Ever since LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga was announced, and all those previews were talking of how this will be the largest game ever, I’ve been thinking of how other franchises that have previously seen a LEGO game could be expanded using the new scope of LEGO games. Using the openness and freedom such a change seems to be bringing to the series to create something that feels brand new for games that have already seen a LEGO rendition.

I’ve already presented a number of concepts regarding The Skywalker Saga, and it will be interesting to see if any of those come to be when the game releases. I’ve been working on a concept for a new original LEGO game building off what City Undercover presented, but I want to get a feel for how The Skywalker Saga plays before finalising details of such. That leaves one other I’ve put a good deal of time concepting. Harry Potter.

I’ve long held the Harry Potter LEGO games as good but nothing special, and that’s owing to several things – not least the fact that it feels like a lot of stretching of content was used to be able to hit six levels per film. This new format of LEGO games would help improve such a feeling by only creating levels where levels feel natural. Harry’s entire journey up until he arrives at Hogwarts would be handled in the open world, with the first true level being The Midnight Duel.

This was something not featured in the film – with the discovery of Fluffy the three-headed dog being rewritten, so got missed out with the game. I picture this as being in two parts. The first part would be the journey to the trophy room. Peeves is flying around the castle, so you need to avoid him by causing chaos around the castle that he’ll want to investigate. Part two would see you arrive at the trophy room and uncover the trap within a cutscene, then have to escape from Filch.

But now the tables have turned, with Peeves having blocked off your journey back to Gryffindor Tower. Some areas will be completely blocked, but others you can destroy part of to progress. The level ends when you meet Peeves near the forbidden corridor on the third floor, where the cutscene plays of discovering Fluffy and running back to Gryffindor Tower. It’s also possible to have a third part of the level where you need to survive Fluffy’s attack.

I’m not going to go into all the levels in detail, but it should give an idea of how I’m thinking these levels can go. There would only be four levels per year, with each representing a season. Autumn, Winter, Spring, and Summer, with the Summer level always being the final battle of that year. Meaning the Summer level of Year 1 would be the quests leading to the final confrontation with Quirrel.

Year 1 clearly involves a lot of wandering around in the dark with its levels, but that’s just how things progress during the story. There’ll still be plenty of things to do in the day within the open world. Lessons that teach you spells are again a key part of the experience, but this time… not every student will know every spell. There will be more variety in the skillset of all students. Teachers, of course, will know a lot more.

Before continuing, let’s just discuss the controls for spells and abilities. There’s a lot of them after all, and swapping between them all with a wheel isn’t exactly the most intuitive to quickly using them. So, with this concept, the wheel gets reinvented to be a quick access menu. By utilising button combos of the shoulder and face buttons, you can get to the spells easily without needing to sacrifice the most important movement controls.

While holding down LB, a menu would appear in the top left with a list of four spells. A tap of RB brings up four more. Tap RB again to get access to the third list. A third tap of RB cycles you back to the beginning. Element spells would be the first list, with field spells being the second, and combat spells being the third. A press of the corresponding face button would then select that spell for use with RT, with the selected spell always being visible in the top left. Using RB without holding LB would allow you to quickly cycle through all the spells that character knows.

Field spells would be those such as Wingardium Leviosa and Reducto. Those that are used exclusively for the purposes of solving puzzles. Combat spells are exactly what it says – those that are used in combat such as Protego and Stupefy. The element spells include the likes of Aguamenti and Incendio. The kind of spells that can be used to solve puzzles, but are also helpful in combat situations.

As I said, not every student will know every spell. For the story, at least. The teaching of spells is an important one, with the same kind of quests that the original games had that allow you to get used to how they work. Hermione would know Alohomora from the start, with all students learning Wingdardium Leviosa and Flipendo as the core spells of the first year. Combat spells would only be learnt starting from the second year.

As new spells are learnt, there’s going to eventually be too many to fit in one of those categories. For such a case, there’s spellsets. When not running through the story, you have complete control over which spells you want characters to have access to from the menu out of all those learnt. Otherwise, each year will see students get a new spellset that consists of spells carrying over that are needed for that year, with new ones to be added to it throughout the year.

