Hogwarts Legacy is delayed to 2022

Numbers first: Hogwarts Legacy was announced in September 2020, at a PlayStation 5 event, with a release planned for 2021 on PS4, PS5, PC, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S. On January 13, 2021, Warner Bros. Games used the game’s official account to announce the first delay, to 2022, explaining that the extra time would be used to deliver the best possible experience to fans of the wizarding world and to players.

The game is an action RPG in Harry Potter’s wizarding world, set a century before the books. The player controls a Hogwarts student who attends classes, learns spells and explores the castle and its surroundings while investigating an ancient secret. It is developed by Avalanche Software, a studio Warner bought in 2017; it was the studio’s first project unconnected to Disney Interactive since 2005. The game is released under the Portkey Games label.

In practice, this meant the story takes place in a period almost without known characters from the series, which gives the team freedom to create its own plot without bumping into the books.

What came next

A second delay followed, and Hogwarts Legacy came out on February 10, 2023 for PS5, PC and Xbox Series X|S. The PS4 and Xbox One versions were delayed once more and arrived on May 5, 2023; the Nintendo Switch version came out on November 14, 2023, and the Switch 2 version on June 5, 2025. The estimated budget was US$ 150 million. The launch was also marked by controversies tied to J. K. Rowling’s statements and calls for a boycott. Even so, the game sold more than 12 million copies in its first two weeks, generated US$ 850 million in that period and reached 40 million copies and US$ 1 billion in revenue. Dry joke, but true: the two-year delay didn’t hurt one bit.

Source: Warner Bros. Games.