Hogwarts Legacy’s character creator doesn’t include a gender choice

J.K. Rowling's problematic opinions about the LGBTQ community has influenced Hogwarts Legacy, although, in a less problematic way than expected. Warner Bros. Games specified in a Q&A that the Harry Potter author was not part of the development, and a sign of that they pointed at the fact that the character creator in the game does not include gender options, just as shown in the recent gameplay stream.

Players will start from a fixed character, which they’ll be able to change and edit to their liking: hairstyle, hair color, complexion, facial features, eyes, etc. What is not included in this list of options however is the ability to choose the main character’s gender. At the end of the process, you’ll have to select one of two voices, which are either masculine or feminine, although you’re able to modify the tone.

In Hogwarts, dormitories are separated by gender. Each of the four Houses (Gryffindor, Slytherin, Ravenclaw, and Hufflepuff) has their own common room where all of their students socialize, but their sleeping quarters are separate. Taking this into account, in Hogwarts Legacy we do have to choose whether to sleep in the wizard’s or witches’ dormitory.

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Pressure from the developers

Jason Schreier, of Bloomberg, had revealed over a year ago that the character editor in Hogwarts Legacy would work like this. “Some members of the Hogwarts Legacy dev team had been pushing hard for this, uncomfortable with Rowling’s position and rattled by the effects she has had on a game they’ve put a lot into,” he tweeted back in March of 2021.

Hogwarts Legacy will launch on February 11, 2023. The game is being developed for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and PC. A Nintendo Switch version is also coming, but there’s still no confirmed release date. The Warner Bros. Avalanche game was previously set for the 2022 Holidays, but the studio needed some more time to get it right.

Source | GamesRadar