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 has been billed as something of a dream game for Harry Potter fans. At the very least, the open-world RPG will finally allow gamers to finally live out their dreams of attending Hogwarts. Of course, some gamers have already expressed concerns that they won’t get to live out that dream for long and that Hogwarts Legacy will be much shorter than some modern open-world experiences.
Well, it’s safe to say that you can put those fears to rest. In fact, Hogwarts Legacy is an absolutely massive game that will take most players an astonishingly long time to beat.
Based on my own experiences and currently available player estimates, it will take you about 30 to 35 hours to beat Hogwarts Legacy‘s main campaign. Most players will likely spend much more time with the game than that. I know that I initially intended to work through the campaign as quickly as I could prior to the game’s Early Access release and soon discovered that it was significantly larger than I thought.
I haven’t seen the game’s ending as of the time of this writing, and that’s largely because it’s so easy to get caught up in the game’s various sidequests. There will be many times when you’ll find yourself exploring the world in order to reach the next part of the main story, either because you need to level up, acquire new items, or because some of the sidequests feel substantial enough to be main story quests. I suspect I’m close to the end of the game based on where I’m at in the story (hence the estimate noted above), though I was certainly surprised to find just how easy it is to get caught up by “distractions” even when you’re trying to reach the next part of the story.
If you are able to focus on the main story missions (and those missions alone, as much as possible), then you could probably beat the game’s campaign in less than 30 hours on your first playthrough. Speedrunners will certainly find ways to make the campaign much shorter than that. However, anyone looking to casually enjoy the game and see as much of it as reasonably possible the first time around is probably looking at closer to 40 to 50 hours on their first playthrough.
As for a completionist playthrough…well, good luck with that. I have not heard of anyone coming close to finding and doing absolutely everything there is to find and do in this game. While I’ll happily offer you more information whenever someone comes closer to achieving that goal, that could take quite a while. It’s not a stretch to say that you’re looking at something closer to 75-100 hours of gameplay if you’re looking to reach that fabled 100% mark. You’ll probably be able to trim that down to 50-75 hours once enough guides are available, but that’s still quite impressive.
It should also be noted that your Hogwarts Legacy completion time will be altered by a few notable variables. The biggest of those variables (aside from your personal skill level), will be your chosen difficulty level. At its highest difficulty settings, Hogwarts Legacy is a surprisingly tough game. You will die quite a few times in combat if you play at higher difficulty settings. Those looking to beat the game as quickly as possible will want to choose the easiest difficulty options available. Similarly, you should take advantage of mechanics like broomstick flying and fast travel if you’re simply looking to beat everything as quickly as possible.
Even still, I really can’t emphasize enough just how massive Hogwarts Legacy is. It’s closer to games like Elden Ring and Red Dead Redemption 2 in terms of scope than it is to titles like Gotham Knights or Saints Row. While I wouldn’t quite put it in the category of the former titles yet (more on that once we get into our analysis of the game), it offers an undeniably impressive amount of content that will take you quite a long time to beat.