Hogwarts Legacy is based on the Wizarding World universe created by J.K. Rowling. You can read more about Rowling’s history of transphobic remarks as well as find resources to support LGBTQ organizations here.
Hogwarts Legacy offers Harry Potter fans a rare opportunity to explore Hogwarts in its entirety. Well, almost in its entirety. Players can’t explore the common rooms of rival Houses, and their House choice also affects the clothes the protagonist wears and how some NPCs react to them. Ultimately, these decisions are cosmetic, but some houses are quickly proving to be more popular than others.
Like most modern games, Hogwarts Legacy includes trophies and achievements that help completionists keep track of uncompleted tasks and also give gamers bragging rights. One such trophy/achievement involves finding a room known as the Map Chamber, but that achievement is uniquely split into four parts: one for each Hogwarts House you can possibly join. The bad news is that in order to acquire all the trophies in Hogwarts Legacy, that means completionists have to play the game four times. The good news is that the nature of that early game achievement lets us see which House is the most popular among Hogwarts Legacy players. Surprisingly, it’s the House of Malfoys everywhere: Slytherin. Well, ok, maybe it’s not that surprising.
According to the website PSNProfiles (which lists trophies for different titles but also keeps track of how many gamers have earned them), 17.94%layers found the Map Chamber as a Slytherin. This is up from 12.6% on February 9th and yesterday’s 15.4% (via Forbes). Comparatively, Ravenclaw is running a close second at 17.28%, while Gryffindor is in third at 15.99%. Unfortunately, this means Hufflepuff is in dead last at 10.18%, which does not do the House’s unearned reputation for accepting the least talented students any favors. They do have one of the best unique “House Quests,” though.
Of course, PSNProfiles only keeps track of trophies earned on PlayStation consoles. Does that mean Slytherin is less popular on the Xbox Series X/S and PC? Well, no, actually. The site TrueAchievements, which keeps track of achievements on Xbox titles and how many gamers complete them, sports a similar pattern. According to that site, 18% of Xbox players found the Map Chamber as a Slytherin, followed by Gryffindor at 16%, Ravenclaw at 14%, and Hufflepuff at 9%. Meanwhile, Steam keeps track of its own achievement numbers (no third-party site necessary), and that site’s stat mostly follows the PSNProfiles pattern. On PC, 19% of players are Slytherin when they found the Map Chamber. Ravenclaws and Griffyndors are almost neck and neck at 14.9% and 13.6%, respectively. Hufflepuffs once again large behind at a paltry 7.7%.
While we have answered the question of which Hogwarts House is most popular at the moment, this information raises a more interesting question: Why? Do this many players want to become Death Eaters? Do they want to become Parselmouths and talk to snakes? Or do they just like the color green?
The Forbes article’s author, Paul Tassi, theorizes that maybe Slytherin isn’t popular because it is so endearing but because fans are just sick of seeing so much Gryffindor. After all, that House was the focus of the Harry Potter series since its main character and most of his friends belonged to Gryffindor. And with Hufflepuff being the brunt of so many jokes, that left Slytherin and Ravenclaw as potentially popular choices. Our own Matthew Byrd chose Ravenclaw for his playthrough, so maybe Tassi was on to something (Matthew Byrd’s note: They were. I wanted to pick the least represented house from the books).
Tassi also theorized that since virtually every villain in the Harry Potter franchise has hailed from Slytherin, maybe many gamers chose that house to play as a “bad guy.” Of course, Tassi pointed out that every player can learn the Unforgivable Curses regardless of their House, so that would only add to someone’s role-playing experience in their own minds.
Regardless, we know that Slytherin exudes a powerful magic that attracts the majority of Hogwarts Legacy players. At the rate things are going, only Ravenclaw has any hope of challenging Slytherin’s dominance.