An Inside Look at Hogwarts Legacy Unreal Engine Extensions | GDC 2024

Get an inside look at how Avalanche Software extended Unreal Engine to deliver an open world, cinematic storytelling game experience in Hogwarts Legacy. From developer experience tools, to mission editor workflows, character technologies, and cinematics storytelling editor extensions, you will get a glimpse of how the Hogwarts Legacy team embraced the Unreal Engine and extended it to achieve its game design goals and end-user gamer experience.

[@Bloodline2009]

I enjoyed every minute of this game. The fact that it had a 5+ year development time really showed in the finished product. So good.

[@nobu3358]

the castle was done well, the rest of the game and overall gameplay not so much. They were clearly rushed halfway through the project.

[@Tlk2Rbts]

Yeah for sure doing side content really soured the game for me. More than any over played before. Overall still a Great game just needed a bit more time

[@Data-Cain]

​@@nobu3358 This. Overall it's 6/10 - And that's only because the Castle was so good. There is definately fun to be had if you're a fan, but it's nowhere near as good as reviews made it out to be.

[@user-df9ce4nn4m]

Same it was a fun platinum. Just wished it was longer in every chapter pretty much.

[@egretfx]

this is insane amount of work went in here!!!

[@evanlane1690]

This is the content I'm interested in, for sure. There are SO many tutorials on basic skills, but very little on how to work on a production project that's scalable.

[@loveadeola]

That's one of the issues with the tutorial world in general. There's an oversaturation of content for beginners, and then a sparse number of courses for intermediate levels. And for truly advanced levels, there's little to nothing most times.

[@Stryker-K]

@@loveadeola What? You don't like seeing yet another tutorial that shows you how to move your character AND have a health bar on the screen?? 🤣

[@CyberWolf755]

Amazing work by the devs, both the game and the tools. Interesting how they made new editor windows for cinematics, that include the game preview and the level editor preview

[@krishnamakesgames]

Each of these sections could be a full talk on their own! This is phenomenal work - please show us more! :)

[@thetrauth]

incredible, I hope we get more game break downs like this

[@vacstar]

Amazing ! Is it using only tools from Unreal Engine for the UI of the plugins ? Editor utility widgets ?

[@hojatghasemi8628]

The most beautiful tech talk I had seen in a very long time . Thanks guys! ♥♥

[@maxulic]

16:07 I love how the points of view are represented by a movie camera. It really looks like directing a scene.

[@BarrieBM]

Love the behind the scenes damn

[@CGSky]

These tools look great! Especially the storytelling tools look really useful to reduce overhead and keep iteration times low.

[@levs4347]

Awesome work. Thank you for sharing this session

[@Isaacrl67]

The mount spawning made me think of the VLDL Horse Pocket video.

[@qingwang363]

the plugins mentioned in the talk , is there any altnatives on the ue market?

[@ColeEdits]

A great GDC technical exploration of the game at its core. Top notch.

[@RobinsonVlas]

Imagine this game getting a upgrade or a part 2 made in UE5.4 🫨

[@vegitoblue2187]

The game would likely not get an upgrade (very messy process) but it's unclear what version they would use in the sequel

[@mybeautifulcat7011]

What will happen ? 🤔 what special will happen ? The game would still look unrealistic and fake clay type characters, there is nothing realistic graphics in this game, it still looks to me like some clay type old games, there are other games that are wayyyy more realistic and shockingly super good.

[@TheLoneLlama]

@@mybeautifulcat7011That’s called stylization, and it tends to age far better than “realistic graphics”

[@vegitoblue2187]

@@mybeautifulcat7011 you do understand what art style is right? Edit : It is not hard to get a game to look good but not while getting a good framerate. All recent games have been failing spectacularly at it in the past few years.

[@dipannath9319]

Systems will crash and burn!

[@IamOmar2050]

Awesome, and enjoyable I hope to be part of the Avalanche studio one day ❤

[@dekitarpg]

Playing the game in editor... A simple modder like myself can only dream. 😢

[@Isaacrl67]

Unreal Engine is free until you earn $1M USD, then it's just 5%.

[@Marcusrafaelfet]

@@Isaacrl67 I think he is talking about playing HL in the editor

[@ujugamestudio]

That's a massive thing done!

[@GameDevAraz]

tell us how you made the capes move smoothly, sh t sucks in unreal

[@vincebracken3872]

Awesome presentation and game!

[@stefanospanagiotidis7489]

As an unreal engine developer, I can only imagine the countless amount of hours put into only the creation of these tools. An amazing game overall!

[@HiddenWorldsLLC]

You would be surprised at how fast plugins can be created when you have multiple people working on just 1 plugin, the thing that probably took the most time was building the storyline and having it cohesive with the game. The way the story was built was perfect and I enjoyed watching the full playthrough of the game, it felt like a new Harry Potter movie. The plugin they had is just a modified version of the animation graph to support a quest dialogue. The Logic Driver Pro actually uses a setup like this one.

[@stefanospanagiotidis7489]

@@HiddenWorldsLLC Actually there were more than a few completely custom plugins shown, very far off what Logic Driver Pro does, which is quite simple compared to this. Making the storyline surely took some time, but regardless this framework and custom plugins were definitely a huge part of their development and it can truly showcase how much work goes into AAA development compared to indie or lower budget projects, where the best of tools you would usually see is half as advanced and time saving.

[@HiddenWorldsLLC]

@@stefanospanagiotidis7489 I was referencing the Quest Dialogue System they had, I did not say it had everything, I said it was similar, which they both use a Animation Blueprint style Quest Dialogue setup. But you can think what you want, It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man by argument. Get blocked.

[@stefanospanagiotidis7489]

@@HiddenWorldsLLC Lol. no one argued or had a debate with you my friend. I simply said it's still very different and their tools development took lots of time. You mentioned storyline took more, but no one compared what took more time. You seem quite aggresive and you're having an argument by yourself, relax.

[@Stryker-K]

YES EPIC YES! This is the type of advanced stuff I want to see. I love how little time is wasted and how fast the guy talks.

[@AlleyKatPr0]

excellent

[@TimTensity]

This is what making games efficiently is all about. Really good tools work here.

[@not_amanullah]

Thanks

[@WilliamSmith-hf8um]

Hogwarts Legacy deserves UE5 with proper hardware Lumen ray tracing. It makes sense especially with all the improvements to hardware ray tracing in UE 5.4

[@JFinns]

Sales where good so hopefully there will be a sequel with all that on latest UE5, lumen, nanite, better gameplay, etc.

[@soundspark]

Think it would have improved performance?

[@IamOmar2050]

I'm sure they'll look into it as UE5.4 is a new stage of the game development

[@AIGameMonster]

It seems that Unreal Engine is only suitable for platforms other than mobile (Android, IOS), right? It is very difficult to release on mobile

[@Copa20777]

The plug-in character creator for Harry Potter would bring a lot of fame to the game if it became open source and a solo application that can export those characters in usable assets for other DCC app..

[@minirlz]

lmao

[@nickbubuioc]

no way they realese such things, and probably nobody would care where it comes from

[@BusStopWilly]

Are the animated paintings .mp4? MP4 support in UEFN please.

[@gunmodder1825]

Please add modding tools, that would be a dream come true! Imagine what the community could do if they could make additional levels, missions, and adjustments to the game.

[@tadartadar8778]

How about add Destructive features

[@ondowmosa6283]

So much tech and talent displayed this days yet almost no studio can get HDR right.

[@primvscyborgai]

when Unreal Engine optimised?

[@raven80wolfx2]

I was surprised how you were able to release a switch version. I hope the turnover for a new game isn't as long. I dont understand how devs get to reuse assets and it takes similar time to make. God war horizon and legend of zelda. These games reuse assets and yet they take just as long to make. Its crazy things are taking so long.

[@capitalplayground]

imagine this in unreal 5, that would be epic

[@TheResilentNerd]

#thankyouDevteam

[@camerontraer3136]

SO this was made in UE4?

[@zombi1034]

Nice. Will you make the project available to download?😂🥰

[@user-fj3xl1qs5p]

Message to developers about the 5.4.1 : 1 - cant import FBX mesh, only import skeltal mesh, 2 - cant import combined fbx mesh

[@housetraitor4806]

If this game went open source the success would probably explode again

[@DarkNerdis]

Does it affect anything? Recommended minimum computer specifications :CPU: Intel i9 with 8 cores (16 logical) 3.6 GHz, Graphics: NVIDIA RTX 2080 with 8 GB VRAM for Electric Dreams Environment My Computer: Processor generation: Intel Raptor Lake (13th generation), Processor model designation: Intel Core i5 13420H Raptor Lake, Number of processor cores: 8 ×, RTX 4050, RAM size 16 GB

[@Thezuule1]

Meanwhile my game still crashes when I turn on ray tracing.

