Unlike the other games in this article, Arcana Academy is a tabletop game rather than a video game, a pen-and-paper RPG loosely styled after Powered By The Apocalypse -style productions . The developers of Arcana Academy explicitly built their games to recreate the magical academy shenanigans seen in books like **Harry Potter ** , The Magicians , and Akata Witch , letting players design their own (initially flawed) spells and centering each game's plot around a central mystery the magic student PCs need to unravel. The character creation process for the wizards and witches of Arcana Academy is similarly freeform, asking players to assign their PCs a list of personality traits, beliefs, talents, and resources they can call upon to augment their dice rolls and guide their roleplaying effo

When author J.K. Rowling first tried publishing Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone , she was rejected multiple times by editors who thought her book was too long or too offbeat for young readers to enjoy; the eventual runaway success of the Harry Potter series proved that Rowling was, in fact, onto something. Her combination of magical fantasy with the archaic boarding-school genre of literature spoke to school-going children of different ages and nationalities, who saw themselves in the shoes of the brave Harry Potter, the bookish Hermione, or the earnest Ron Weasley. To this day, Harry Potter fans still try to sort themselves (and characters from popular media) into the four houses of Hogwarts or argue over whether they'd personally get better grades in Potions or Defense Against The Dark A

The effects of the pandemic on the video game world are starting to be seen. WB Games announced that Hogwarts Legacy has been delayed to 2022 . It wasn't long after that Rider's Republic lost its release date and Elite Dangerous: Odyssey was pushed back to autumn 2021 . These are likely just the first of many games that will be pushed out of their release dates in 2

Witchbrook is a colorful RPG/life simulator currently under development by Chucklefish Games, the makers of Stardew Valley and Starbound. Like many of its previous games, Witchbound is an isometric RPG where players manage the life of an aspiring witch attending classes at a magic academy. From all accounts, there will be a huge emphasis on the main character taking part in fun, light-hearted activities, such as fishing, crop-growing, spell mastery, and forging relationships with the friendly faces in both the academy and the nearby t

The Harry Potter franchise has already taken its share of blowback after controversial opinions made public by its author, but now one of the games based on the series, Hogwarts Legacy , _ may be subjected to the same fate, after it has been revealed that the game's lead designer has a long-standing legacy of anti-social justice views. His YouTube channel, in which he posted videos criticizing feminism and social justice while praising cultural appropriation, was recently highlighted on Twitter, and now may be shifting consumer opinions on whether to pick up a copy of _Legacy when it releases in 20

To try claw back some good press, developers at Avalanche leaked internal plans to allow players to play as a transgender character . Clearly, the developers inside Avalanche were embarrassed and upset that the actions of Leavitt and Rowling were jeopardising the game they’re creating. It’s hard not to feel bad for t

The fantasy RPG Ikenfell takes the "magic school" premise of Harry Potter and applies it to the turn-based gameplay of classic Final Fantasy games (with a dash of Undertale thrown in). The plot revolves around Maritte, a once-ordinary girl whose magical powers awaken when she visits the magical academy of Ikenfell in search of her missing prodigy sister, Safina. As players gather companions and explore the towers and courtyards of Ikenfell, they must master a timing-based combat system focused around the casting of sigil-based spe

Editor’s Note: Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling has been accused of transphobia by those in the LGBTQ+ community. Although not directly involved in the development of Hogwarts Legacy, Rowling does stand to earn royalties from the game. 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 transpho

Neither the WB nor Leavitt have made comments about the revelations at the time of this writing, but considering the amount of backlash the game has already received for being strongly associated with someone with controversial views , it's reasonable to expect that another wave will be coming in light of the revelations. This is particularly true considering that WB Games was already aware of Leavitt's YouTube channel when he was hired on with their subsidiary, Avalanche Studios, in 2018, as Leavitt himself explai

The promised backlash has already begun since the information about Leavitt's history came to light on Friday, with fans already expressing concern about his involvement with Hogwarts Legacy patch notes|https://hogwartslegacyfans.Com/ Legacy on gaming forums, but all of that is to be expected. What's most interesting about the story as it stands is that WB Games knew that Leavitt had a history of controversial views and decided to hire him anyway, in the full knowledge that the Harry Potter fanbase is particularly sensitive to this sort of controversy in the wake of Rowling's transphobia . It seems to be a case of what Admiral Grace Hopper, pioneering computer scientist and one of the most influential women in history, once said: " It's easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permissio