Along with the spells are other things, such as items each character has access to. By pressing up on the d-pad, the item menu appears. Cycling through with LB and RB, another press of up will select that item for use with LT. These items can range from handheld – such as a trowel, or larger items such as Harry’s Invisibility Cloak. Some items can also be used in place of a wand for close-quarters combat. And speaking of close-quarters combat…

This is something we’ve seen in the Skywalker Saga trailers, but still have little idea of how it works beyond being more in-depth than what we’ve had before. So why not just go Dynasty Warriors-lite with it. A light attack and a heavy attack that can be strung together to form a combination of hits, with air attacks and dodge attacks that can be included in the mix. Blocking on LT and rush attacks on RT also add to the combat options. I doubt the depth talked about is this complex, but it is nice to think about.

And yes, I’m aware this is a game about magic. You want to be firing multi-coloured fireworks everywhere you can and controlling anything you find by pointing a stick at it. But what about the other characters? Those who have little or no magical ability? They felt like afterthoughts in the old games, included because they had to be or to simply pad out the playable characters. Now, though, they can be useful. And because it would be funny to defeat the greatest dark wizard of the era as Aunt Petunia with a mop.

The largest change coming with this new era of LEGO games are how the worlds are presented. There’s a lot more detail going into them and a lot of places to explore full of extra quests to partake in. With this being Harry Potter, the obvious location is Hogwarts and Hogsmeade, which can be expanded beyond what the old games offered to include more areas of the castle, grounds, and village. But there’s more locations than just Scotland.

Down south, you have London – the place where the magic begins. The Leaky Cauldron and Diagon Alley, and Kings Cross Station, along with other locations such as the Ministry of Magic, Grimmauld Place, and other non-magical sites such as the café on Tottenham Court Road. Now, there’s no need for an extensive layout of London on the scale of Watch Dogs Legion (although I would be impressed if they recreated the northern boroughs to that scale), but it needs to feel like a natural rendition of the city regardless. And also include Paddington and Hyde Park, since one of those is visited in the first book (even if briefly).

Then you have the place our three main characters live. Okay, two, since it’s not known where Hermione lived. Little Whinging would be an interesting place to see created here, as it would be the first time we would get to fully explore it within video game form. There could also be scope to expand out to include more of (a compacted) Surrey, with one or two other towns and the zoo that features in the first book.

As for Ottery St. Catchpole, The Burrow would be obvious to include, as would the village. The houses of the other wizarding families who live around the village would also be here. While only the Lovegood household needs to feature, adding the others would make for some great world building by including such details. The area also housed many hills, including one that was named – Stoatshead Hill. This was the location for the Portkey that would take those of the area to the Quidditch World Cup final.

The campsites and the grounds where that final took place would be a location, seeing some action for the opening of the Goblet of Fire story. The numerous places visited by the trio during their Horcrux-hunting adventures would see appearances – including Shell Cottage. That also includes Godric’s Hollow, which would allow exploration of Harry’s birth home. Going further back in the family timeline, an interesting place to explore would be where Lily grew up. Where Snape also grew up and continued to live.

If I was to go crazy with this, rather than just individual locations, you would be able to explore entire counties. Surrey, Devon, Yorkshire… anywhere that holds a location visited in the books would see representation as a county. Now, obviously I’m not expecting anywhere near full representation. Two or three urban areas, with some natural locations such as forests or hillsides is all it needs. Such isn’t needed, though. Focus on the detail of the known locations rather than including things that don’t matter.

As for travelling between these locations, you’d have a few methods. First would be by car. When in a vehicle, you would select which location you want to go to on the map to be taken to that location. The same also applies to trains, as well, but you would instead select where you wanted to go on a map at the station before boarding the train to travel. Then you have the wizarding methods of travel. Broomsticks can be flown between locations, as can flying cars. These can be instant travel, or manual travel.

Yes, a very blocky and compact version of the UK would exist as a map, and whether on broom or other flying methods, you’d get to travel it. From high up in the skies, you can look down on the UK as you fly around, with areas you can visit marked on the map by seeing their most important feature appear larger than their surroundings by a great degree. It’d be like flying around on Flight Simulator and coming across a road sign that said Privet Drive as tall as a mountain.

There’s a lot I’ve been thinking of with this one. I’d love to see a singular vision for every story of the series retelling as much of it as possible – rather than the very mixed approach that EA gave the series over the years. One that allows as much of this magical world to be explored as possible. TT Games making a second attempt at the series seems the only way it might be possible. Unless the upcoming Hogwarts Legacy is able to do it justice, of course. But that game isn’t answering the first want.

Images Taken From:
LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 (Original Screenshots)
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets