Nintendo Switch Port Of Hogwarts Legacy Hexed With Additional Delays
by
Zak Killian
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Saturday, May 13, 2023, 01:08 PM EDT
Believe it or not, Hogwarts Legacy is actually a pretty cool game for anyone who enjoys open-world action titles. If you're a fan of The Witcher III, The Elder Scrolls, or similar open-world titles with RPG elements, it's a fun romp through a surprisingly large chunk of the unique Wizarding World setting.
Of course, to play it, you'll need a PlayStation or Xbox console, or a fairly meaty gaming PC. If you don't have any of those but you instead have a Nintendo Switch, you'll be able to pick up the game there when it launches in early summ... wait, sorry—it's actually been delayed again.
Hogwarts Legacywas originally intended to release on Nintendo's semi-portable system on July 25th, so it was still a bit off anyway. The developers may be taking Jason Schreiber's wisdom to heart, classically paraphrased as "a bad game is bad forever, but a delayed game can eventually be good." (No, Miyamoto didn't say this.)
WB Games announced the delay with this image on Twitter.
Unfortunately, the delay is pretty serious. Nearly four months in length, in fact. The new release date for the Nintendo Switch version of Hogwarts Legacy is November 14th of this year. Just in time for the holiday season, perhaps, but that's little consolation to Nintendo gamers that were eager to finally play the game. At least this delay means Switch gamers have time to finish Tears of the Kingdom.
With that said, the delay is understandable if you peer at the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions of the game. Those systems are more powerful than the Nintendo Switch, yet they struggle mightily under the weight of the immense Hogwarts Legacy. The game can be quite punishing even on powerful gaming PCs; it's frankly astonishing that it runs on an Xbox One S at all.
The last-gen versions of the game are extremely cut-down. Image: Digital Foundry
We expect that there will be a concerted effort to preserve the look of the game as much as possible while maintaining a playable framerate on Nintendo's handheld. Hopefully the developers succeed, because a significant part of the game's value comes from its richly-detailed environments that accurately re-capture the wonder and mystique of the original Harry Potter movies.
If you've already played Hogwarts Legacy and are clamoring for more, you may have to wait quite some time. The game's publisher, WB Games, has announced that, even though it was the best-selling title—ever—for the publisher, it won't be receiving any DLC. That's sort-of refreshing, in a way, except that there's clearly gallons of cut content. Here's hoping for mods for the PC version.