Hogwarts Legacy’s Switch port omits one of its defining features

As the reviews for Hogwarts Legacy’s Switch port emerge and players get hands on a big missing feature has been a talking point with the Harry Potter game no longer being open world.

When it first launched in February 2023, Hogwarts Legacy was a huge success. So much so that a sequel was reportedly greenlit just a few months later on the back of it generating over $1 billion in revenue.

While it certainly wasn’t without controversy, Avalanche Software’s Harry Potter game was critically well received too with it having an 84 on Metacritic and ‘Very Positive’ reviews on Steam.

Now nine months on the open-world RPG has been brought across to Nintendo’s popular hybrid console, but it doesn’t quite play the same due to the absence of one huge feature.

Hogwarts Legacy on Switch is not open world

Now players are getting the chance to play Hogwarts Legacy it hasn’t taken long to realize the Switch port of the Harry Potter game is not open world.

Instead, its world is made up of a series of connected 3D levels with loading screens separating them. This is comparable to how Pokemon Legends: Arceus worked as opposed to the later Scarlet and Violet.

This was a focal point of SwitchUp’s technical review which described the design choice as a “huge flaw,” with it not only hurting immersion but also taking “30 to 50 seconds,” each time the game has to load a new area.

The decision to split up areas will have been made to improve performance and overall stability. Due to the Switch’s limited hardware rendering one large open area in such a vast game would have been difficult. After all, the Switch effectively runs on six-year-old mobile technology.

Even The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom suffers from some performance issues trying to create an open world and that’s a dedicated first-party title that was in development for several years.

To the developer’s credit, this decision appears to have paid off with Hogwarts Legacy running at a stable 30 FPS. While lacking compared to its other versions the Switch port still looks to provide a playable experience that many players will enjoy.