Unfortunately for players hoping for multiplayer, Hogwarts Legacy will be a single-player experience and will not feature any social content. Originally announced in September 2020 and delayed multiple times since, Hogwarts Legacy is set to let players explore the famous wizarding school from the Harry Potter series in a completely new single-player experience taking place hundreds of years before the events of the books they are based on.
Choosing to focus on a tightly-crafted single-player game experience isn’t necessarily a bad thing. God of War Ragnarök, another single-player game with roleplaying elements, had plenty of action-adventure charm to make it one of the standout game releases of 2022. There is still room for video games to balk multiplayer game modes in favor of truly unique single-player stories.
If the most recent Hogwarts Legacy gameplay footage (above) is to be believed, this is Avalanche Software’s main focus, and the reason why Hogwarts Legacy isn’t multiplayer is so the developers can craft the most expansive single-player campaign they can.
According to the official Hogwarts Legacy FAQ page, “Hogwarts Legacy is a single player experience and does not have online or co-op gameplay.” The page, however, also highlights many of the features that the game will include, such as house sorting, broom and beast flight, and (almost as importantly) Hogwarts Legacy’s lack of microtransactions or other in-game purchases. These features lend increasing credibility to Hogwarts Legacy as the next great venture into the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.
Though Hogwarts Legacy players will not be able to play cooperatively or face each other in duels, the game has plenty to offer for Harry Potter book readers and movie enjoyers. Players will be able to experience Hogwarts milestones of their own, such as taking potion classes, making friends and companions, and battling against Dark Wizards using a bevy of learned spells. The plot of Hogwarts Legacy has been kept mostly under wraps, but players may also be able to attend classes the Harry Potter books and films skipped, such as Arithmancy, Study of Ancient Runes, and even Muggle Studies.
While there will be no multiplayer in Hogwarts Legacy at launch, the game’s developers have avoided outright stating that multiplayer is an impossibility. In a recent interview with PressStart, Technical Game Designer Stephen Dona was asked about the possibility of multiplayer in Hogwarts Legacy’s future and responded:
Does that mean Hogwarts Legacy will definitely get multiplayer content at some point? No, absolutely not. It does mean that the door isn’t completely closed on a multiplayer Harry Potter game later on, though, and with the first release date of Hogwarts Legacy right around the corner, players may learn more about the game’s future content plans sooner rather than later.
Sources: Hogwarts Legacy, PressStart
