Hogwarts Legacy fans have collectively put 267 million hours into the magical RPG since it was released just under three weeks ago.
As revealed by Variety, Hogwarts Legacy's popularity is continuing to soar as its players have been putting 23 million hours a day into the game, weeks after its full release.
To put that into context a bit more, as of February 16, Variety reported that 152 million hours had been played, but by February 21 it had jumped up to that 267 million mark. That's 115 million hours in just five days, or a community total of 23 million hours played every 24 real-world hours.
Variety also reports that Hogwarts Legacy encouraged the highest traffic in the Harry Potter fan community, at least on the website Fandom, in more than seven years. Previously, the second Fantastic Beasts movie generated a similar kind of buzz, but this has since been eclipsed by Avalanche Software's game. According to the article, Hogwarts Legacy-driven page views on the website surpassed the Fantastic Beasts heyday by 39% in just five days.
In the same story, Variety spoke to David Haddad, Warner Bros. Games president, who said that "the player engagement is spectacular" and the studio is "very pleased with the initial launch." Haddad also said the company sees "a bright future" for the game's release on other platforms, such as PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch, with those version set to arrive throughout the year, and that Warner Bros. sees Hogwarts Legacy as a "long-term franchise."
This isn't exclusive to the wizarding world either, as Haddad also told Variety: "Our goal is to continue to utilize our amazing library of Warner Bros. Discovery franchises as we develop our future slate of games." We've already seen some of this in the form of Hogwarts Legacy, but also other recent Warner Bros. game releases such as last year's Gotham Knights and the upcoming Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League.
The release of Hogwarts Legacy has been the subject of criticism and debate due to J.K. Rowling's public stance on gender identity, which continues to challenge the inclusivity at the heart of the Harry Potter community. Here is our explainer on the Hogwarts Legacy controversy.
