Summary
Hogwarts Legacyis hands down the definitiveHarry Pottergaming experience. With a beautifully crafted version of Hogwarts, Hogsmeade, and surrounding world, there has never been a better chance to visit and explore beloved locales from the books and movies. While the game is heavily inspired by the movies visually, its depiction of Hogwarts has some unique flair. Part of the reason for this is that the game is set approximately 100 years before theHarry Potterfilms. It makes sense that even cherished locations like the Gryffindor dorms and common room might be a bit different inHogwarts Legacythan fans remember.
Hogwarts has four housesthat students are sorted into, each one associated with its own qualities. These four houses are Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin. Gryffindor is associated with bravery, chivalrousness and camaraderie. In theHarry Potterbooks and films, Harry and his best friends, Ron and Hermione, are all in Gryffindor. This means it’s the house that viewers of the films get to see the most of. Because of fan’s familiarity with Gryffindor’s common room and dorms, it is perhaps the house that had the highest expectations for developers to meet in crafting the world ofHogwarts Legacy.
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How Is Gryffindor Presented In The Films?
In theHarry Potterfilms, Gryffindor’s house space is presented as relatively quaint. It is, in many ways, what one might expect from a dated British castle. There is a fireplace and the room is filled with plenty of seating. A chandelier hangs from the ceiling and tapestries from the wall. The tapestries are adorned with red coloring and artwork of famousGryffindor historical figureshang from them. The carpet is red and blue and, like the tapestries, brings a sense of coziness to the otherwise cold stone architecture. The room is vaguely oval in shape, and notably quite small. The common room is cozy and feels lived in.
The entrance to the common room is a small rectangular gateway. The exit on the other side of the room leads to a tower with the dorm rooms. These dorm rooms are circular with the beds on the outside facing inwards and each students' chest placed in front of the bed. Like the common room, they are designed for communal living rather than privacy. Both of these spaces could best be described as cozy yet refined. Given that some ofGryffindor’s traitsare camaraderie and teamwork, this space feels a fitting place to foster that.
How Does Hogwarts Legacy Present Gryffindor?
Hogwarts Legacylargely retains the qualities attributed to these spaces in the films. The biggest difference is the sense of scale. Gryffindor’s common room in the movies is small and crammed. While the density of furniture and artifacts in the game is more or less the same, the space is larger. There is also more natural light, and the oval main room has some offshoots attached, meaningGryffindor’s common room has plenty of cool Easter eggshidden in it. When climbing the dorm room tower, there are little sitting spaces with balconies looking over the common room. Overall, for a school the size of Hogwarts, the common rooms in the game feel a lot more realistic in their ability to comfortably contain all members of the house.
Gryffindor’s dorm rooms inHogwarts Legacy,while also being a bit larger, are extremely faithful to the movies. While the common room is less immediately recognizable, the dorm rooms are spot on. In spite of the differences from theHarry Pottermovies,Hogwarts Legacypresents a more believable version of the common space. While the smaller and cozier vibe of the common room fit many of the scenes in the film well, which revolve around the small core cast, the game’s presentation of the same rooms works better for the larger scale of the experience, and is more believable. The changes to the Gryffindor house spaces constitute a strong example of adaptation done right.
Hogwarts Legacyis available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S, with a Switch version releasing November 14.
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