Warner Bros. Games President speaks up about ‘Hogwarts Legacy’ and J.K. Rowling

Fans of Harry Potter have a lot to be excited about next year as Hogwarts Legacy will give them a chance to be the wizard of their dreams. Despite the hype, there are a lot of issues behind the game.

Hogwarts Legacy was one of the most talked-about games during the PlayStation 5 Showcase event last month. An RPG set in the Harry Potter universe is a great idea, but fans were mostly questioning author J.K. Rowling’s hand in making the game.

In a Q&A, Warner Bros. Games president, David Haddad, shares his two cents on the matter.

Warner Bros. Games president speaks up

It’s not just the fans who had questions about J.K. Rowling’s involvement with the game. Even those working on the game had pressing matters wanting to be answered as well. Like everyone else, they wanted to talk about the transphobic comments made by the author.

During the talk, Haddad says, “while JK Rowling is the creator of Harry Potter, and we are bringing that to life with the power of Portkey, in many places, she’s a private citizen also. And that means she’s entitled to express her personal opinion on social media. I may not agree with her, and I might not agree with their stance on a range of topics, but I can agree that she has the right to hold her opinion.”

Haddad, in considering the LGBTQ community

During the interview, Haddad also said that he has been working with numerous LGBTQ groups for the sake of diversity in Hogwarts Legacy. More specifically, the team spent an hour and a half in talks with the director of trans media representation at GLAAD.

For players looking for answers, this is big news. While Warner Bros. Games can’t do anything about the stigma behind the author of the series, they’re doing the best they can do to set themselves apart.

Instead of running away from the issues, Warner Bros. Games is taking it head-on. Fans are currently satisfied with what the developers have to say about the matter. Fans are now anticipating how diversity works in the upcoming title.

Hogwarts Legacy launches for the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, and PC sometime next year. There’s no exact release date for the game yet. This will be a game set years before the events of the popular novel series. It’s the time players get to live their dream wizardling lives.

Image used courtesy of PlayStation 5/YouTube