The Harry Potter franchise was a huge success. Warner Bros. tried to re-create the magic using the spinoff Fantastic Beasts, but never got that same traction.

But that changed with Hogwarts Legacy.

The open-world action role-playing game developed by Avalanche Software and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, managed to capture the audience, and made a name for itself.

Bearing similar vibe and ingredients to the original Harry Potter, it quickly synched with those 'Potterheads', and thanks to the internet, it gained some fantastic numbers too.

"The player engagement is spectacular,” said David Haddad, Warner Bros. Games president.

"So far, we have tracked over 152 million hours played, 173 million magical plants grown, 115 million potions brewed and 556 million Dark Wizards defeated."

In a later update, made days after the interview, the number went up to some 267 million hours played, 393 million magical plants grown, 242 million potions brewed and 1.25 billion Dark Wizards defeated.

A day after announcing this, the game broke Warner Bros. Games records for reaching 280 million hours played.

Other high numbers include Hogwarts Legacy reaching a peak of over 489,000 concurrent players on Steam during its early access, becoming the second-highest player count peak for any single-player game, behind only Cyberpunk 2077.

After its release, the game almost doubled its concurrent player record during release weekend, peaking at around 1 million players.

As a matter of fact, with 1,280,000 concurrent viewers, the fantasy role-playing game has also listed at Guinness World Record for being the most watched single-player videogame on Twitch.

These numbers made Hogwarts Legacy to far surpass Fantastic Beasts, and that fact is even before sales figures are mentioned.

Potterhead is an informal term used to call devoted fans of the Harry Potter series and also the extension of the Wizarding World franchise, the Fantastic Beasts series.

The community of fans is known to participate in various entertainment activities that revolve around the series, such as reading and writing fan fiction, creating and soliciting fan art, engaging in role-playing games, socializing on Harry Potter-based forums, and lots more. The fandom also interacts online as well as offline through activities such as fan conventions, and cosplay events.

Many of them are also present in tours of iconic landmarks relevant to the books and production of the films, and parties held for the midnight release of each book and film.

Another way of saying it, they are diehard fans of the Harry Potter franchise, and other things that are related to it.

Following the fourth Harry Potter book, the legions of fans had grown so large that they are considered one of the few four-quadrant, multi-generation spanning franchises that exist.

Hogwarts Legacy was made purposefully for this kind of audience, and Warner Bros. succeeded really well.

In fact, Hogwarts Legacy influenced the highest traffic in the “Harry Potter” community on fan platform website Fandom in more than seven years.

The creations and views on Hogwarts Legacy-driven web pages have become one of the major driver for the fan site as well.

Because of this, Warner Bros. considers Hogwarts Legacy as a long-term franchise.

"We are very pleased with the initial launch and see a bright future for our other platform launches," said Haddad.

"Our goal is to continue to utilize our amazing library of Warner Bros. Discovery franchises as we develop our future slate of games."

Two weeks after the launch, it's reported that the game's sales earned $850 million globally, after selling more than 12 million copies.

While things were looking good for Warner Bros. Games as the game's producer, Hogwarts Legacy arrived with some heated debate within the Harry Potter community and fans.

Most notably, this follows author J. K. Rowling, who said in a podcast, and continued to publicly express her views many perceive as offensive to transgender people.

In particular, the well-known writer made inflammatory comments about trans women, and also used dehumanizing language, to also accuse them of harming cisgender women.

She even said that she doesn't give a damn for being called a transphobic.

Her words have indeed disappointed the legions of Potterheads.

While Rowling didn’t participate creatively in Hogwarts Legacy, she benefits financially from its sales.

And this prompts debate, and also anxiety over whether playing the game means that the players support Rowling's anti-transgender thoughts and causes.

While only psychologically, this is an issue Warner Bros. is trying to address.

Some 70% of fans said that they "will play a game simply because they are a fan of that franchise," said Fandom CEO Perkins Miller.

It's also worth noting that Hogwarts Legacy is also notable because Warner Bros. is the last of Hollywood’s major studios to produce its own games rather than outsourcing the titles.

"We are fortunate and unique in being able to tell every kind of story at WBD, from fiction to nonfiction, movies to TV, and linear to interactive," says JB Perrette, president and CEO of global streaming and games for WBD. "Our ability to develop and publish world-class games in-house sets us apart from other entertainment companies."

Hogwarts Legacy is like Fantastic Beasts, in which it's a prequel to the original Harry Potter timeline.

Taking place in the late 1800s, or a century before the events of the Harry Potter novels, the game features a student at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry who learns to wield different magical abilities and objects, aided by other students and professors, and is involved in uncovering an ancient secret of the wizarding world.

Played in a third-person Resident Evil 4-like perspective, the setting takes place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and its surrounding areas, like Hogsmeade and the Scottish Highlands.

And just like the Harry Potter franchise, it involves the four known Hogwarts Houses—Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin, and quests that are based by the player's house.

The protagonist, who is a fifth-year student in the school, can also learn and upgrade different spells, talents, and abilities.

Players can also have the protagonist learn how to brew various potions and number of combat abilities.

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