Hogwarts Legacy will let you literally kill a guy

Today, Warner Bros. and Avalanche showed off the first Hogwarts Legacy gameplay trailer, and it revealed something we weren't entirely expecting: you'll be able to use the Killing Curse in the game.

For some context, the Killing Curse was invented by dark wizards and witches in the early Middle Ages and is one of three unforgivable curses. As its name suggests, it instantly and painlessly kills its target, and so naturally it's Lord Voldemort's signature spell. He-who-we-just-named tries using it against Harry Potter at the end of Deathly Hallows: Part 2, but Harry uses the Expelliarmus charm to deflect it and put an end to Voldemort at last.

In today's Hogwarts Legacy trailer, we see the player character quite clearly cast the Killing Curse against an unseen foe, leaving little ambiguity about their fate. Unless they happened to be carrying an Expelliarmus charm, that character is straight up dead. In a game adapted from a series of young adult novels, you might expect to simply "defeat" or "vanquish" enemies, but by including the Killing Curse as a usable spell, Hogwarts Legacy is proving it won't shy away from some of the darker themes from the source material.

Today's Hogwarts Legacy-focused State of Play also revealed that the game is due to launch sometime this Winter.

Although she is not involved in the development of Hogwarts Legacy, 12DOVE acknowledges the role of J.K. Rowling in the creation of the Wizarding World, as well as her publicly stated, harmful views regarding the rights of transgender people. If you’d like to offer your support to the communities affected by Rowling’s rhetoric, consider donating to the National Center for Transgender Equality in the US, or Mermaids in the UK.