Hogwarts Legacy appears to be doing extremely well despite the controversy surrounding Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling and the fact that the game hasn’t officially released yet. According to figures derived from SteamDB, a resource that charts the activity and popularity of Steam titles, Avalanche Software’s new action RPG set in the Wizarding World universe is off to a very nice start, having drawn as many as 489,139 players since its early access release. That number would make Hogwarts Legacy the second-highest player peak for any paid single-player game in the history of Valve’s platform, as noted in a tweet by Benji-Sales, a regular reporter of game industry sales data and more. Hogwarts Legacy is available to play now as part of the game’s Deluxe Edition, which costs $69.99.
From an Entertainment Weekly report:
The wizarding world of Harry Potter has introduced its first transgender character in the midst of on-going controversies around author J.K. Rowling’s statements about trans people.
Hogwarts Legacy, the hotly anticipated open-world role-playing game set in the world of Harry Potter, features a character called Sirona Ryan, a witch that serves as the owner of the Three Broomsticks in Hogsmeade village.
The player interacts with Sirona while on a mission involving a goblin named Lodgok. While it’s not explicitly stated that the character is trans in the context of the game, Sirona offers a line of dialogue that’s highly suggestive.
“I’ve known [Lodgok] for years. We met when I was waiting tables here as a student — well before I bought the place,” Sirona says. “He was cordial enough, but we weren’t friends then. His mistrust of wizardkind ran deep… Hadn’t seen him in years when he came in a few months ago. But, he recognized me instantly. Which is more than I can say for some of my own classmates. Took them a second to realize I was actually a witch, not a wizard.”
Hogwarts Legacy Early Access has passed the All-Time Steam Peak of Fallout 4
— Benji-Sales (@BenjiSales) February 8, 2023
Hogwarts Legacy is now the #2 highest peak in history for a paid single-player only game (Elden Ring has multiplayer) only behind Cyberpunk 2077
Peak
• Hogwarts Legacy: 474,144+
• Fallout 4: 472,962 pic.twitter.com/HFOEiFFCup
