Hogwarts Legacy might be the biggest video game set in the Wizarding World, but it’s not as prolific as the franchise’s flagship film series, Harry Potter. If you’re looking to pick up the game as a longtime fan of the franchise, you’re probably wondering where it fits into the magical universe’s timeline.
The open-world RPG is completely separate from the movies, meaning you don’t need to have seen the films to understand the game or vice versa. It makes sense, though, why a person may want to know what year Hogwarts Legacy is set in; after all, it’s important to know the world’s context and how it stacks up to the setting you may be used to from the films. Although the Wizarding World exists independently from the reality us muggles know, technology and fashion would still influence wizards and witches who travel outside of the realm of magic. But let’s be real: You’re probably most curious to know if there are characters from the movies who appear in the game.
When does Hogwarts Legacy take place?
Hogwarts Legacy lets players enroll as a fifth-year student at Hogwarts, but it’s long before Harry Potter ever stepped foot inside the castle’s walls. That’s because the game is set in 1890 whereas the main movie franchise is set in the 1990s, meaning the video game came long before the films—over a century before Harry’s eventual rise to fame, in fact. More specifically, the Harry Potter franchise begins in 1991 with The Philosopher’s Stone (or The Sorcerer’s Stone for you U.S. version readers), when the film’s protagonist is a first-year student, and ends in 1998 with the events of The Deathly Hallows.
That means your favorite characters from the films—like Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, or Voldemort (can anyone say Voldemort is their favorite character?)—aren’t in Hogwarts Legacy, since they wouldn’t have been born when the game takes place. Voldemort, otherwise known as Tom Riddle, isn’t born until 1926, whereas Hermione and Ron weren’t born until 1979 and 1980, respectively. Harry, the youngest of the beloved trio, was only born a couple months after Ron in July 1980.
Only a couple notable figures from the movies are alive in Hogwarts Legacy, including eventual Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore and famed dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald. Although Dumbledore is alive during the 1890s, he didn’t attend the wizarding school until 1892 and wouldn’t graduate until 1899, which is why he’s not present in the game.
Both the game and the movies are all in the same universe, and developer Avalanche Software clearly wanted to include a few recognizable names for longtime fans of the franchise. There are a handful of characters from Hogwarts Legacy who were either mentioned in the movie franchise, played historical roles leading to the events of the Harry Potter, or are simply related to characters from the main series, as one lore fan pointed out on Reddit. Names like Professor Matilda Weasley and Phineas Nigellus Black may ring a bell for diehard fans, drawing ancestral connections to the Weasley family and Sirius Black.
At the time of writing, there are no plans for a sequel for the game just yet. If Avalanche Software does end up creating a second title, we hope to see more familiar faces and names that put our trivia knowledge of the Wizarding World to the test.
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