WB Games assures fans that J.K. Rowling isn’t involved with new Harry Potter game

Hogwarts Legacy looks like a dream video game for Harry Potter fans, but with everything happening with J.K. Rowling lately, there’s also concern. WB Games confirms a few things:

Earlier this week, Warner Bros. Games pulled back the curtain on a new Harry Potter video game: Hogwarts Legacy, a single-player open-world experience that puts you in the shoes of a Hogwarts students in the late 1800s, able to make choices, cast spells, and go on “a dangerous journey to uncover a hidden truth of the wizarding world.”

The game will be available on PlayStation and Xbox consoles, plus PC, in 2021. Frankly, it looks really great: I’m sure there are tons of Harry Potter fans out there who would love to visit this beautiful, highly interactive version of Hogwarts and go on an adventure.

The problem is that anything involving Harry Potter is a little radioactive right now, thanks to creator J.K. Rowling being seemingly unable to stop laying out her regressive opinions about trans people. If you’re just joining us on this train to hell, things started a few months ago with some questionable tweets, graduated to a full-on fear-mongering manifesto, and flared up again when it was discovered that Rowling’s latest book Troubled Blood, which she writes under a male pseudonym, is about a cis male serial killer who dresses up like a woman to kill cis women, which peddles in some backwards tropes roundly disproven.

It’s touchy right now, to the point where the develops who made the game have admitted to being “uncomfortable” with everything that’s going on. Now, if you don’t care about this stuff and just want to play the game, then that’s probably what you’ll do. If you do care, WB Games confirmed in an FAQ about Hogwarts Legacy that, at the least, Rowling it’s directly involved with it:

"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 of course, if you’re concerned about Rowling choosing to use her vast influence to demonize a marginalized community, it’s probably not as simple as saying it’s okay to play the game because she’s not involved. Rowling may not have had a hand in making Hogwarts Legacy, but she will profit from it, either directly or because it will help keep the Wizarding World popular. So it’s tricky.

Every time I write about this I hope it’s the last time, and it never seems to be. There are bookstores now declining to stock Troubled Blood in order to create a “safer space” for customers, and possibly taking aim at the Harry Potter series next. When someone as hugely rich and famous as Rowling uses their platform like this, it creates waves all over the world, so I don’t think we’re at the end of it.

So…see you next time.

To stay up to date on everything fantasy, science fiction, and WiC, follow our all-encompassing Facebook page and sign up for our exclusive newsletter.

Get HBO, Starz, Showtime and MORE for FREE with a no-risk, 7-day free trial of Amazon Channels