[@dipannath9319]

This game was literally unplayable for lower end pc. My rtx 2060 somehow struggled at lowest settings😂.

[@Thezuule1]

@@dipannath9319 runs like a dream on my 4070... for about 3 minutes before it crashes. Issue has been on the forums since day one and they haven't bothered to fix it. Turning off ray tracing is the only solution I've found.

[@housetraitor4806]

Same RT breaks the game

[@andrewsneacker1256]

@@dipannath9319 2060 should play this game at medium settings 60 fps constant. Learn how to set graphics settings.

[@pookienumnums]

Add wallrunning for UEFN

[@bonster101]

" Jim Jjung ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ "

[@UE_5_beginner]

But what is this, like a project to download?

[@soundspark]

Too bad it runs like hot garbage on my PC. Shouldn't need a 24GB, 450W GPU to get the best out of it.

[@andrewsneacker1256]

Learn how to set graphic settings in game.

[@TheVorlecGame]

bro was in a hurry

[@AuronDzilk]

So that's accesible right now for developers?? Unreal engine just dropping the mic then xD

[@CyberWolf755]

It's a preview of what Avalanche made to upgrade UE4 to make their game. It will not be accesable to the public. The devs show this to the game dev community for others to get inspired to make their own tools, to market the game studio to new devs and for Epic devs to see it as well and maybe implement them as improvements if they could not do it before

[@idc2120]

These are tools and plugins developed by Avalanche for HL, they're not publicly available. The ability to customize the engine for your development needs is however. There are several where he mentions they don't require engine source code edits or are using external software.

[@minirlz]

Not too bright are we

[@Cyan37]

This game, the castle was great, the further away you got it just got empty with a million merlin trials which were just a sorry filler.

[@Data-Cain]

yep :(

[@sonny5974]

Fix the mount and broom controls please

[@not_amanullah]

🤍🖤

[@tivtag]

Traversel stutter is horrible in this game

[@000Emir]

Face emotions are too bad

[@DOKTORFUZZEL]

And they even fix all the crash reports. Sorry guys, would say it is a nice game but I cant play it, even with the best hardware!

[@Spidouz]

It plays like a charm on my xbox… no hardware issue there!

[@jimj2683]

The graphics were underwhelming compared to the demos shown by Unreal Engine.

[@the-secrettutorials]

I don’t like the fact that steam deck players get the switch version of the game while older titles look ten times better and are more smooth to play

[@wingedhussar1453]

Awful game.generic with no actual school point system but random pointless sidequests

[@eugkra33]

Does the engine have any "trans" features? lol

[@TyreII]

Let's leave the sexualization of minors to the school district and Disney.

[@OriginRow]

Your camera system is awful

[@crypt_exe8709]

You better have to find a different way to say this, even If I agree this is not constructive at all. Express your mindings we all can read what you have to say and how you would make it better

[@Siansonea]

So, we're just going to ignore the fact that J.K. Rowling is a despicable person and profits off this IP?

[@slothsarecool]

she’s already a billionaire, not sure she would care much these days

[@MegaRayland]

Leaving aside your comment has absolutely no relation to the discussion of UE tech in the video, despicable how? What did she say exactly?

[@randomancy]

She makes about $0.017 per download of the game. Meanwhile there are LGBTQ developers who made the game getting paid a full salary.

[@Siansonea]

@@randomancy so these so-called "LGBTQ developers", they're getting residuals/royalties as well? Or have they already been paid for their work? 🤔

[@Siansonea]

@@MegaRayland en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_views_of_J._K._Rowling#Transgender_issues

[@TheResilentNerd]

#harrypotter #love #jkrowling #forevermagic #readingthebooks #ongobletoffire #lovedplayingthegame #teamhufflepuff #teamgriffendor #teamravenclaw #slythrins #givingthestoryachance #can’thavelightwithoutdark #🫶