Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions – a chaotic, ultra-fast spin-off with polished mechanics and immersive views

Image: Warner Bros. Games

27 Sep 2024

It’s extremely grindy, but if you can overlook the between matches bloat, on the pitch Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions delivers the exact magical sport experience fans want.

One of the most common complaints about last year’s open-world adventure Hogwarts Legacy was the lack of Quidditch.

As a recap, your character arrives at Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry only to find that the broom-borne team sport won’t be happening that year. With the game such a key component of J.K. Rowling’s beloved Harry Potter books, it was disappointing not to be able to take to the pitch and put some smack-talking opponents in their place.

Well, it turns out that the lack of Quidditch in Hogwarts Legacy was primarily because the sport was getting its own dedicated game, in the form of new release Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MmBO_K3WqE

Made by Unbroken Studios and published by Warner Bros. Games under its Portkey Games label – a subdivision entirely devoted to games set in the Wizarding World – Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions can be considered the spiritual success to 2003’s Harry Potter: Quidditch World Cup, right down to its more cartoony art style.

Whether enjoyed solo or in multiplayer mode, players get to live out their Quidditch dreams (at least virtually) in Quidditch Champions. After getting up to speed with the game in the Weasleys’ back garden, gamers advance to competing in the Hogwarts Inter-House Cup as Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, or Slytherin; before graduating to the Triwizard Schools Quidditch Cup, between Hogwarts, Durmstrang Institute, and Beauxbatons Academy of Magic. Finally, one competes at the sport’s highest level in the Quidditch World Cup as one of 16 nations. (Those 16 countries include South Africa, for the record.)

Along the way players get to customise their teams, equipping them with better brooms, investing earned skill points, and indulging in some cosmetic personalisation for funsies. (As a sidenote, you also get to choose your players’ pronouns for commentator purposes, because Rowling is hands-off when it comes to Portkey Games.)

On the pitch, Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions delivers the exact, emotionally satisfying experience that franchise fans and sport game enthusiasts want. (Image: Warner Bros. Games)

The best way to think of Quidditch Champions is as a more chaotic, ultra-fast and magical spin on EA Sports games, like FC (formerly Fifa) and Madden NFL. It’s also airborne, and flying here is far more intuitive and satisfying than Hogwarts Legacy, allowing you to pull off dramatic passes, Bludger dodges, and drifts to keep your eye on the Golden Snitch – all of which are necessary for victory.

Quidditch Champions is a polished title across the board with a special emphasis on sleek, smooth gameplay.

On Quidditch as a sport, each six-person team consists of four positions. The ones with the closest real-world equivalents are the three Chasers, who operate as goal scorers (10 points are earned at a time); and a single Keeper, who protects their team’s three-goal hoops, and has a bit more to do by strategically dropping speed-boosting rings over the field.

Unique to Harry Potter’s universe, there’s also a Beater, who uses a bat and hefty Bludger ball to defend teammates and knock opponents out of the game. Finally, there’s a specialist points scorer called a Seeker, who is only activated when the nimble Golden Snitch enters the game. The Seeker must chase down the Snitch, which earns their team 30 points, in a game-balancing rule change from Rowling’s books. Victory goes to the first team to reach 100 points, or which has the highest score when time runs out.

Getting started. (Image: Warner Bros. Games)

In campaign mode, players can easily switch between all six positions. (Image: Warner Bros. Games)

It is a pity that Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions is so grindy, and fixated on mostly meaningless off-the-field distractions. (Image: Warner Bros. Games)

The Vault in Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions. (Image: Warner Bros. Games)

Matches are played in a third-person, over-the-shoulder view, which has extra immersive benefits. In solo Campaign mode, players can easily switch between all six positions at will, while in online multiplayer you divvy up the roles. Right now the cross-platform multiplayer caps at 3v3, while plans are under way for a complete 6v6 option before the end of 2024.

Multiplayer is probably where Quidditch Champions will find its longevity, as there are a lot of on-field strategy and teamwork elements to tap into, not to mention the unpredictability that real-life players bring to proceedings. Even in single-player, though, the matches can be thrilling.

While the Easy setting requires very little effort to win matches (your team’s bots will do all the work for you), Standard difficulty presents more of a challenge and results in clashes that are emotionally gratifying as they get down to the wire. For the record, you can unlock higher difficulty settings if you want to test yourself further.

On that note, Quidditch Champions is not a game to be blasted through in a single afternoon. Career progress is gated by certain requirements. For example, to take part in the Triwizard Schools Quidditch Cup, one needs to have won the Hogwarts Inter-House Cup with all four House teams.

A warning now that Quidditch Champions is very grindy.

There are no micro-transactions, which is great to see in a live-service game, but the trade-off is that the only way to earn the title’s handful of in-game currencies (including gold, moonstones and winged keys) is through ticking off daily career and seasonal challenges. Quidditch Champions is typically compelling when you’re on the pitch, but being forced to play X number of games per day can be a slog that dampens the fun.

It also doesn’t help that unlocking skin packs for iconic characters like Harry Potter and Ron Weasley is an expensive endeavour, in terms of both invested time and keys. Plus, all the minute customisation between games doesn’t feel worth it. When matches are so fast and frantic, there isn’t a chance to appreciate that tweaked sparkly broom trail or rare unlocked emote. So much effort has been put into padding out the period between matches, when consistently the pitch is where it’s at – where Quidditch Champions shines, and delivers the exact experience fans want. DM

Image: Warner Bros. Games

Released on 3 September, Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions is out now for PC, PlayStation 4 and 5, plus Xbox One and Series consoles. The game is coming to Nintendo Switch in November, while right now, until 30 September, it can also be downloaded for free by all PlayStation Plus members.

This article was first published on PFangirl.

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