A former EA employee says that the company shut down a potential Harry Potter MMO because it didn’t think the brand had a long shelf life.
A massively multiplayer online game set in the world of Harry Potter seems like a no-brainer. Die-hard fans of the franchise would love nothing more than to live out their own experience attending Hogwarts, learning spells, and forging their own wizard/witch identity.
While the concept remains untapped, it has emerged that such a project was in the works at one point, back when EA held the license to make Harry Potter games.
In an interview with Twitch streamer The Real Brandalorian, Kim Salzer, who was EA’s director of product marketing from 2000 to 2003, was asked about games she worked on that ultimately never came to be.
She says, ‘A big one for me, because I was so personally involved in it, and it’s such a huge IP that has lived on is an online massively multiplayer game for Harry Potter.
‘We did all the research, we had the beta built out, it was a combination offline/online experience where we’d actually mail stuff to the kids, like prizes and ribbons and stuff like that.’
While there remains no sign of an online multiplayer game, the upcoming Hogwarts Legacy is set to provide fans the exact sort of game they’ve wanted for years.
Set in the late 1800s, Hogwarts Legacy has you create your own custom character to attend Hogwarts and explore an open world environment. Avalanche Software, which previously made Disney Infinity, is developing it.
The game is set to launch in 2022 following a delay, but it, along with the rest of the franchise, remains mired in controversy due to series creator J. K. Rowling’s frequent comments about transgender people.
It’s reached a point where it seems like Warner Bros is doing all it can to separate the franchise from Rowling. The company put out a statement saying that she had no involvement with the creation of Hogwarts Legacy and that she won’t even be making an appearance in the Return To Hogwarts anniversary special.
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