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A new Bloomberg report says a planned expansion for Hogwarts Legacy, as well as a “Definitive Edition” release that would’ve included the base game and the new content in a single package, have been cancelled as part of the ongoing structuring of Warner’s game business.
The expansion hadn’t been formally announced, but the Definitive Edition in question is presumably the director’s cut version that was first reported in 2024. The Bloomberg report says the expansion was cancelled because the cost of making it wasn’t justified by the amount of content expected to result.
Warner embarked upon a restructuring of its game division earlier this year, following the high-profile failures of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League and Multiversus, which resulted in a staggering $300 million loss between them. The fallout was ugly: In February, Warner closed Monolith, Player First Games, and WB San Diego, and cancelled its struggling Wonder Woman game. A month prior to those closures, Warner Bros Games chief David Haddad announced that he was stepping down from the position.
Even in the wake of all that, though, the cancellation of a Hogwarts Legacy expansion and re-release is surprising. Hogwarts Legacy was a massive success for Warner in 2023, and the company was still talking about it last month after closing all those studios, saying Harry Potter was one of four “tentpole franchises”—along with Game of Thrones, Mortal Kombat, and DC—that would be the priority of its game business going forward.
A sequel to Hogwarts Legacy, which Warner said in September 2024 was one of its “biggest priorities,” is still in development, according to the report, but it’s hard to imagine that an expansion wouldn’t do gangbusters business too, and arrive much sooner than an entirely new game.
I’ve reached out to Warner for comment and will update if I receive a reply.
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Kurt Indovina
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