While that might be true, 2023 was an year filled with great games and yet Hogwarts Legacy is first, and Call of Duty is 2nd.

As for notable games of the year that weren't flop (in no particular order):

• Spider-Man 2
• Baldur's Gate 3
• Diablo IV
• FF 16
• Armored Core 6
• Street Fighter 6
• Alan Wake 2

Not to mention:

• Resident Evil 4 Remake
• Dead Space Remake

They may not be to your taste, but they all rated very highly. I haven't included any Nintendo games, cause they don't share digital data. Their numbers are based only on physical sales.

Might pirate it.

Wait till you learn about who cracked that game.

I did. it was alright. Worth it if you want to explore hogwarts and surroundings.

Also, the erstwhile lead designer was a far right agitator.

It's not worth it, and while the transphobia is absent, the antisemitism is still there

Just... pirate it... 🦜

She is a terrible bigot, and a loud one, and that sucks because she also produced a cultural phenomenon of my childhood, and while the canon of HP is only just barely pretty okay sometimes, it spiralled out from there and SO MUCH of the media and culture I've consumed and existed within since then has been informed by it.

So yeah. If there's any comfort, let it be that any money she gets from this comes from explicitly affirming a trans woman through the work, as well as implicitly affirming any trans players through the character creation options. Small comfort maybe, but she is far away.

No.

It's extremely popular because it is a well polished Harry Potter game; something the world has been begging for for a long time. It does invoke that sense of magic that the films do so well, so if you're just looking to get a fresh hit of the Hogwarts world it's great. There are also a lot of really interesting and well designed characters. Most of all the world, particularly the castle, is beautifully and lovingly crafted.

The game buried beneath all that polish is a pretty basic-ass RPG. It is crammed with filler fetch/find quests. The dialogue system is just another exhaust all options non-system. The combat has some really cool ideas on paper but I personally ended up mostly mashing buttons against one of like 5 generic enemies most of the time. Also the only customization in this RPG is your appearance.

It's not a bad game by any means, but i wouldn't say it's great either.

I got it on sale in December and think it’s worth it. I’m not a huge HP fan by any stretch but was impressed by the mechanics, they’re fun. Though as the game opens up you start to spot the tedious shit all open worlds tend to throw in to keep you busy. I just ignore that shit.

My wife is a big Harry Potter fan but has mixed feelings about it. She described the game this morning as not great but not bad either, with great graphics, but also with an indecisiveness to it that suggests too many cooks in the kitchen.

With that said, that's just one opinion. The game seems outstandingly popular. She felt it's worth the money if you can get it on sale in her personal opinion.

It's a casual game that lets you run around the world of harry potter casting spells at people and things, solving puzzles, and wearing silly wizard clothes. If that sounds good to you then it's good.

It's a standard open world game. If that appeals to you and you love HP then perhaps.

And finally, Fallout 4 targeted gamers. It's a gamer's game, you know? It's for lore nerds and RPG fans and tacticool nuts and all the rest. HogLeg was for Harry Potter fans. It needed to drag fans across media types to secure a big enough audience.

This is... perhaps, the very formula for its success. Perhaps the gaming crowd isn't that big. Perhaps, HL was not chained to a particular demographic and instead had the freedom to appeal to a wider audience.

I know of people who picked up a controller for the first time in their life because HL was a Harry Potter game... just saying.