Leaked in 2018, the RPG Hogwarts Legacy: Hogwarts Legacy is probably in development for five or six years now. It is therefore logical that the game has evolved over time, especially when we know that Avalanche and Warner Bros Games have surrounded themselves with studios like Sumo Digital to help them. During a PlayStation conference at the end of 2020, this highly anticipated title from the Harry Potter universe had finally officially appeared and millions of fans fell in love. With this first teaser, we could see that the game was not at its highest potential, but the announcement of its postponement to 2022 will have done it the greatest good.
From 2020 to 2022: How has Hogwarts Legacy evolved?
Without any news for two years, Hogwarts Legacy finally came out of its silence in March 2022. Sony then announced a 20-minute State of Play entirely dedicated to the game then scheduled for the end of the year on all platforms. The wait was definitely worth it since the graphic transformation is simply sensational. Below you will see some comparisons between the 2020 version (left) and the 2022 version (right). Of course, such a glow-up may seem logical, a year and a half later, but most fans did not expect such beautiful graphics. You can see it with our 100 HD images of the game.
The main changes to note are at the level of the lights and shadows in Hogwarts environments. Further details have been added (on the clothes in particular) and the faces of the characters are much more realistic.
What about FPS and system requirements?
With such graphics, one wonders if this ambitious title will run correctly on most machines or if it will absolutely be necessary to buy a next-gen console or a competition computer. If the title is well optimized, this shouldn’t be too much of a problem, but the frame rate per second could suffer. In the recent gameplay trailer we sometimes see some drops in FPS but this may very well be due to the encoding of the video and the desire of the developers to show beautiful scenery rather than 60FPS.
In short, in addition to the Nintendo Switch and PCs with aging graphics cards, Hogwarts Legacy should run smoothly on most platforms. We will have to wait until the end of the year to find out more about the minimum and recommended configurations.
The two most impactful comparisons are probably the following two with the much more detailed Hogsmeade village entrance (sign, cobblestones) and the Gryffindor common room.
Thanks to the gameplay trailer, we realize that the animations have also been greatly improved (combat, magical creatures or even dialogues between the characters). So, what do you think ? Do you think Hogwarts Legacy looks like a great next-gen game?
You all spotted Nearly Headless Nick in the gameplay trailer, right? You’ll see he has other iconic characters from the Harry Potter saga in Hogwarts Legacy: Hogwarts Legacy!