Hogwarts Legacy players will be able to create characters that have a male or female voice no matter what their bodies look like, sources told Bloomberg News.
The next Harry Potter video game will allow players to create their character’s voice, body type and sexual orientation for the school’s bedrooms, taking a step towards inclusion following a number of recent controversies. from comments from series creator JK Rowling that were seen as transphobic.
Hogwarts Legacy is scheduled for release in 2022 from publisher Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment Inc. and developer Avalanche Software. Once players start the game, they will be able to create a character that has a male or female voice no matter what their body looks like, according to people familiar with the game’s development. The people called anonymously because they had no authority to speak to the media.
Players can then choose one of two options – “witch” or “wizard” – which will determine the dorm in which they get a place at Hogwarts magic school and how other characters in the game will deal with them.
While this level of customization has become more common in video games and is no longer uncommon, it is unique to Hogwarts Legacy. Last summer Rowling made a number of comments that were widely seen as mourning transgender people and rejected by many, including Harry Potter film stars Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson.
The comments also reassured some people working on the game, Bloomberg said. As a result, some members of the Hogwarts Legacy development team have fought to make the game as inclusive as possible, pushing for character customization and even for the addition of a transgender character.
There was a fight against rulers at first, said those familiar with the project, but for now the customization of the characters has been incorporated into the game. A Warner Bros. spokesman denied. comment.
The Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment is a unit of AT&T Inc. and titles like Harry Potter: Wizards Unite and Mortal Kombat 1. The unit attracted interest from several major companies last year and could have reached $ 4 billion, according to a CNBC report last June .
But AT&T was balked at the industry’s growth potential, Bloomberg reported, and pulled the unit from a list of potential asset sales. Harry Potter is one of the most lucrative franchises in entertainment. The film series is the third highest collection ever, with $ 7.7 billion in revenue, and Rowling has sold more than half a billion books, more than any single author in history .
Last month, there was more controversy against Hogwarts Legacy after game journalist Liam Robertson revealed that Troy Leavitt, a senior producer at Salt Lake City-based Avalanche, made dozens of YouTube videos attack on feminism and “social justice.”
He also expressed support for Gamergate, a dispersed community of gamers who harass journalists and game developers for building positive ideas. ResetEra, one of the largest video game forums, implemented a “total thread ban for advertising media” around Hogwarts Legacy following that discovery and Rowling’s comments. Leavitt did not respond to a request for comment.