With the release of Avalanche Studios and Portkey Games’ Hogwarts Legacy almost upon us, it makes sense to whet our appetites on similar games to get us ready to play this magical extravaganza. There have been several open-world fantasy games similar to Hogwarts Legacy over the years, with some being extremely similar in nature to the game while others bear a slightly distant resemblance.
Nevertheless, every game listed here is fun and challenging in its own way and great to pick up and play while we wait for the release of Hogwarts Legacy.
Dragon Age
The Dragon Age series is Bioware’s foray into the medieval fantasy genre. This game is similar to Hogwarts Legacy through its fantasy elements, with several mythical creatures and magic scattered throughout the game’s story.
The series starts off with Dragon Age: Origins and its expansion Dragon Age: Origins Awakening, which lets you start off as one of three different races with a total of six different origin stories in total. The story progresses based on the choices you make, leading to a lot of replayability.
The first game is followed by Dragon Age II, which is a whole new story that loosely follows the events of the last game, with not as much customization as the first game. The series finally peaked with Dragon Age: Inquisition which ties up the series together in an amazing finale. It is a series worth playing if you are interested in fantasy, magic, and history.
Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen
Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen follows in the same vein as the Dragon Age series does, although with a bit more complexity to its battle systems and recruitment. The game originally started off as Dragon’s Dogma for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 back in 2012 and was later enhanced and re-released as Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen for several platforms including PC.
The game focuses on character progression throughout the game, with focuses on combat and teamwork. The overarching story sees players traverse the lands of Gransys to take down the monstrous dragon Grigori whose appearance is said to herald the end of the world. The game also has a unique Pawn system that allows players to lend and borrow the Pawns, which are hired companions, of other players whenever possible.
Elden Ring
Elden Ring is FromSoftware’s first open-world game and involves a lot of spell-casting and mythical creatures akin to the Wizarding World series. The difference here is that FromSoftware’s brand of games is a little more mature when it comes to the plot, with a general focus on the darker undertones of its worlds.
Elden Ring also has deep character customization and a variety of fun boss battles. With the game being heralded as the Game of the Year for 2022, it is definitely a worthy one to pick up. Although, be prepared for a grind-intensive time sink as this game provides a lot of material to work with, with no sub-region of this game being devoid of hours of content.
Final Fantasy XV
The Final Fantasy series is old and famous enough for all generations of gamers to be familiar with, even if they haven’t played the games. This is all the more reason to play the games, especially since the older games have been remastered for a modern audience. The series culminates in their latest addition, Final Fantasy XV, with Final Fantasy XVI right around the corner, slated for a 2023 release later this year.
Final Fantasy XV takes place in the fictional world of Eos where the capital city of Lucis is attacked by the Niflheim kingdom in search of a powerful crystal. This is the trigger for the rest of the chaotic events to come. The game features open-world traversal, cooking, crafting, and companion interaction the likes of which we have come to appreciate in most modern RPGs. The fantastical spells and creatures are similar to what we have seen in the Wizarding World series.
Horizon Zero Dawn / Horizon Forbidden West
Horizon Zero Dawn and its successor Horizon Forbidden West were PlayStation exclusives that brought a new spin to the open-world RPG genre. Although the setting is very different compared to Hogwarts Legacy, with the games taking place in the distant future instead of the past, the fantasy aspects of the game are quite similar. What magic means to the Wizarding World series is what technology means to the Horizon series, with many similarities in their approach.
The games take place 1,000 years later in a fictional dystopian future where humanity has regressed back to a tribal state after a great disaster wiped out all technological advancements in the last two millennia. Players play Aloy as she trudges through the harsh wilderness looking for answers about what left the world in the state it currently is. Her adventure takes her through several biomes and environments in what used to be America before the disaster took place.
The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
The Elder Scrolls series is a Bethesda masterpiece that has been around since the days of The Elder Scrolls: Arena back in 1994. Then, the sequel titled The Elder Scrolls: Daggerfall was released in 1996, both of which were MS-DOS exclusive games. Following its success, Bethesda released a few spin-off games before settling on the big project which was the next game in the mainline series titled The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind.
This is the first of three games that brought the series into a fully-realized 3D environment. Their similarities to the Wizarding World series of games are quite obvious when it comes to their forms of magic and fantasy elements, with a lot of similar spells and creatures shared between the two series.
The overall world and plotline of the games are definitely darker than what fans have come to enjoy from the Wizarding World series. But with Hogwarts Legacy having a few darker elements of its own, it is safe to say that the series might share more similarities than we think.
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
The next game in The Elder Scrolls series which shares a lot of similarities with Hogwarts Legacy is The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Widely hailed by RPG purists as the best game in the series and one of the best RPGs ever created, Oblivion improves upon a lot of the elements introduced by Morrowind.
The game’s plot centers around The Oblivion Crisis, an event that led to a massive creature invasion from the planes of Oblivion. Humanity desperately tries to fight back in an effort to push back the hordes while the land of Tamriel is ravaged. The game was a step up from its predecessor in both graphics and gameplay as fans praised the plot-driven narrative and interactive gameplay.
Oblivion was such a success that it spawned two more expansions titled Knights of the Nine and The Shivering Isles, each of which added new never-before-seen content to the game. The first expansion added an additional questline to the game while the second added a new area to explore.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
The last of the three modern The Elder Scrolls games is The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. The original game was released back in 2011, with subsequent content additions and remasters being introduced throughout the decade. As of today, the game’s latest edition is The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Anniversary Edition along with a special VR version that was added separately.
Players and reviewers everywhere have rated Skyrim very highly, with many going so far as to call it the Game of the Decade of the last 10 years. This game bears the most similarities to Hogwarts Legacy when compared to its predecessors, both in terms of graphics as well as open-world traversal and gameplay.
Skyrim is still being played by several players with more content being added periodically, so it is a good choice to pick up and play today.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
The Legend of Zelda series has been a Nintendo staple since its early days. Everyone familiar with this series knows about Link’s struggles throughout the games and Breath of the Wild takes place at the end of the main Zelda timeline. Link wakes up from a century-long slumber and we find out he has amnesia. In his attempt to gain his memories back, he also has to save Princess Zelda and stop Ganon from destroying Hyrule.
The magic and sense of adventure in this game are comparable to games like Hogwarts Legacy. The grandiose nature of the game also brings a sense of responsibility, the likes of which players will experience while playing Hogwarts Legacy with the stakes that the game provides the player. While Link does not hold any darkness in his heart, his nature is undoubtedly good-natured and players will resonate with that when playing through the righteous path in Hogwarts Legacy.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
The final entry is The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. While Geralt of Rivia is nowhere as righteous as Link is, oftentimes adopting a neutral stance akin to that of Witchers in general, he does make some heroic choices that can change the course of a playthrough. The magic in this game, whether it comes from sorcery or Witcher signs, is very similar to what we see in the Wizarding World series of games.
The open-world aspect is also very similar to Hogwarts Legacy, being the first true open-world game from CD Projekt Red’s The Witcher series. One iconic aspect of The Witcher games is its bestiary of creatures, some fantastic beasts and some not, but very diverse nonetheless. This is shared with the Wizarding World‘s series of games with different creatures to interact with and ride as well.
With The Witcher 3 getting a new free next-gen update in December, there has never been a better time than now to pick up the game and play it if you haven’t already.
