Summary

  • A leaked image suggests a new LEGO Harry Potter game is in the works, but recent LEGO game releases raise concerns about potential disappointment.
  • The most recent LEGO Star Wars game, despite its impressive scope, lacked meaningful gameplay and focused too much on open-world puzzling and collecting, suggesting a similar fate for the new LEGO Harry Potter game.
  • The leaked game would likely follow an open-world format, but the repetitive tasks and lack of substance found in other open-world games, such as Hogwarts Legacy, indicate that the LEGO Harry Potter game may also lack depth and innovation.

A new LEGO Harry Potter game seems to have leaked, but there's a strong chance it takes the series in an undesirable direction. This would be the first brand-new LEGO Harry Potter in over a decade, with the latest being LEGO Harry Potter: Years 5–7, initially released in 2011 (and remastered as part of the LEGO Harry Potter Collection alongside Years 1–4 as recently as 2018). Although a new, plastic brick-laden spin on the saga of The Boy Who Lived has quite a lot of potential, recent LEGO game releases bring the possibility of a disappointing experience.

The most recent outing from developer Traveller's Tales, the studio behind the LEGO games, is LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga. Perhaps the LEGO series' most ambitious title to date, LEGO Skywalker Saga disappointed by ultimately delivering a rather hollow jaunt through the galaxy far, far away, despite its impressive scope. Details on the leaked LEGO Harry Potter game are practically non-existent, but a reversion to the series' classic formula seems unlikely. Instead, a new LEGO Harry Potter feels destined to become another vapid collect-a-thon which shirks the series' strengths for a marketable open world.

New LEGO Harry Potter Will Probably Be Open-World

LEGO Minifigures of Hermione Granger and Harry Potter hold glittering wands above their heads. They're standing next to Ron Weasley, who has his rat, Scabbers, on top of his head, hiding from Hermione's cat, Crookshanks, sho is clawing at Ron trying to get to the rat. Rubeus Hagrid and Hogwarts can be seen in the background.

According to VGC, an image showing a LEGO Minifigure of Harry Potter appeared briefly – before being deleted – on the Warner Bros. South Africa Instagram account, bearing a date: August 25, 2023. This was presumably a teaser image, priming LEGO and Harry Potter fans alike for an announcement of a new game. While a return to the wizarding world in a new LEGO Harry Potter game is enticing, the tiresome gameplay of LEGO Skywalker Saga alone is enough to put a damper on the excitement.

LEGO Skywalker Saga's recreation of every major setting in the nine-film epic is admittedly impressive, but its scale came at the expense of meaningful gameplay – an issue not even the return of Mumble Mode could remedy. Main missions became short, incredibly linear segments that ultimately feel like bare-bones vehicles to drive the plot forward in the interest of returning players to its open hub areas. While LEGO Skywalker Saga's re-telling of the Star Wars story is endearing, the slapstick parody the LEGO games are known for takes a back seat in favor of repetitive platforming, puzzle-solving, and collecting.

With the leaked LEGO Harry Potter presumably taking a similar approach to the seven-novel, eight-film series, the same missteps are bound to resurface. A plot spanning seven years of Harry Potter's struggle against Lord Voldemort is simply too much to adapt into engaging gameplay. Instead, Harry's early years at Hogwarts and the events of the Second Wizarding War will likely feel tacked onto an expansive world filled with mindless tasks, freely explorable through a great number of characters that offer little more than fan service.

Hogwarts Legacy Proves The Leaked LEGO Harry Potter Is A Bad Idea

A wintery shot of Hogwarts in Hogwarts Legacy on the left, and a character riding a Hippogriff during the fall on the right.

The leaked LEGO Harry Potter game would be coming on the heels of Hogwarts Legacy, a wizarding world game which demonstrates the folly of adapting the eponymous castle and its grounds to another open world. Although the two are quite different, Hogwarts Legacy suffers many of the same issues as LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga. The lovingly and beautifully crafted castle is filled to the brim with repetitive tasks, and its halls and classrooms are only a fraction of Hogwarts Legacy's sizable map, which litters the surrounding Scottish highlands with near-identical puzzles and one-note combat encounters.

Hogwarts Legacy's saving grace is perhaps its story; while not exceptional, it's at least novel, and it is – despite the game's bloat – given plenty of room to develop. Unless Traveller's Tales has significantly re-evaluated its approach to LEGO game development since the release of Skywalker Saga, the leaked LEGO Harry Potter may have disappointingly little substance. Although the leaked LEGO Harry Potter game has some inherent potential, all signs point to it quickly re-treading a well-worn story, primarily subjecting players to an uninspired, open-world collect-a-thon.

Source: VGC

Editor’s Note: Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling has been accused of transphobia by those in the LGBTQ+ community. Although likely not directly involved in the development of the rumored LEGO Harry Potter game, Rowling does stand to earn royalties from it. We would like to reiterate our support for trans rights and that trans identities are valid. Support services are listed below for trans people impacted by discussions of transphobia.

In the USA:

In Canada:

In the UK: