Hogwarts Legacy – Explaining the Ending and How it Sets up the Future

Hogwarts Legacy is finally available on Xbox Series X/S, PS5 and PC, after launching early for Digital Deluxe Edition owners on February 7th. Spoilers have also begun to circulate about the ending, but what exactly is going on?

Based on official information, the story is about you, the player character, who is on the way to entering the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry as a fifth-year student. It’s a strange enough occurrence but even stranger is when you’re ambushed en route. With the help of mentor/friend Professor Eleazar Fig, you escape and discover that you can manipulate powerful ancient magic.

Eventually, you learn about Victor Rookwood of the Dark Wizards and Ranrok of the Goblin rebellion. They’ve allied under uneasy circumstances and are both interested in your power for unknown reasons. Spoilers now follow, so beware if you haven’t finished the game.

As it turns out, you’re not the first to wield this ancient magic, but the third. The first was Percival Rackham, a member of the Keepers – a group of Hogwarts Professors who have passed away but can still be interacted with because talking paintings are a thing. They’re found in the Map Chamber, a vault in Hogwarts.

The second to wield it was Isidora Morganach, whose village was saved by the Keepers when suffering a drought. Unlike Percival, Isidora used her powers to take away the pain of those around her, first from her father, and then her students after becoming Hogwarts’ Defense Against the Dark Arts professor.

The Keepers didn’t approve, but only really intervened when she started imbibing the extracted pain for herself. They fight in an underground chamber, which also serves as a repository for the magic. Isidora dies, along with the Keeper Niamh Fitzgerald. While the Keepers swore to keep the ancient magic a secret, fearing the consequences should it be unleashed, this isn’t the only repository.

As it turns out, there are several repositories, one located under the family estate of Victor Rookwood (a descendant of Charles, one of the Keepers). Ranrok teams with him to harness the magic and overthrow the Wizard regime, which has oppressed Goblins for a long time. While Rookwood is allied with him, he has his agenda, which he can’t fulfill since you straight-up kill him after a duel.

The finale occurs in the last repository, with the player and Professor Fig rushing to stop Ranrok from harvesting the magic. After fighting past several enemies with the help of other professors, you enter the last chamber, and it’s here that a choice emerges.

You can either choose to contain the ancient magic in the repository and keep it a secret forever or open it, claiming that you’ll avoid Isidora’s mistakes and help the world (cue laugh soundtrack). Depending on the choice, you’ll defeat Ranrok and either seal the magic with Fig’s help or absorb it, with your eyes glowing red temporarily to indicate this was the evil choice. Either way, Fig dies, and no amount of choices or side quests will change that outcome.

Cut to an epilogue where Hogwarts’ headmaster Phineas Nigellus Black gives a eulogy on Fig. The player meets Sebastian Sallow afterwards and reveals that Rookwood, not the goblins, cursed his sister Anne. Sebastian’s outlook on them is changed somewhat and…that’s about it. Forget your sealing away of the ancient magic, but that hint of turning evil in the second ending feels more like you’re pausing things. You’re then free to complete side quests and mop up any remaining content.

Other than that, completing all 100 side quests and hitting level 34 will provide an extra scene where your house wins the House Cup. Your house choice doesn’t matter – a winner is you, regardless.

There’s a fair amount to unpack about the story, but the real question is where things go from here. Rookwood is defeated pretty easily, but the Goblin rebellion hasn’t been quashed, per se, despite Ranrok’s defeat. You would think there to be a summary examination of why the rebellion happened, and perhaps the Wizarding world reflects on its mistakes, doing its best to reform. But unfortunately, there’s no hint of that (which makes sense given the events in the books).

The real story is what the player does or doesn’t do with their “ancient” power. It’s never really identified, nor is there any reason given for why you, Percival and Isidora all entered Hogwarts as fifth-year students. How did the repository even turn Ranrok into a dragon? That last part is a lingering question; others feel more like unresolved threads.

While the first ending seems like a way to explain why this particular ancient magic never pops up in the Harry Potter or Fantastic Beasts books and films, both seemingly hint at a sequel. They could indicate a potential scenario with a more developed morality system, instead of you hurling unforgivable curses left and right with no consequences while doing your best Voldemort impersonation.

After all, the framework for Hogwarts and its surrounding regions is already in place. Portkey Games and Avalanche Software could fill it with new stories, characters, and quests while introducing new, smaller regions, and changes to the current environments (not unlike how Yakuza usually handles sequels). It would still take time to develop, but perhaps far less than making a brand-new game from the ground up.

Perhaps leveraging existing assets and systems would allow for fully realized good and evil paths. Maybe each could have dedicated spells, with some overlapping options and just a wider choice of magic overall. There could even be different joinable factions with their respective quests, characters and branching decisions. It would certainly help fulfill several Wizarding fantasies.

Predicting the story is a lot tougher because it’s just as possible for all these plot threads to go nowhere. It would probably make sense to have the player character live out the rest of their years, but to what end? Would a school system akin to Persona, the addition of Quidditch, and other activities opening up be the end-game? Fans will love it, but one has to wonder if the developers have loftier ambitions.

A lot of this also falls on Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. It may very well commission an expansion to answer some remaining questions while posting new ones to cash in on the current game’s popularity. Meanwhile, a sequel could also be in the works for release in two to three years, providing a new story, and then repeating the cycle.

Not the worst business model, for sure, as long as Wizarding World products remain popular, but perhaps the publisher will try for a live-service online game as the sequel. That way, it could be constantly updated and monetized for years. As always, time will tell, but it’s not completely impossible and would rake in cash.

Regardless, the crisis at Hogwarts is averted, and though things look dire, players don’t become the predecessor of Voldemort or Dumbledore (or really any of the major characters from the books). For now, of course.

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