rowan is my in-game biffle and honestly I would hang out with her so hard in real life, but is she going to show me any more depth than “Lol I read a lot and I’m real clumsy because I’m a mixture of in-game Hermione and Ron”? Nope. I also do not care about those weird outfits you have in the shops that for some reason cost a ton of gems/coins to buy.
I will sit stubbornly sit in my ratty Ravenclaw robes and tap tap tap my way to the seventh year in Hogwarts School of PayPal and Bitchery without spending a dime. IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT, FOUL BEAST? I thought not.
SO. WARNER BROS., YOU RICH BITCH, LISTEN UP —HERE IS WHAT I WILL PAY FOR AND WHAT YOU CAN DEFINITELY AFFORD TO MAKE.
A beautiful, quirky, nostalgia-ridden role-playing game experience available on all consoles that involves you attending Hogwarts AS A NORMAL STUDENT.
That’s right — normal. I don’t need to be the Chosen One. I don’t need to be whiz-bang at all my classes. I don’t need a Big Bad after me.
I literally want a giant Hogwarts School Simulator. Yes. I will pay for this. I will play it and I will love it because I am a GIANT NERD-BUCKET WHO LOVED SCHOOL, CLASSES, BOOKS, ESSAYS AND THAT WHOLE DUST-COVERED ENCHILADA.
But here’s the deal: IF YOU ARE GOING TO DO THIS, you need to make it rich and detailed. You need to care a little bit more than giving us our own wands and a crappy Sorting Hat Ceremony. You need to give me DEPTH. You need to give him ASMR from the sounds of quills scratching against flipping parchment. This game needs to be the meticulously decorated flourless chocolate cake of the video game world.
None of this, “OH LOOK AT YOU, YOU ELEVEN YEAR OLD. Need school supplies, don’t ya, ya little nugget. Let’s spend 5 whole minutes in Diagon Alley. WEIRD, only Ollivander’s Shop is open…well guess we’d better just get than wand go to HOGWARTS.”
NO. NOOOOOO.
I want every iconic location to have items to find, NPCs to chat with and areas to explore.
In Diagon Alley, in the first introduction to the entire freaking Wizarding World, you make every shop open. You make a bunch of items available for sale (even if we can’t buy things. We can get excited about what we can afford in the future). You have NPCs walking around saying cute Harry Potter shizz.
Next, you let our asses take the Hogwarts Express. YES, WE WANT SOMETHING OFF THE TROLLEY, DEARS. Take my Galleons.
And I also want to obnoxiously drop in on people’s conversations just like Hermione does.
Most importantly though, you make the Hogwarts Castle and Grounds open to explore. This is the most important thing that has been missing from a lot of Harry Potter video games. The School itself holds enough secrets to keep players entertained, even if they aren’t the Chosen Ones destined to save the Wizarding World. I want to find secret passageways behind portraits, sneak down into the dungeons for a late night snack, walk by the lake on the grounds in BEAUTIFULLY RENDERED GRASS.
Heck, you can even let me wonder into the Forbidden Forest and get killed by centaurs. That would be frickin’ awesome. Could you imagine traipsing through the Forest as an eleven-year-old British kid when suddenly you hear the thundering of hooves in the distance?
AND THEN ARROWS FLY PAST YOUR CHARACTER. AND YOU HEAR A ROAR OF RAGE. AND THE CENTERS ARE UPON YOU.
Let me die for being an idiot. THAT MAKES IT ALL THE MORE FUN.
Let me steal a broomstick from Madam Hooch (#silverfox) and fly my way to the topmost tower, then jump off it. Let me steal mandrakes from Prof. Sprout and toss them into the Great Hall. We could have Grand Theft Auto V levels of mayhem and fun here, PEOPLE.
(Clearly a hidden part of me wants to steal from Hogwarts professors and cause inexplicable violence and despair. What an interesting discovery).
Ugh, why, Warner Bros? We would eat this up and drop dumb money all over you. Especially if it had detailed realistic graphics… but I’ll even take cell-shaded, okay? I’ll take kinda goofy polygons. I’d take an 8-bit top-down version that looks and plays like Stardew Valley, really. Just give us an open school to explore, agency and loads of rich, Rowling-esque dialogue to listen to, secrets to find and spells to learn.
“TOO MUCH WORK!” you say? “NO ONE WILL WANT THIS!”, eh?
I will. And so will my wife. AND SO WILL LITERALLY EVERY OTHER HARRY POTTER NERDICLE I TALK TO ABOUT THIS VERY SUBJECT.
Audience, what do you want to see from a Harry Potter video game? Have you played other games from the Wizarding World universe in the past? What’s your favorite (or least favorite) title? I have a special bond with Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone for PC, since it came out right around the time of the first movie, at the peak of my own personal Harry Potter Mania.
Let me know your thoughts in the comment section below or on social media! :)
