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Forbes
Forbes
Technology
Paul Tassi, Contributor

Why Is Sony Doing A ‘Hogwarts Legacy’ State Of Play?

Hogwarts Legacy WB

Yesterday, Sony announced that this week, on Thursday March 17 at 2 PM PT, there will be a new State of Play solely dedicated to the gameplay reveal of Hogwarts Legacy, the upcoming Harry Potter game. There will be 14 minutes of gameplay shown on the PS5, in addition to other info.

If you’re like me, I wasn’t quite sure I understood why Sony would give Hogwart’s Legacy its own State of Play. The answer appears to be this is just a really, really big marketing deal that WB has with Sony for the game. The Hogwarts Legacy trailer that debuted in September 2020 on the PlayStation channel has 28 million viewers, and presumably the idea is that there will be a big turnout for this reveal.

But to be clear this is not a PlayStation exclusive game. Hogwarts Legacy will be released on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and PC. It does not appear to be a timed exclusive so far as we know either, though we do not have a fixed release date after the game was delayed into 2022. Though we will probably get one during that showcase.

While Sony often features “partner” third party games in its State of Play streams, it is pretty unusual for them to have a 20 minute reveal dedicated soley to a third party game that is not part of some kind of exclusive deal. I do wonder if time exclusivity could be announced for Hogwarts Legacy, or some other kind of Sony-specific content (Ravenclaw House is a Sony exclusive, jk jk).

Hogwarts Legacy is published by WB’s Portkey Games, something they invented specifically to publish Harry Potter world games. It’s developed by Avalanche Software, which is not to be confused with Avalanche Studios, maker of the Just Cause games. Avalanche Software was a defunct developer that WB bough and brought back to life. They are best known for their Disney Infinity series of game that they made before Disney exited the games business altogether and just started licensing out their properties instead. This seems like a…fairly big title for the developer, but we’ll see how it goes.

Where there is Harry Potter these days, there is controversy, as JK Rowling has been in the news non-stop for the last few years for an increasingly bizarre stream of anti-trans comments that has effectively made her the global poster child for anti-trans beliefs. This has led to a wide range of actions trying to divorce Harry Potter as a property from Rowling, ranging from Daniel Radcliffe apologizing to fans for how they felt after the creators’ remarks, to there being an FAQ question for Hogwarts Legacy that reads:

Q: What is J.K. Rowling’s involvement with the game? Is this a new story from J.K. Rowling?

A: J.K. Rowling is not directly involved in the creation of the game, however, her extraordinary body of writing is the foundation of all projects in the Wizarding World. This is not a new story from J.K. Rowling.

But while JK Rowling did not write the story of this game, she will likely earn money from it, given that she has not pulled a George Lucas and sold off the Harry Potter license completely, as much as I’m sure WB would love that at this point. Rowling continues to be in the news practically every other day for some new tweet about trans issues, and it’s led many to swear off Harry Potter as a property overall, while others are able to mentally separate the creator from the work, especially in cases where she’s not the one writing the script. But we’ll see what impact that could have on Hogwarts Legacy.

Really, what will matter the most for the game’s fate is if it’s…good. Again, Avalanche does not seem to have a ton of experience with a project this large and highly anticipated, but we’ll see if they’re up to the challenge.

As for the game’s relationship with Sony, we’ll have to see if that extends beyond a truly expansive marketing deal, and what else PlayStation may be getting out of the partnership.

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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.

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