Is it Worth Playing Hogwarts Legacy Without Watching the Movies? – Answered

Find out if you have to sit through eight movies and seven books before playing

Madison Benson

Published: Feb 8, 2023 11:36 am

Many people worldwide are curious about whether Hogwarts Legacy is worth playing. While factors like price and performance influence this, another point to note is its connection to the Harry Potter universe. Some of us may wonder if we’re required to read the books or fly through the movies to understand and appreciate what’s going on, or if you can hop in-game right now and not worry about any of that. If you’re interested in learning more, continue reading to discover whether it’s worth playing Hogwarts Legacy without watching the movies or reading the books.

Is it Worth Playing Hogwarts Legacy Without Watching the Movies or Reading the Books?

Hogwarts Legacy’s story takes place during the 1800s, which is over a century before the events of Harry Potter. With this in mind, most of the characters you’d meet in the Harry Potter movies and books won’t appear in the game, aside from a few ghosts and some loose references.

Is it worth playing Hogwarts Legacy with this in mind? Well, it depends on how much you care about lore, honestly.

Hogwarts Legacy does a lot to explain what is happening in the world around you. You’ll learn about the Wizarding World pretty quickly without much issue between character interactions, collectables, and other world-building factors. Since there are almost no characters from Harry Potter in the game, you also don’t have to worry about not recognizing anyone. After all, even people who have read the books or watched the movies won’t know most of them.

With this in mind, though, Harry Potter references past events, including the Goblin Rebellions, old students and magical spells. By living through that time in Hogwarts Legacy, we can pick up on these references and think, “Oh, I remember them mentioning that!”

Another point to consider is the characters we meet in Hogwarts Legacy. While we don’t see Harry Potter, Ron Weasley or other major people, we do meet some of their ancestors. For example, the deputy headmaster of the Hogwarts School of Wizardry is Matilda Weasley, who we can safely assume is Ron’s ancestor. Moments like this also spark thoughts like, “Wait, she is related to Ron?”

Generally speaking, you don’t have to watch the movies or read the books to understand what is going on in Hogwarts Legacy. The events in Harry Potter have few direct connections since they took place 100 years after the game. You can still enjoy Hogwarts Legacy without this prior knowledge, but you may miss out on recognizing those subtle references. If you want to experience this, though, checking out the movies or reading a few books will help there.

Hogwarts Legacy is available on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch through the official website. If you’re interested in learning more about the game, check out How to Fix Hogwarts Legacy Twitch Drops Not Working and How to Use Floo Powder in Hogwarts Legacy.

Hogwarts Legacy

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Author

Madison Benson

Madison was a staff writer at Prima Games who has played video games for over twenty years and written about them for over two years. Her love for video games started with turn-based strategy games like Heroes of Might and Magic and has since extended to casual farming sims, MMORPGs, and action-adventure RPGs.