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'Hogwarts Legacy' art book offers magically-detailed look inside 'Potter' video game
Travel to the prestigious school of witchcraft and wizardry, circa the late 1800s!
Can't make it to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter theme parks in Orlando or Hollywood anytime soon? Not to worry, fellow Muggles and Squibs! Warner Bros. Games has you covered with the impending release of Hogwarts Legacy, the highly anticipated video game that allows the player to feel as if they're actually studying spell-craft at the prestigious European school for young witches and warlocks.
Just don't expect to run into Harry or Voldemort whilst strolling down the torch-lit corridors because the story for this one takes place in the late 1800s. With that said, longtime Potterheads will still get to visit a plethora of iconic locales from the books and films — whether it's the shops of Hogsmeade or the secret bathroom used by Hogwarts prefects. Remember: the password is "Pine Fresh"!
The first-of-its-kind title will be accompanied by a 252-page art book chronicling the magical amount of detail needed to bring such an endeavor to life. On sale from Insight Editions next month (you can pre-order a copy right here for $45 a pop), The Art and Making of Hogwarts Legacy: Exploring the Unwritten Wizarding World was written by Jody Revenson and Michael Owen — both of whom got a front row seat to the game's ever-evolving development process.
"Through all the days [of] working on this, more and more incredible artwork would arrive for us to see, characters would be refined, and settings would be developed. It was a very exciting experience," Revenson — who is no stranger to peeling back the curtain on the Wizarding World — tells SYFY WIRE. Oh, and by the way? We've got an exclusive sneak peek inside the wondrous publication, which is rich in original illustrations (the cover art included).
"I am definitely a detail geek, with the philosophy that everything is important to the story — even the bathrooms!" Revenson adds. "There’s such cleverness in the names of the small towns and their residents, their merchandise and backstories. How could these not be included? Learning all about the professors of the time, their relationships, and their personalities, is so important to your time at Hogwarts; same with your fellow students and the beasts you encounter."
Check out four exclusive spreads below, including a look at the book's table of contents:
"The most fun was getting to know the new characters and exploring the new environments within the missions," Revenson explains. "I liked ‘hanging out’ with the students (and most of the professors) and encountering new magic. The most challenging was when those characters were revised or those environments appeared or disappeared! But change is inevitable, whether it was the game itself or writing about the game. And so, we just kept to our ‘mission’ of making sure the book was the best it could be."
While the author is understandably hesitant to reveal any never-before-seen tidbits Hogwarts Legacy reveals about the Wizarding World, she does promise that "the new characters and environments encountered in Hogwarts Legacy fit perfectly into the history we know and the future we know will be. One of the most important aspects of any time spent in the Wizarding World is discovery, and anyone who reads the book is going to discover how the game was well thought out."
The Art and Making of Hogwarts Legacy: Exploring the Unwritten Wizarding World goes on sale from Insight Editions Friday, Feb. 10 — the same day the game arrives on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. The PlayStation 4 and Xbox One editions will be released Tuesday, April 4, while the Nintendo Switch version won't become available until Tuesday, July 25.
Want some magic in your life while you wait? The extended versions of all eight Potter films are now streaming on Peacock.
