Hogwarts Legacy
Released: February 10, 2023
Developer: Avalanche Software
Composers: Chuck E. Myers, J. Scott Rakozy, Peter Murray, Alexander Horowitz
37 Hours later I finished the story mode of Hogwarts Legacy. Some people wanted to do every single side quest first, but I wanted to get to posting this (and it still took awhile), so I got to the bare minimum level required to complete each main quest. This fairly new RPG based on the Harry Potter franchise is DENSE. There is so much to explore and I’m sure there’s so much that I never saw. With that a big soundtrack is also mandatory, and they got 4 different people to compose it, so I’d say it’s pretty big. Because of how long the soundtrack is I don’t want to talk about all of it, but I’d love to give a brief summary, so here we go.
I started out the game by creating this dude right here, who was an attempt at being a self portrait (though he’s probably more attractive).
Right off the bat you can hear the John Williams influence. Just listen to the clip hear. When you get to the opening credits it sounds so similar to Hedwig’s Theme that I would call them copycats but I think that was the point.
I feel like anything in the franchise has to sound like Williams at this point. I don’t expect it to sound as epic as Lord of the Rings, rather I expect it to seem magical and mysterious.
There’s so much to the soundtrack that they released it in two parts, one being the main soundtrack and another with relaxing tracks titled “Study Themes from the Original Video Game Soundtrack”, which I really liked because of how much I love relaxing music from games. There is so much score that I didn’t get to hear the entire soundtrack while playing through the game. For one thing I was put in Hufflepuff, yet the music is different for the common rooms of each house.
While there’s an entire album for chill music, there’s plenty of battle tracks also with their fast playing strings and blaring horns. Like I said before it’s not like Lord of the Rings because there aren’t battles quite that big, but it is still Harry Potter kind of epic. Those trolls are the worst though…
What’s cool is that there’s even diegetic music (music that can be heard by the characters). For example, one of the paintings plays the lute, which you can hear whenever you walk by it, not to mention an entire musical corridor in Hogwarts.
I wouldn’t be surprised if in Hogwarts Legacy 2 there was a store within Hogsmeade where you could buy and play instruments (the fans may know if there is already a store like this in Harry Potter lore). I’m going to suggest that be added in a DLC or the sequel if any of the creators are reading (that and Quidditch of course).
I don’t know what else to say at this point. There’s so much to the score that I recommend you go play the game and hear it for yourself. Even though I’m not a BIG Harry Potter fan, I found the game fun and I recommend it to anyone, especially if they are a fan. The music seems to perfectly capture the Williams score to the original film and it feels big just like this world (and this world is HUGE).
As the title to the second soundtrack suggests, I’d like to listen to it while studying, or doing any kind of work. Overall this score passes my test of being a score that enhances the experience, but also is something I’d listen to outside of the game, therefore I give it 5 out of 5 stars.
★★★★★
Sources:
Video Game Harmony 
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