Warner Bros. has revealed the release of a new Harry Potter game just in time for Back to Hogwarts Day.
For those gamers who may be more Mudblood than Potterhead, the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry opens their doors every September 1. While the Kings Cross station reportedly did not renew their annual Harry Potters-related tradition, WB at least had something to come for fans in the clutch.
A newly remastered version of LEGO Harry Potter Collection is coming this October 8, 2024, to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Steam. This is an update to the collection that was initially released to PlayStation 4 in 2016, and then came to the Xbox One and Nintendo Switch in 2018.
The actual games in the collection are LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 and LEGO Harry Potter: Years 5-7, a LEGO-fied adaptation of the stories straight from the books. These games go all the way back from 2010 and 2011, respectively, and were developed by Traveller’s Tales, back in the proverbial peak of the LEGO video game franchise.
As reported by Video Games Chronicle, this new remaster is made by Double Eleven, specialists in making these kinds of rereleases. Among the features touted by Warner Bros’ press release are enhanced graphics and gameplay, native 4K and 60 FPS, haptic feedback, and high resolution shadow maps.
Players may expect the hallmarks and accoutrements of the latest consoles, but the same game design that these LEGO games had all the way back in the 2010s. Depending on how you look back at that era, that could be a good thing or a bad thing. But we suppose those older LEGO fans looking at where the franchise is now would see it as the former.
There isn’t anything particularly surprising about this new game release, save maybe that it isn’t coming to a Nintendo platform. That’s the very market audience for these games, short of Warner Bros. making an updated version of this game for mobile too. But maybe the reason we didn’t get that announcement here is because this remaster is slated for the console coming after the Nintendo Switch.
We certainly can’t avoid speculating on the Switch 2 for this title, as rumors had been going around for a while that Nintendo could have announced the platform earlier, but it was internally delayed. This looks like the exact sort of title that could have been in development for the Switch 2 as well, and one that now has to wait for when Nintendo is ready to announce and release it.
In the meantime, you can watch this release’s official trailer below.
