Hogwarts Legacy fans furious over free download

A recent free download for Hogwarts Legacy has managed to do more harm than good, leaving legions of fans really quite annoyed. It's not hard to see why.

Since releasing back in February the Harry Potter RPG has absolutely dominated, and looms all set to the be the biggest (but definitely not the best) video game of 2023. Certainly, there's no way Hogwarts Legacy is competing with the likes of Baldur's Gate 3 and The Legend Of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom come GOTY season. But that doesn't mean you can't check it out if you're curious.

PlayStation users looking to get their sweaty little hands on Hogwarts Legacy can do so right now via a free trial period. Just be aware this isn't for everyone - one multiple levels.

Hogwarts Legacy is currently available via the service's much-maligned Game Trials feature. For those who might not be aware, Game Trials are available exclusively for PlayStation Plus Premium subscribers, and are effectively a very cheeky way to charge you for demos that by all rights you should be able to access for free.

Alas, Hogwarts Legacy has now been added to this scheme, and the amount of time you get with the game is so minuscule that most players aren't even bothering with the download.

While all of the timed demos available via PS Plus Premium are fairly short, users are pretty pissed at the idea of having just 45 minutes to get a feel for Hogwarts Legacy. For comparison, you can play an hour of The Last Of Us Part I and five hours of Cyberpunk 2077. 45 minutes of Hogwarts Legacy just barely covers the opening sequence and character creator.

"45min? You don’t even get to Hogwarts in that time," one Redditor complained.

"45 minutes? Won't bother to download for that," another added.

I guess if you're absolutely desperate to check out Hogwarts Legacy and already have a PlayStation Plus subscription you might as well check this out, but I wouldn't upgrade to Premium specifically for this.