While sales data indicates that Hogwarts Legacy is currently the most anticipated game of the still-young year, that hasn’t stopped discourse about the J.K. Rowling-sized elephant in the room and the morality behind buying a game which will inevitably line the pockets of a known transphobe.
It doesn’t help Hogwarts Legacy’s case when Warner Bros. Games issues a copyright takedown on a post which is critical of said transphobia, while taking a dig at the upcoming game’s user interface.
We should note that Hogwarts Legacy is still under embargo, and admittedly, there’s a long history of pre-release footage and screenshots of games being taken down by publishers, so in most cases, this wouldn’t come as a surprise. While the contents of the tweet’s screenshot didn’t necessarily relate to the author’s commentary on transphobia, it’s still not a particularly good look. After all, it gave little to nothing away about the game.
That said, journalists, influencers, reviewers and otherwise who have secured early copies of Hogwarts Legacy would have entered into an agreement with Warner Bros. to not share specifics about the game until the embargo lifts (Feb. 6 at 7am ET, as far as we’re aware), so in the grand scheme of things, this shouldn’t be particularly surprising.
While the user interface in the since-removed screenshot did indeed look like it was pulled straight out of Bungie’s Destiny 2 playbook, you may still be on the fence about whether or not you should be opening up your wallet for Hogwarts Legacy, given Rowling’s blatant transphobia. With that in mind, here’s everything you need to know about exactly how the author stands to profit from the upcoming release.