The Hogwarts Legacy community mourns the temporary disappearance of a bizarre leaker who claims to be the son of a senior developer.
In a now-nuked Reddit post (opens in new tab)user HogwartsInsider claimed that they were able to help with QA on the game through their ties to their father, design director Chad Liddell, and while a non-disclosure agreement partially bound them, they were allowed a limited Q+A session, which reveals details about the game.
Through that thread, they answered questions about everything from player customization to computer performance. At the time of writing, however, nothing of what they revealed remains visible. According to one of the subreddit’s mods (opens in new tab), Warner Bros issued a takedown notice to Reddit’s legal department, which took down the post in question. Another post, from a user claiming to have early access to the game, was also removed, and both accounts have now been deleted.
None of the content revealed in either leak was particularly noteworthy – there were no story spoilers and little mechanical discussion, with most players wanting to know about customization and map exploration, and both users being careful to too spoiled. Nevertheless, it seems that the community has rallied around the leakers as their new heroes; at the time of writing, several of the subreddit’s top posts are memes paying tribute and/or disavowing Warner Bros’ decision to discontinue the post.
The circumstances surrounding the leak are pretty wild because even if the leaker was exactly who they claimed, non-disclosure agreements exist for a reason. At this late stage before the game’s release, marketing campaigns were fully locked down, and even if a QA worker was actually related to a senior developer, an unofficial question-and-answer session on a fan forum wouldn’t just signed off by ‘my dad who works at Avalanche’.
The leak, which was removed at the same time as another thread by a user who claimed to have gotten their copy of the game early, is just the latest chapter in a bizarre pre-launch saga for Hogwarts Legacy. While community enthusiasm remains high, the Hogwarts Legacy controversy continues, with various protests aimed at the game.
While JK Rowling is not involved in the development of Hogwarts Legacy, GamesRadar+ does acknowledge the author’s role in the creation of the Wizarding World, as well as her publicly stated harmful views regarding the rights of transgender people. If you would 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.
