Avalanche Software has delivered a great RPG in the form of Hogwarts Legacy, and the game has been topping news headlines and sales charts consistently since its release last month. Hogwarts Legacy is a love letter to fans of the Wizarding World, and the game does a great job of crafting a compelling world to explore that’s brimming with all sorts of mysteries to uncover and friendships to make. The combat does a great job of making you feel like a master sorcerer as you chain different spells and combos to make short work of anything and everything that stands in your way. All in all, it’s easily one of the biggest hits of the year – but that’s only half the battle won for the game.
As it stands, Hogwarts Legacy is only available for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC which means that the game is yet to be released for PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch. Initially, the developer planned to release all versions of the game simultaneously but those plans were scrapped and last gen versions were initially pushed to April 2023 instead. As of now, these versions have once again been pushed to May, but we are confident that Hogwarts Legacy on PS4 and Xbox One platforms could be a much bigger deal than anyone would have anticipated – and there’s plenty of reasons as to why that’s the case.
As mentioned previously, Hogwarts Legacy has become a sales behemoth in a very short time. It was recently reported that Hogwarts Legacy’s launch week sales were almost double of what Elden Ring did in its launch week, and that the game is en route to crossing Elden Ring’s lifetime sales. Taking this information at face value, Hogwarts Legacy has already sold around 20 million units in just about a month.
However, it’s also important to consider that these sales figures are talking about an install base of around 40 to 50 million current gen console owners and PCs. For context, the PS4 has an install base of well over 117 million at this point and Xbox One has an estimated install base of over 51 million. So, it’s fair to assume that a good chunk of those users would be fans of the Wizarding World and thus, would be interested in getting Hogwarts Legacy for that particular system when it launches later this year.
While the delay in delivering a last gen console version of Hogwarts Legacy may have been seen as a negative by many, it could end up being one of the better decisions from the developer in the long term instead. You see, trying to juggle different versions of the same game for hardware that varies wildly in terms of horsepower can take a toll on the development team as a whole – so focusing on one version at a time is best for both parties in the long term. For instance, Cyberpunk 2077 released simultaneously on all platforms, and we all know how badly it struggles on last gen systems even with all the updates and patches that were released in the months following the release.
With Avalanche Software having a good amount of time to polish the game for the older platforms, fans can be confident that most if not all of the issues will be ironed out in the final release and what we can get is the best possible version for the particular system. Sure, it’s almost foolish to expect these versions to have the same level of graphical fidelity or the snappy load times as the current gen versions – but we can at least hope that it ends up being a technically stable release of the same game without any unreasonable setbacks to the core experience.
Another strong factor as to why Hogwarts Legacy on PS4 and Xbox One will be a big deal has to do with the public reception to the game. When Hogwarts Legacy released for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X and S consoles – there was an air of cautious skepticism for the game along with all the excitement that comes along with a AAA release of such a scale. Despite the many promising signs and gameplay showings prior to release, Hogwarts Legacy needed to prove itself that it would deliver on the many lofty promises it made with its marketing and hype.
And the jury can only be out when the game is in the hands of the players themselves, and with a shining user Metacritic score of 80+ on all three platforms – it’s clear that fans have approved of the product. As such, a lot of that skepticism can get discounted when it comes to the release of Hogwarts Legacy on PS4 and Xbox One. Fans know exactly what the game is, and what to expect from this release – so a lot of the ambiguity that comes with such a purchase is eliminated which should theoretically further the sales for these versions by a significant margin.
Avalanche Software has also made some rather smart decisions when it comes to post launch support for Hogwarts Legacy. The developer has stated that any potential DLCs and expansions could be announced after the last gen versions of the game have been released, which has been done with an intention so as to not shortchange anyone who don’t have access to the game. While the decision to withhold any information on the DLC could be purely driven by the aforementioned reasons, it could also double as a clever move for generating more interest for these releases.
Announcing additional content for a game like Hogwarts Legacy is sure to reignite interest within the game after the launch hype has slowed down, and doing so at a time when new versions of the game are coming out will surely nudge new players to jump aboard the hype train with hopes of playing the base game before the DLC eventually drops in the near future.
All of this comes together to paint a very promising picture for Hogwarts Legacy on PS4 and Xbox One. All that Avalanche Software needs to do now is to deliver the same experience without any unreasonable compromises on these legacy platforms. While I am no game development expert, this shouldn’t be a big ordeal since Unreal Engine 4 is known for being a pretty flexible tool that scales well across different platforms. And if the developers manage to do just that and more, the launch of Hogwarts Legacy on PS4 and Xbox One is sure to be more eventful than what many might have anticipated.
Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.
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