The highly anticipated game Hogwarts Legacy has finally launched, and with it comes a lot of controversy surrounding its moral stance on animal abuse. Although one of the game’s main enemies are poachers, and there are cute animals to interact with, the mechanics of the game undermine the game’s already weak stance. The game requires players to capture animals with a Nab-Sack, breed animals, and sell them, which all contradict the core tenets of animal rescue.
Animal Abuse in Hogwarts Legacy
The game creates a false sense of morality by presenting animal abuse as something evil. Poachers are presented as the game’s villains, and you can rescue animals like dragons alongside a Hufflepuff student called Poppy Sweeting. However, the game requires players to use a Nab-Sack to capture animals forcibly. The process of chasing animals around their natural habitat and cordoning them off from their groups is unethical. And sucking them into a bag when they audibly protest is disturbing.
What’s more puzzling is that the game encourages players to breed captured animals. This contradicts the principles of animal rescue, where spaying or neutering your pets is highly encouraged. Breeding more animals instead of rescuing existing ones doesn’t mitigate the threat of poachers. It only creates more demand for these captive animals. Additionally, selling excess animals to a woman in the game further adds to the game’s problematic stance.
Background of the Author
The author is a volunteer animal rescuer, cat mom, and certified in a New York City cat colony management practice called trap-neuter-return or TNR. TNR involves humanely trapping feral cats, spaying, and neutering them to reduce the number of feral cats in NYC. The author also volunteered at several bully breed-specific dog rescues and is an advocate for the abolishment of breed-specific legislation.
Response to Hogwarts Legacy’s Treatment of Animals
The author finds Hogwarts Legacy’s mechanics and portrayal of animal rescue disturbing, with its mechanics undermining its weak stance on animal abuse. Creatures being caged in the game’s breeding pen contradicts the principles of animal rescue by breeding more animals instead of rescuing existing ones. The game feels less like a zoo for endangered species and more like an animal trafficking ring. To make matters worse, the game encourages players to sell their excess animals to a woman, which would be disastrous in reality.
The author feels that if the game sold animal rescue as something akin to a zoo for endangered species instead of implementing mechanics that contradict what they teach as a significant issue, the game may have had more successes. Additionally, unicorn hair and puffskein fur being used for clothing upgrades feels violent and goes against the game’s already weak stance on animal abuse.
Conclusion
Hogwarts Legacy may have presented itself as a game with a strong message against animal abuse, but its mechanics are demeaning and contradictory to the principles of animal rescue. Although the game creates a false sense of morality by portraying animal abuse as evil, the mechanics used in the game suggest otherwise. As a volunteer animal rescuer, the author finds the mechanics disturbing and highlights the avoidable pitfalls the game could’ve addressed with a different approach.
The author encourages readers to consider volunteering at local animal shelters, adopting from local shelters, and/or donating to the Humane Society of the United States if they want to help animals in real life. The author ends by saying that Hogwarts Legacy doesn’t know anything about animal rescue, and it’s up to individual players to navigate these problems at their discretion.
