Rise to the top and become a quidditch champion in no time at all.
We all know and love the wizarding world of Harry Potter and the massive fanbase that sparked up from it. Between the books and the movies, there’s constantly growing support for all of them, and the same can be said about the games.
However, this changed quite quickly with the release of Hogwarts Legacy if you remember just how messy that reception was. However, the biggest requested feature was the ability to play Quidditch like a true Hogwarts student.
This is where things become a little hairy; Warner Bros could’ve opted to go down the DLC route for this feature but instead ran with an entirely different studio to develop and eventually publish a standalone Quidditch game.
Meet Unbroken Studios, the same studio behind Fractured Lands, and even co-developed the failing Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League. This Los Angeles-based studio has been around since 2013, and it seems their latest creation for 2024 is Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions, released on 3 September.
So, jumping into the thick of it, Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions is, first and foremost, nothing like Hogwarts Legacy. Unfortunately, it does mean that there isn’t really a story or a connection to the latest adventure, but you’ll get to play Quidditch in the wizarding world. However, it might not be quite what you’d expect, and some might also find it a bit lacking.
Starting off in Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions, you’ll naturally have to survive a seemingly endless tutorial that’ll take you through each player role of a Quidditch match. Calling it endless might be a little harsh, but nobody wants to spend an hour and four matches just for the tutorial against bots that are just really dumb. However, you’d think the bots would probably get a little smarter after the tutorial, but they don’t. We’ll touch more on this later.
As can be expected in any release involving a form of sport, you’ll have to familiarize yourself with the various player roles, even in the wizarding world. For those who don’t know, Quidditch consists of two teams with seven players each.
However, this does change slightly for Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions, with teams having six players each, along with a few other changes. Each team has 3 Chasers, 1 Beater, a Keeper, and a Seeker. Simple, right? Well, almost, as there are some more mechanics to it in the game.
Now the fun begins, the goal of Quidditch is to score the most points or hit a point goal before the time runs out and this is all done in the air. Though winning isn’t quite as simple as you’ll need to get the Quaffle through one of the three goalposts on the opposing side to score, this is where Chasers come in. These are essentially your main driving force in a Quidditch match, as they’ll spend most of the time trying to score.
The only thing standing in the way of the Chasers, aside from other Chasers tackling you (Yeah, flying and tackling), is the Keepers. With a seemingly simple role comes a lot more risk, as your Keeper is the only thing protecting the goal and knocking the Quaffle away. Granted, the Keeper isn’t just a goalie, they also come with an ability called Playcaller. This lets you create rings to refill your boost meter as you fly through them.
Next up is the Beater; these players play interference by stunning other players and possibly even knocking them off their brooms with a bat or the Bludger. Nasty little things that they are, you’ll need to dodge the Bludgers as you fly, or you run the risk of getting knocked off.
Beaters are honestly the most fun to play, but they’re also the bane of your existence. If you prefer being a Chaser or Seeker, their hits might not do as much damage, but the Bludgers will definitely leave a nasty mark.
Last to appear on your team is the Seeker, and they can definitely make a hell of a difference if you’re behind on points. If you’ve ever wanted to live out a little Harry Potter fantasy in a game, now is the best time to do it since you’ll have to chase and catch the Golden Snitch.
It’s a pretty simple role; stay on the Snitch until you eventually catch it and net your team a nice points bonus. Unfortunately, it won’t land you an instant win, and to make matters worse, the Snitch only appears occasionally in a match.
Just from the team composition alone and the extra mechanics, some nice touches are added to keep things interesting, but there are also some serious drawbacks with how much everything changed. However, there are other things to look forward to, and it all happens in the dormitory, possibly before you really even jump into a match.
That’s right, you’ll need to create your dream team, and the customization options are almost endless. Granted, you might be unable to recreate the original Harry Potter cast since they’re already in the game as Quidditch players.
If character creation and customization aren’t your thing, there are still a few other things to look forward to, such as broom upgrades and skills. Upgrading and changing out the brooms on your team can make all the difference you need. Between Speed, Durability, and Agility, each stat plays a vital part in each role on the team.
You’d naturally want Speed and Durability for a Chaser, but Agility is a must-have for a Seeker. However, while you can upgrade your brooms, you’ll need Moonstone, which can be earned through career challenges, events, and seasonal rewards.
Aside from needing to upgrade your broom, you can also get skill points to spend passive boosts for the different roles in Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions. However, getting skill points will be a nightmare.
This also makes matters worse, and the boosts come across as somewhat inconsequential. With how few and far between skill points are, you’d think that you have to spend them wisely, but you can still easily get by without them.
Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions has a massive flaw, and it’s never easy to point these out, but they’ve become more prevalent in recent releases. As you already know, you can play with and against bots, but with how little they add in terms of difficulty, they actually trivialize a Quidditch match.
However, this also depends on the circumstances and the difficulty you pick. Going for higher difficulties will make opposing teams a bit trickier to handle, but your team will be unchanged and, quite frankly, dumb.
If you can look past how easy the bots make Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions, you might not be able to look past the fact that Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions is also painfully short-lived. To give a rough idea, it’ll likely take about 3 hours at most to win all 4 cups, and this is if you’re really slow on the uptake with the controls.
Yes, all that hype and build-up for such a small payout. The only other redeeming quality would be the online multiplayer mode, but that comes with its flaws, such as a smaller team (3v3) and the repetitive nature of a game like this.
That said, the elephant in the room must be addressed. We all know the wizarding world comes with all sorts of magical intrigue, but blatant bugs can’t be overlooked so easily. Especially if you literally throw the Quaffle at point-blank range through the goal.
And it disappears to the far side of the field before it even leaves your hand. You can dress up a bug and call it a feature, but a bug is still a bug, and there are many others that will definitely ‘bug’ you.
Those interested will be glad to know there’s also an extensive cosmetics market, but no microtransactions. That’s right; for now, you can get cosmetics just by grinding. So you can put away the credit and instead get comfy.
You’ll be in for a long haul if you want to create perfect group players from the Potterverse. However, there’s no guarantee that you’ll like what you see in Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions.
There’s just too much to unpack on the visual side of things, and while Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions is nicely designed, it’s also lacking. The visuals as a whole just come across as a game that was meant to be a mobile game.
The surroundings look good, but the characters look watered down. It’s almost as if someone gave up halfway through the character design and chose to rush through the last bits; it’s sad to see because you’d only see this type of design choice in a children’s game.
Not all hope is lost, though; while the visuals are as average as can be, we have to give props to the voice actors. It might not be the voices of the original cast, but they come extremely close to that.
As can be expected, there’s still the usual epic symphonic background music that blends so well with anything Harry Potter-related and still hits the mark perfectly in Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions. The only thing that might get a little annoying is how repetitive some of the voice lines are in a match.
Overall, Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions is good for what it is, but it also looks like a missed opportunity from Warner Bros to expand on an already popular release with a DLC. Between the short-lived campaign and the repetitive gameplay, it can be somewhat fun for the first few hours, but it’ll likely become one of those releases that live on your shelf for the occasional couch co-op.
