The PS4 and Xbox One versions ofHogwarts Legacyhave been delayed yet again, with Avalanche Software and WB Games pushing them back by a bit over a month to May 5. Thelast-generation ports ofHogwarts Legacywere last delayedin December, when the publisher decided to move ahead with releasing the PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S versions of the game on February 10 while giving the developers more time to optimize the newHarry PotterRPG for older hardware.Such staggered launch strategy resulted in Warner Bros.attaching four release dates toHogwarts Legacy. It has so far honored two of those and might still go three out of four, though this newest development doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in that outcome.RELATED:Hogwarts Legacy Fans Call for Wand ChangeAs for the April 4 release date previously targeted by the PS4 and Xbox One versions ofHogwarts Legacy, those ports have now been pushed back to May 5. The latest post from the game’s official Twitter account said the developers require a bit more time to create “the best possible experience” on Sony and Microsoft’s last-gen consoles. The wording of that statement suggests the delay was prompted by relatively obvious optimization challenges associated with porting any technically ambitious open-world RPG to Xbox One and PS4, both of which are pushing 10 years old nowadays.
Hogwarts Legacywas initially planned to release in 2021 before getting hit with a couple of significant postponements in the two years following its September 2020 announcement. This newest development makes for a total of three delays suffered by the game’s PS4 and Xbox One ports. And while the Switch version only received an official release date back in late 2022, it remains to be seen whether it manages to hit that target if even the significantly more powerful hardware from Sony and Microsoft is proving to be such an optimization challenge for the developers.
The technological gap between the last-generation platforms targeted byHogwarts Legacycan be somewhat illustrated using the imperfect teraflops metric, which indicates how many trillions of floating-point operations a given system can perform in a second. The PS4 leads this comparison with 1.84 teraflops, whereas the Xbox One and Switch measure in at 1.41 and 0.5 teraflops, respectively. For context, theXbox Series X boasts 12 teraflops, while the PS5 manages around 10% less.
Given how last-generation console have a combined installed base of nearly 300 million units, according to turn-of-the-year data, it’s plausible the latestHarry Pottergame will lose some of its commercial momentum come early spring due to this newly announced delay. But that’s not to take away from its existing success, which is underlined by the fact thatHogwarts Legacyhas already been dominating key marketsfor three straight weeks and counting.
Hogwarts Legacyis available now on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S, with PS4 and Xbox One versions launching May 5 and a Switch port releasing July 25.
