At the beginning of 2024, Warner Bros. went by itself little victory lap over the success of Hogwarts Legacy. WB Interactive Entertainment president David Hassad introduced in early January the sport had bought over 22 million copies in 2023, greater than 2 million of these within the festive interval, boasting that this made it “the best-selling sport of the yr in the whole trade worldwide.”
This isn’t a surprise. Regardless of any controversies round its creator J.Okay. Rowling, Harry Potter and the broader Wizarding World is among the many greatest media franchises on the planet, and has made extra money than issues just like the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Call of Duty. Hogwarts Legacy wasn’t the primary Potter sport, however beforehand the titles had been film tie-ins, Lego variations of similar, puzzle video games and cell titles: this was the primary standalone big-budget sport set in that universe, and an enormous viewers had been ready a very long time for such a therapy.
Success on this sort of scale makes a sequel of some kind inevitable, and WB Discovery’s CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels has now come proper out and mentioned it: in addition to giving a obscure timeframe.
“Obviously, a successor to ‘Hogwarts Legacy’ is likely one of the greatest priorities in a few years down the street,” mentioned Wiedenfels, through the Bank of America’s 2024 Media, Communications & Entertainment Conference (thanks, Variety). “So there may be actually a major development contribution from that [games] enterprise in our strategic outlook right here.”
That implication of a 2026 launch date might effectively simply be some informal language, although it could put three years between the unique and the sequel, roughly the type of schedule that WB’s extremely profitable Arkham collection ran on. That might sound a little bit tight on the AAA finish however one notable asset of this collection is within the identify: every entry needs to be set in and round Hogwarts someway, and WB Avalanche has already constructed the place.
Speaking of Arkham, Weidenfels went on to explain Rocksteady’s Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League as a “miss” for WB. One fascinating hyperlink into all of the above is that, following Suicide Squad’s poor reception, a Bloomberg report into the challenge’s growth famous {that a} chunk of Rocksteady employees have now been assigned to work on an upcoming however as-yet unannounced Howarts Legacy director’s lower. Which makes much more sense if WB Avalanche is already full steam forward on the subsequent one.
It has taken WB appreciable time to get thus far: through the heyday of the flicks, it was content material for EA to only make tie-ins underneath license. But now it appears like there’s going to be a gradual stream of Potter titles with the newest, Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions, a re-imagining of the wizarding sport starring numerous of the unique characters. There won’t ever be an eighth guide, after all: but when there was, it ought to perhaps be known as Harry Potter and the Extremely Happy Shareholders.
