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On February 10, the highly anticipated Harry Potter video game, Hogwarts Legacy, will be released on PS5, Xbox X/S and PC. Since its announcement, and as its release date has been approaching, many activists of the radical woke left have called for a boycott of Hogwarts Legacy, however, this cancel campaign could be provoking the opposite reaction, as this is one of the most anticipated games by the public.
The video game set in the Harry Potter universe has been in development by Avalanche Software since 2017, and its initial release date of 2021 has been pushed back twice, first to 2022 and then to February 2023.
During this time, it has made its place among the most prestigious lists of the sector as one of the most anticipated video games by the gaming community, but it has also been the target of virulent attacks by woke activists, who have called for its boycott because the author of the novels, J. K. Rowling -although not directly involved in the development of the game-, has positioned herself against gender ideology and the transgender lobby.
Hogwarts Legacy has also been the target of Woke ire because its initial chief designer was Troy Leavitt, who was accused of having a “reactionary” YouTube channel, in which he criticized feminism and social justice.
Although he assured that his departure had nothing to do with this controversy, the truth is that Troy Leavitt left Avalanche Software and the Hogwarts Legacy project shortly after attention was drawn to some of his videos with titles such as “The Injustice of Social Justice,” “In Praise of Cultural Appropriation,” and “Are Thoughtcrimes Becoming Real”.
Ironically, the reference to the dictatorship of George Orwell’s 1984 thought became reality for Troy Leavitt, who found out the hard way that some things can’t be named, like Voldemort.
After this campaign of harassment against one of its creators, and coinciding with the release of a trailer of the video game in March 2022, the horde woke used a magic card that it considers infallible for any cancel campaign: accusing the video game of being “anti-Semitic” for being set during the “Goblins Rebellion” within the Harry Potter universe.
Last December they returned to the charge against Hogwarts Legacy. “The Mary Sue,” a site dedicated to promoting feminism in the video game world, called for a boycott of the game in response to J.K. Rowling’s political views and alleged anti-Semitism. The Mary Sue site was created in 2011 by Dan Abrams, a journalist who has held senior positions at MSNBC, NBC News and ABC News.
A few days ago, the umpteenth episode of harassment against the video game came to light, after a female employee was fired from Limited Run Games for tweeting that she was looking forward to the release of the Harry Potter game. This caught the attention of a transgender activist who, like a dementor, got the employee fired for following the Libs of TikTok and Ben Shapiro accounts on her personal profile.
Just this week, voice actor Sebastian Croft, who voices the video game’s protagonist, has apologized for his presence in the title, saying he was “I was cast in this project over 3 years ago, back when all Harry Potter was to me, was the magical world I grew up with.”
Apparently, now Harry Potter is no longer that magical world of fantasy and children’s entertainment, at least not for the woke cult fans. According to Sebastian Croft, “This was long before I was aware of JK Rowling’s views. I believe whole heartedly that trans women are women and trans men are men.”
This statement of public atonement to the woke parishioners concluded it by stating that “there is no LGB without the T”.
When is Hogwarts Legacy released?
Despite this coordinated campaign against the game, the public remains enthusiastic about the release, especially after its delays. What’s more, the savage attack may have had the opposite effect to that desired by the woke activists, fueling among gamers a feeling of disgust at the political instrumentalization of a simple video game, and provoking a campaign of hilarious memes in favor of Hogwarts Legacy and against the cancellation culture.
Hogwarts Legacy will be available for Windows, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S on February 10. Its PlayStation 4 and Xbox One version will be released on April 4, while Nintendo Switch players will have to wait until July 25.
Ignacio Manuel García Medina, Business Management teacher. Artist and lecturer specialized in Popular Culture for various platforms. Presenter of the program "Pop Libertario" for the Juan de Mariana Institute. Lives in the Canary Islands, Spain // Ignacio M. García Medina es profesor de Gestión de Empresas. Es miembro del Instituto Juan de Mariana y conferenciante especializado en Cultura Popular e ideas de la Libertad.
Social Networks: @ignaciomgm