Whether you’re a fan of Harry Potter and the Wizarding World or not, Hogwarts Legacy has been something of a huge success for WB Games – players have flocked to the open world RPG in their millions and over 2 billion Dark Wizards have been defeated in-game (as per this tweet from the official social media account for Hogwarts Legacy). However, this game is far from perfect and one of the many things we can’t quite understand about it is just why you can attack the cats in-game. Of course, they don’t take any damage, but there are no repurcussions for your actions – and we think that’s wrong. Apparently, so does the development team. So, they threw together a mechanic that punishes players for attacking cats in Hogwarts Legacy – and we want to see it implemented in-game.
As you will be able to see for yourself a little further down, Hogwarts Legacy community manager Chandler Wood has shared “a fun little internal thing” that seemingly reflects the thoughts of the development team on “how some people have treated cats in the game”. It shows a cat defending itself to lethal effect – something we think is a fair response to being terrorised by a random fifth-year student.
The short clips shows a player-character attacking a cat with a Basic Cast, which the cat blocks with Protego, before being struck by a devastating Avada Kedavra spell – the Killing Curse to those in the know.
We’re not quite sure how the cat is casting the spell, or whether it’s a deflection of the Basic Cast, but that’s irrelevant. What’s important is that the player-character is being punished for terrorising the cat. When you think about how there is quite-literally no reason for you to ever attack a cat in-game, we think this is fair. Check out the clip for yourself below:
After seeing how some people have treated cats in the game, devs made a fun little internal thing that I couldn't not share: pic.twitter.com/8T17LMlyEZ
— Chandler Wood (@FinchStrife) March 13, 2023
There are more than enough reasons to complain about Hogwarts Legacy at the moment – and that’s without even touching anything close to the abhorrent views of the Harry Potter series’ creator J. K. Rowling and the problematic themeing of the main narrative. However, it’s also worth noting that there was no reason for Avalanche Software to let you attack cats; they’re invincible, sure, but we really don’t think you should even be able to try to attack them.
So, while we know Hogwarts Legacy players are disappointed you can’t be hit by a train and there’s growing disappointment surrounding the revelation that Hogwarts Legacy mods hint the RPG had bigger plans for companions, we’re not sad about this and we can’t imagine a lot of the players will be either. The cats should be able to defend themselves and we want to see this implemented fully into Hogwarts Legacy.
But, we know as well as you do that we won’t see this added to the game. Not only does Hogwarts Legacy really drop the quaffle when it comes to mini games, it also suffers from archaic in-game mechanics and a clear desire to be something it shouldn’t. Hogwarts Legacy’s most useful tools are where it really drops marks and there are so many aspects of this game that either break immersion or feel out of place in the Wizarding World, it’s all disappointingly hilarious.
Still, at least we have this clip – and the knowledge that the cats are invincible, of course. We can only hope that the next Harry Potter game from Portkey Games takes the time to take advantage of the world it had to explore and does something different. But, only time will tell.
Hogwarts Legacy has drawn considerable criticism during its development, largely due to the fact that the creator of the Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling, has made a number of transphobic remarks on social media in recent years.
While Avalanche has confirmed that J.K. Rowling is not “directly involved” in the development of Hogwarts Legacy, it is working with “her team” and Portkey Games, a Warner Bros. label dedicated to launching new experiences inspired by J.K. Rowling’s original stories. It is currently unclear whether she will earn any royalties from the game’s sale, but it is likely given it is based on her original body of work.
If you would like to learn more about transgender rights or lend your support, we’d encourage you to check out the National Center for Transgender Equality in the US and Mermaids in the UK.