The developers at Avalanche Studios have held their cards close to heart ever since the last 14-minute-long State of Play showcase, teasing titbits of information as the months whisk away. Though not intended to be released to the public, a new tech demo has emerged online unearthing a wealth of detail to eager fans.
Being a Potterhead of note, I tirelessly scoured YouTube upon hearing the news and managed to watch the hour-long Autodesk showcase. The video essentially builds up toward a 40-second cutscene. The developers showcased play-by-play details on how various types of characters, scenes and gameplay elements are created from every detail down to what asset pipeline and engine tools were used, to motion capture of the various actors and actresses, visual effects, rendering, and animations, finally bringing it all together within the game engine. Whew! That’s a lot of work!
Now onto the juicy bits. A brief look at the character creation menu revealed five out of six submenus, namely pre-sets, face wear, hairstyles, complexion, and eyebrows. Pre-sets reveal a variety of different students to choose from and more importantly face wear allows the users to alter one’s face shape, skin tone and eye wear including Potter’s famed rimmed spectacles. Neat! There seems to be a ton of variety to shape your character as you wish, including scars and markings, a variety of hairstyles and even minute details such as freckles and moles, and finally eyebrow shape, colour, and eye colour. Customisation is always a plus in my opinion.
Finally the video ends with a 40-second cutscene revealing some poachers attempting to capture a hippogriff affectionately named Highwing, which seems to be the very same one we see the player character ride in the State of Play trailer. The cutscene continues on as the main character and his friend attempt to free Highwing before the video comes to an abrupt end.
It’s fascinating to see the amount of work it takes to produce a video game, and equally admirable to see the labour of love put into the game thus far. For those who interested, the video is down below in case you missed it. We expect Hogwarts Legacy to be released within the holiday season. Gryffindor FTW!
