There have been dozens of Harry Potter games over the years. The movies spurred developers on to create more of them, including several tie-in games. Many of these games tend to forget about the books, drawing inspiration and sometimes inaccurate lore from the big screen adaptations. This guide explains if Hogwarts Legacy follows the same path, so you know what to expect when you play it.

Is Hogwarts Legacy inspired by the Harry Potter films or books?

The developer of Hogwarts Legacy has made it clear that everyone working on the game is a fan of the Harry Potter franchise. Therefore, the game is inspired by both the books and movies. However, from looking at all the available footage, it seems as though the game is based more on the books when it comes to everything from lore to decoration and world-building. However, many visual elements, such as the buildings that make up Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and Hogsmeade, are based on their movie counterparts.

It’s likely that the visual elements plucked from the movies have been chosen because fans are incredibly familiar with them at this point. The portraits, ghosts, and areas such as the kitchens in Hogwarts, places never explored fully in the movies, have had their visual aspects informed heavily by the books.

Finally, the elements of the game that don’t appear in the books or the main original eight movies, such as creatures from the Fantastic Beasts series, take inspiration and direction from that new source material. In short, Hogwarts Legacy is taking inspiration from a range of sources in the Harry Potter universe.