Warner Bros. Games has cancelled a major expansion to Hogwarts Legacy as part of ongoing restructuring, as the company faces financial woes.
The planned expansion to the company’s biggest success in recent years would have added new storylines on its release later this year, alongside a “Definitive Edition” including all content.
However, according to a report from Bloomberg, the expansion has been scrapped – the expansion itself was never publicly announced, but was reported by the outlet last year.
In part, the expansion was cancelled due to the content not being substantial enough to justify its price, anonymous sources told Bloomberg.
Developer Avalanche was reportedly working with Rocksteady Studios on the expansion, which would restore a storyline based on a companion cut during development of the original game.
Last year, Rocksteady released its Suicide Squad live-service game, which was deemed a financial failure. Earlier this year, the studio suffered a round of layoffs, but is now reportedly working on a new single-player Batman game as it returns to its biggest success.
The news follows the cancellation by Warner Bros. of its Wonder Woman game, as well as the closure of its Monolith Productions studio, in addition to Player First Games and Warner Bros. Games San Diego. This was described as a “strategic change in direction”, the publisher said.
It’s now doubling down on its biggest franchises: Harry Potter, Mortal Kombat, DC, and Game of Thrones.
Hogwarts Legacy has sold over 34m copies to become one of the best-selling games ever, but Warner Bros. has been unable to replicate its success elsewhere. A sequel is reported to be in development by Avalanche.
“We can rage about the system, the stock market, and the bad luck all we like, and we’d have a good point – it is our purpose, as journalists, punters and just humans, to seek out systemic explanations, to flush out the patterns, when the same things keep going wrong,” wrote Eurogamer deputy editor Chris Tapsell about Warner Bros. Games’ decade of mismanagement.
“And systemic issues are real. So are individuals. And this industry will get nowhere without those individuals who make the big calls first taking a long, hard look in the mirror.”