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Return To Hogwarts With A New Look At The Harry Potter Mobile RPG
With the Harry Potter license going strong with its Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them film spin-offs, Warner Bros. is keeping the Hogwarts Express train going with an upcoming mobile RPG called Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery on April 25.
Set before the boy who lived and his time at the magic school, players will assume their own character and carve out their own niche by attending classes and learning new spells and skills. These can then be used to level up with role-playing systems to explore the grounds of the ancient school. After being put into one of the four houses, you'll also be able to forge connections and rivalries, which will impact your character's story arc and the quests he or she goes on.
A neat component of the game is how some of the Hogwarts' faculty are returning. Actors and actresses such as Dame Maggie Smith (Prof. McGonagall) and Michael Gambon (Dumbledore) will be voicing their characters. "Our goal with Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery is to make players really feel for the first time like they’re attending Hogwarts,” said Chris DeWolfe, who's the co-founder and CEO of developer Jam City. “By including these iconic and incredibly talented actors in the game, we come one step closer to truly giving fans their own Hogwarts experience.”
Our Take
For a mobile game, Hogwarts Mystery doesn't look half bad, but with so many elements to juggle, it might skimp with surface-level depth to the point where quests and missions get repetitive quickly. It's too early to judge, of course, but the lengths Jam City are going to is impressive nonetheless. I'm curious to see if it will add anything noteworthy to the backstory of Hogwarts and make allusions to Voldemort, Harry's parents, etc.
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