PC Gaming

Different take:

What we got was a pilot, an experiment to see if it is even worth going all in on the 'Portkey Games' route in the future. Sure, there's young adults out there who played the old school movie tie-in games of the GameCube era. But they aren't enough of an audience to warrant spending big on something that might flop.

Most of the game's systems and gameplay are underwhelming, yes. And they could probably have spent some time writing a more compelling story with a lot less chosen one bullshit tropes in it. But they did manage to build a wizarding world that convincingly lets you immerse yourself in it. The game has a real sense of scale to it, unlike the older games, and my favourite thing is just walking around looking at details and letting my own fantasy do the rest.

Now here's the thing. They did a succesful little experiment: They made a game that isn't outright hated and lives up to some of the dreams we had as kids playing the original movie games. And they managed to do so without defaulting to the shitty loot box practises so many publishers are known for this day and age. Especially WB stuff. It all depends on what they do next.

From here they can go one of two ways: Either take the easy route and create a carbon copy of this game, rake in some profits and watch as people start seeing the cracks and slowly lose interest. Or take it seriously, spend the extra attention and actually improve upon anything this game has to offer and stand to gain even more revenue.

Chances are they take the first path and everything comes crashing down, and they'll blame fans for losing interest. If they do opt to go the second route there is a lot of work to be done. Interested to see where it goes either way.