Despite the controversy surrounding it, it appears that Hogwarts Legacy is poised to be one of the biggest hits of 2023.
The years of transphobic comments made by Harry Potter creator JK Rowling have made Hogwarts Legacy one of the most talked-about videogames of all time. But that hasn’t stopped it from being an immediate, major hit on Steam and Twitch, with hundreds of thousands of gamers playing and viewing it before it’s officially released. Hogwarts Legacy is set to officially launch on February 10, however, those who paid extra for the deluxe edition could get started up to 72 hours early, on February 7. And the numbers are impressive: SteamDB (via the Steam API) indicates that more than 488,000 people are currently playing the game. It doesn’t appear on the Steam top 100 because it’s not officially released yet, but if it did it would hold the number three spot right now, ahead of PUBG and just behind Dota 2. (Image credit: SteamDB)
Similar numbers can be seen on Twitch: According to analyst platform Gamesight, Hogwarts Legacy is the biggest singleplayer game launch in Twitch history based on concurrent viewers, easily surpassing Elden Ring, and trailing only Valorant and Lost Ark for the overall top spot. (Image credit: Gamesight) This is despite sensational reports that streamers “may lose their jobs” if they play Hogwarts Legacy on their channels, which has been disprovable and amplified on social media.
It’s no surprise that Hogwarts Legacy has been a hit, as pre-purchases alone made it one of the best-selling games on Steam and it currently holds the top spot on the list. (Image credit: SteamDB) This player count only includes people who purchased the $70/£60 deluxe edition and then took advantage of the early access period on Steam, which excludes all standard edition sales and deluxe owners who either didn’t care or forgot about the early access period, not to mention the Epic Games Store release and the console versions, which are sure to draw even bigger audiences.
Hogwarts Legacy will fully unlock on PC at 10 am PT/1 pm ET/6 pm GMT on February 10. The PlayStation 5 version will go live at midnight in your local time zone (except for the Pacific time zone in North America, which for some reason will go live at 9 pm). The PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions will launch on April 4, and the Nintendo Switch version will follow on July 25. Despite the controversy surrounding it, Hogwarts Legacy appears to be on track to be one of the biggest hits of 2021.
