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Saints Row and Agents of Mayhem developer Volition was working on a massive Harry Potter RPG prior to the release of the series’ first movie. Over two decades ago, when Goblet of Fire was the last book in the series, Volition aimed to make a sprawling, character-based RPG for PC.
Via GamesRadar, The Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York has preserved footage of an early in-development built of the “doomed” RPG. While the gameplay footage has not been made public, the game was a top-down RPG with pre-rendered environments and multi-character gameplay.
Harry Potter meets Baldur’s Gate
According to the Strong National History of Play’s director of digital preservation Andrew Borman, the team at Volition read every single Harry Potter book available at the time to perfectly re-create the universe. In development before the 2001 film and the rapidly-developed EA movie tie-in game, this would’ve actually been the first official adaptation of the Wizarding World.
While we can’t see the early footage of the game, it’s said to be almost exactly like an early BioWare era CRPG. The outlet explained that the footage simply showed Harry and Hagrid “wandering around a small, unpopulated, unfinished town”, which likely would’ve been Diagon Alley.
“As far as I know, this has never been seen by the public before,” the preservationist told the outlet. “The story is that, when Volition and THQ pitched this game, at least some of the THQ executives came dressed in robes and had owls with them,” he continued.
According to the preservationist, the one surviving build of the game is only from a few weeks into development. Unfortunately, the game never ended up hitting full production, likely due to EA picking up the rights to the series’ movie tie-in games, but it’s interesting to know that this was a route the series could’ve gone in.
Nowadays, the Potter games are handled in-house at Warner Bros with Avalanche’s Hogwarts Legacy proving to be one of the most popular games, well, ever. While a lot of the Wizarding World sparkle has faded for some as of late, the franchise still holds weight.
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