Hogwarts Legacy Isn’t the First Open-World Harry Potter Video Game: This No Man’s Sky Developer Reveals an 18-Year-Old Prototype

Game news Hogwarts Legacy Isn’t the First Open-World Harry Potter Video Game: This No Man’s Sky Developer Reveals an 18-Year-Old Prototype

Hogwarts, the place of all desires

The Harry Potter saga has not only been prolific in literature and cinema: video games have also achieved sometimes exceptional sales figures, notably thanks to the various adaptations of the feature films. In 2023, Hogwarts Legacy (whose story nevertheless turns out to be new, taking place at the end of the 19th century) has however exploded the counters with more than 22 million copies sold at the beginning of 2024. With its open world, allowing you to explore Hogwarts but also all the surrounding areas, This is the largest open world ever offered in the saga.

Because yes, it turns out that it is not the very first: It was the game Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, released in 2007, which actually offered the first open world in the series. By this we mean that it was possible to walk around the school freely without loading times, the player being able to guide himself using the Marauder’s Map. A great marketing novelty at the time, which was however not enough to charm the public and the press, collecting for example a lukewarm 11/20 in our columns.

An old prototype magically reappears

Hello Games, the studio behind No Man’s Sky and the upcoming Light No Fire, has many talented developers in its ranks. Among them is Martin Griffiths, a programmer whose engine for both titles holds no secrets for him. But before landing at the British firm, Griffiths worked for many years at EA Bright Light, the studio responsible for the game Order of the Phoenix.

“In a past life […] I worked for eight years on the game engine for the Harry Potter games”he says on X. “A formative period” since it was “the first fully real-time open-world game we’ve ever created.” Still on the social network, he likes to reveal an old prototype of The Order of the Phoenix recovered from an “old SD card”, where “you can see Harry Potter running down a corridor””. A PS3 version far from finished, as you can see below.

Fun fact: It turns out that the engine used for this game was also used for… the Quake series.“I don’t think, outside of the original Harry Potter team, it’s known that an earlier version of this engine was used to port Quake 3 to the PlayStation 2.”