Due to the hectic nature of video game development, combined with complications brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, many of the games announced years ago during the lead up to the launch of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S consoles have not received any public updates from their developers. Games like Final Fantasy 16, Fable, and Pragmata have seen little to nothing in regard to news since their reveals in 2020, however one game to break this curse is Hogwarts Legacy. Out of nowhere, PlayStation has revealed that a State of Play presentation for Hogwarts Legacy will be held this Thursday.
Hogwarts Legacy was first leaked in 2018 by offscreen footage of a pitched Harry Potter RPG, revealing character customization options and showing players exploring dungeons and fighting monsters using spells and magic. This sparked major fan interest online, which later resulted in fans discovering that Avalanche Software is developing the title. The game was officially revealed during the PlayStation Future of Gaming Showcase in September 2020, with a planned 2021 release window. It was later revealed that the game will not be a PlayStation console exclusive.
In early 2021 however, it was revealed that Hogwarts Legacy would be delayed until 2022. This was just as reports began to circulate that Avalanche's staff's morale was at an all-time low after controversial remarks made by Harry Potter creator JK Rowling regarding the transgender community. This forced publisher Warner Bros. Interactive to double down that Rowling will have no influence over Hogwarts Legacy other than her original novels acting as the game's source material. After this, updates on Hogwarts Legacy went absolutely silent bar from a few leakers claiming that Hogwartgs Legacy was meant to be presented at events such as The Game Awards.
Now Sony has announced a new showcase centered entirely around Avalanche's upcoming Harry Potter RPG. In a post on the PlayStation Blog, WB Games Avalanche's community manager claims that the presentation will run for roughly 20 minutes, 14 minutes of which will feature gameplay of Hogwarts Legacy running on PlayStation 5 hardware. The presentation will be aired on March 17th at 2pm PT/5pm ET/ 10pm CET.
This is the first State of Play presentation to focus entirely on a single third-party game and also the first to ever focus on a non-PlayStation console exclusive, unless it's announced during the show that Sony has acquired timed-exclusivity over the game. The game will likely receive a release date announcement during the showcase as just last week WB Games announced the release date for Gotham Knights, another of its big 2022 games.
Hogwarts Legacy will release on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S in 2022.