Hogwarts Legacy Loses Open-World Feature in Nintendo Switch Version

Hogwarts Legacy had to make some major compromises to its open-world in order to run on Nintendo Switch. Hogwarts Legacy is, as of right now, the biggest game of 2023. That may shock you since it came out at the start of the year and has had absurdly stiff competition, so much so that it was completely snubbed at The Game Awards. Nevertheless, it's the number one best selling game of 2023 at the moment. There is still time for that to change, however, as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 just released and the franchise is consistently the best selling game every year (except when Rockstar releases a new game). Still, Hogwarts Legacy has found a way to stay relevant this holiday season with its new Nintendo Switch version.

The port was meant to release in the spring, but was delayed a couple times. It's now finally here and fans are understandably quite curious to see just how well it runs. Some early leaks looked promising and for the most part, the game holds up! However, there is one fatal flaw: the open-world is not so open on Nintendo Switch. Hogwarts Legacy is a big game that allows you to roam freely outside of the school and there is a lot of ground to cover. On PC and consoles, there are no/minimal loading screens. On Nintendo Switch, Hogwarts Legacy has tons of loading screens. When you are crossing the bridge into Hogsmeade, there is a loading screen. That could be easy to look past if all of the shops didn't require a loading screen to enter either. If that wasn't bad enough, Switch Up notes that these load times are anywhere from 30 – 50 seconds long. That means you will spend multiple minutes in loading screens while making your way through Hogsmeade.

You probably won't want to browse shops aimlessly, you may want to go in with a plan so you aren't constantly going in and out of loading screens. Maybe there's a chance this will get patched later and improve things, but it's a frustrating flaw right now. Nevertheless, it seems the Nintendo Switch is an otherwise competent port that will please Harry Potter fans who only have a Nintendo Switch. There are graphical compromises, but it still looks good and it runs at around 30 FPS. Either way, there are worse Nintendo Switch ports and given this is a pretty big, demanding game, it's surprising it runs natively on the Nintendo console.