Hogwarts Legacy was a huge success, but before that another Harry Potter game had tried to offer a huge open world and the opportunity to visit Hogwarts Castle.
A recent discovery has fascinated video game fans Harry Potter. Martin Griffiths, programmer at Hello games (known for No man’s sky) revealed never-before-seen images of the game’s very first prototype Harry Potter in the open world. This discovery is all the more surprising because it reveals an unexpected connection between the famous magician and the shooting game series Quake.
An open world Harry Potter game set before Hogwarts Legacy
Martin Griffiths worked on game engines for eight years Harry Potter before joining Hello games. One of his most important contributions concerns Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (published in 2006). At the time, this game marked a turning point as it became the first real game Harry Potter open world in which Hogwarts could be fully explored without loading times.
In recently shared footage, Harry can be seen moving through an incomplete version of Hogwarts taken from an old file found on an SD card. The depiction is primitive and certain scenes, such as Dumbledore in “T-Pose”, remind us that it was only a prototype. Nevertheless, fans will immediately recognize the iconic castle.
The most surprising thing is that the engine used to create this prototype was used Harry Potter is actually an improved version of the engine used for transportation Quake 3 on PlayStation 2. This information remained largely unknown even within the original development teams.
Griffiths recalls the complexities of this port, including the creation of a four-player split-screen multiplayer mode. Since the PS2 has limited GPU memory, the team had to find sophisticated solutions, such as rendering frames for each screen sequentially, to avoid overload issues.
Today, Griffiths works on cutting-edge projects such as: No man’s skya game that allows players to travel between planets without loading times, showing how far technology has advanced since the days of the first game Harry Potter.
From ancient history
If we talk about it a lot today Hogwarts legacy as a reference game for fans of potterIt’s fascinating to discover that this idea of an open world game goes back much further. The 2006 prototype, while rudimentary, was already an ambitious attempt to create a living world around Hogwarts.
