The most anticipated video game of 2023, Hogwarts Legacy, is now available for preorder on the PlayStation 5 (Deluxe edition) and Xbox One (X/S). The visuals in the Harry Potter game are stunning, and the role-playing elements appear to be well-implemented as well.
This week marks the beginning of the academic year for all of us at the school of witchcraft and wizardry, with early admission granted to those who pay a tad more than the standard fee a few days earlier. Despite the lack of online or cooperative play, it looks like it will be a great single-player experience and could end up being the perfect Harry Potter role-playing game that fans have been hoping for.
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Time, date, and early access for the Hogwarts Legacy release
Hogwarts Legacy is not available for PC preloading or downloading (both Epic Games and Steam). Fans who pre-ordered the game on PS5 can already download the Deluxe edition, but PC users must wait until the game is released to do so. Users of the PS5 can get their hands on the Standard edition beginning February 8th. The Early Access period began on February 7 and the Standard package will be available on February 10.
On Sunday, February 5, 2023, preloading will become available on PlayStation 5. Players on Xbox Series X|S, meanwhile, have been given the go-ahead to begin preloading the game right away. Due to a lack of preloading on PC (via Steam or Epic Games Store), PC gamers will have to sit this one out. Aside from that, the Steam Deck will support the game in its entirety.
While the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch versions of Hogwarts Legacy: Deluxe Edition are out now, they will not be eligible for early access. This is because the release dates of all three versions were pushed back due to technical and optimization issues. Hogwarts Legacy is scheduled for release on April 4, 2023 for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. On June 25, 2023, Nintendo Switch owners will finally get their hands on the game.
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In what ways are you limited?
Class time at Hogwarts is where players will hone their wizarding skills and learn new spells, potions, and more. You can battle dragons and trolls, hang out in the vivarium (watch the video below), and travel to nearby attractions like the Forbidden Forest and Hogsmeade. Almost any non-playable character (NPC) you come across can be talked to and interacted with after you’ve finished creating your character and given it a unique look, gender, and magical house.
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Updates
Early Access started at 10am PT / 1pm ET, but players on PC were met with a slew of technical difficulties, the most glaring of which was the inability to launch the game on Steam. Although the game had been downloaded, the “Play” button remained disabled. A Steam restart fixed the problem for me, and I was able to launch the game on my PC (I was playing on PS5 but soon realised it was too far between me and my kids to play). There will be a race against the clock!).
Some weren’t as fortunate. Players who bought their game key from a third party, like GreenManGaming.com (where you can get a launch discount on the game), were apparently unable to play because of loading issues.
Some players have claimed that Warner Bros. Interactive’s product support team misled them into believing that the company had forgotten to activate their Early Access keys. Still, Steam and Warner Bros. had some sort of glitch, and many PC players didn’t get to play until several hours after Early Access launched.
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A lot of people were let down when they realised that playing on a PC still wasn’t very satisfying. Even though this is a fairly high-end gaming PC with an RTX 3080 GPU and AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D CPU with 32GB of RAM and a quick SSD, I experienced stuttering and framerate dips and my FPS pigeonholed when I tested ray-tracing.
Drive. However, disabling ray tracing and lowering my graphics settings from Ultra to High Ended has done the trick, and the game is now running smoothly. The visual impact is low, and I intend to gradually increase the individual settings from High to Ultra.
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FAQs
Xbox 360 Hogwarts: Legacy Preload Clock
In advance of its release, Hogwarts Legacy can be preloaded on Xbox. The Xbox One X and Xbox One S versions of the game should be available for download and installation on your console now, and even if you haven’t purchased the game yet, you can still get it right now by downloading it through the Xbox mobile app.
Xbox One Hogwarts Legacy Game Size
At launch, the Hogwarts Legacy download size on Xbox Series X is just under 80GB. The Xbox Series S variant may be noticeably smaller in size.
