Harry Potter fans are going to love this open world game set in the books’ famous castle.
You create your own witch or wizard before being plunged into an action-packed storyline based at the start of your first term as a student at Hogwarts.
It all begins with you learning to wield a wand like a seasoned Weasley as you play catch up among other fifth years and pick one of the four key houses of Hogwarts, Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw or Slytherin.
And it’s not long before you’re battling goblins and fantastic beasts aplenty as a hectic adventure unravels around an ancient, powerful magic.
The role-play game reproduces the castle in wonderful detail and any fans of the hit movies will quickly spot key areas from those films, like the Great Hall and student digs.
Controls are intuitive in battle as you choose between different spells to cast on the fly while targeting adversaries.
It mean sometimes chaotic fights that resemble the action scenes in the last two Potter movies. Darting, regrouping, firing off quick shots before unleashing a special magic, it’s all there.
But you’ll also find yourself at home in quieter moments, wandering the graphically impressive and highly detailed Hogwarts, attending classes and learning new fight tricks and charms like expelliamus and confringo.
This game is set around 100 years before Harry Potter but the cast is packed with equally memorable characters, like your mentor Professor Fig and headmaster Phineas Nigellus Black, played by Hollywood hero Simon Pegg.
The voice acting is particularly good.
The big bads are the dark wizard Rookwood and a nasty little goblin called Ranrok who are hell bent on controlling the ancient magic you just so happened to unseemingly reawakened.
They’ve just the right amount of villainy in them to push the narrative forward at pace and keep you entertained on the storyline.
But it’s important to also go off-piste regularly and explore the castle and wider areas, places like Hogsmeade and the Forbidden Forest, while also doing your studies and building up and ever-growing spellbook of powers and abilities.
This is a must-buy for Potter fanatics and a very good game for those less fussed by the lore of the much-loved kids books.
It’s got strong combat, depth to its open world, plenty of character and a decent storyline.
