Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions Review

Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions is an online competitive multiplayer game by Unbroken Studios, with some Solo/Co-Op modes for those that prefer to not test their skills against other wizards. The game has a $30 price tag, but was one of September 2024’s free games of the month for Playstation Plus subscribers. With the previous Harry Potter game lacking quidditch, does this one make up for it? 

Gameplay: 

For many, the main attractor of this game, besides it being a beloved IP, is that it is an online competitive game. If games like Rocket League are your cup of tea, this game is right up your broomstick. The online mode consists of 3v3 games where each player is in control of a Chaser and either a Beater, Seeker, or Keeper. Throughout the match you can switch back and forth between your main role and your chaser. This makes for a super fun, competitive, game that involves strategy and skill to get the upper wand on your opponents. The mechanics of each role feel great and the flying is seamless. I have no complaints about the online mode, besides the fact that no one wants to play keeper, so if you’re clicking on Quick Match, just be prepared to be the keeper every game. 

For those that don’t enjoy playing online, there are two main modes that you can play. The first is the Exhibition mode, which is the same as it is in every sports game. The second is the Campaign. In this mode, there are three (four if you want to count the tutorial cup) Quidditch Cups for you to compete for, each increasing in difficulty as you progress. They are the Hogwarts, Triwizard, and World Cups. The way these work is you will play a few rounds of matches and then there will be a bracket, with the winner getting to raise up the cup. Despite these being enjoyable, the lack of an actual season mode where you choose a team and play an entire season with playoffs and a championship at the end definitely led to me wanting more. The game tries to make up for this by having you have to play multiple times to unlock different team robes, however, it gets super repetitive, and honestly, pretty boring after a while. Moreover, if you genuinely don’t care about unlocking every single robe, it’s not even worth the play after you’ve won on Champion difficulty. 

Customization: 

The game does have a decent amount of customization. For one, you have a 6 person team and have to individually customize each player. It’s not super in depth, but it’s just enough to have a good bit of variety. However, there needs to be a few more lighter skin tone options as my complexion is a little paler compared to my character. 

As for things to wear, you unlock different robes by playing through the different cups and winning. There are the four Hogwarts Houses, three wizarding schools, and 16 different country robes to unlock. You also unlock different items, like hats, glasses, and wands, through leveling up your account and Season Pass (which is free). On top of that, there is a marketplace where you can unlock other cosmetics like emotes, movie characters, and boomstick colors. I appreciate that, as of right now, all cosmetics are either earned through game progression or using coins and keys that you get through game progression. However, there’s going to have to be an implementation of microtransactions, as how else will they keep paying the developers to keep the game updated? Overall, the customization does just enough to not be bland, but also not over complicated. Point for Unbroken Studios!

Upgrading Your Roles:

Through leveling up your account, you will earn skill points and Moonstones. Skill points are how you level up your team players, and moonstones are how you level up your broom. You will earn 40 skill points in total, and can only spend 10 per role. Skills will unlock different abilities for your role, but nothing that is so advanced that you have a super unfair advantage over newer players. As for your broomstick, you can level that up 5 times and it will increase its speed, durability, and agility. Again, nothing too overpowered where you’ll be flying around your opponents, but it is noticeable enough to make it worth it. In general, these upgrades add a little more to the game in complexity, and it’s great that these aren’t tied to monetization and are earned strictly through leveling up by playing more. Another point for Unbroken Studios!

The Snitch Fix: 

Just like everyone else going into this game, I was interested to see the length of a match due to the quidditch rules revolving around the snitch. Thankfully, Unbroken Studios was able to formulate a fix for this, which in my opinion, works great. Rather than catching the snitch awarding 150 points and being the end of the game, the snitch awards you with 30 points. This can still make or break your team, though. There have been plenty of games where my team has been up 40-20 and quickly found ourselves down 40-50 after the opposing team was able to capture the snitch. However, there have been plenty of times when my team was down 70-40 and capturing the snitch was able to get us right back into the game. So, great job Unbroken Studios for evening the pitch. 

Longevity:

The major concern for me is the longevity of this game. Does it have the stamina as other games of its kind, like Rocket League? As it stands right now, no, it does not. The game already doesn’t have a massive following, which is surprising given the massive IP, and the fact that it was free Day 1 if you have Playstation Plus. The three main game modes to play just aren't enough to keep a game worth playing over the months and years. For example, once you’ve unlocked all cosmetics, there’s no point in playing the campaign. Moreover, the online will quickly become repetitive unless the developers take a page out of Rocket League’s book and add some new online game modes. I get it, the hardcore HP fans will complain because it’s not in the lore, but I really think that’s one of the game’s only options to stay alive, on top of adding some new challenges and cosmetics for us to unlock (I want my Ilvermorny robes!). 

Final Verdict: 

I have to look at Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions through two perspectives. As a Harry Potter fan, this game is amazing and I would recommend it to anyone who loves the franchise and has always wanted to play quidditch in a video game. However, there is the unbiased part of me that understands that this game is not perfect, and frankly, doesn’t have the longevity to be considered a good purchase at the $30 price tag. Don’t get me wrong, I love this game and have had a lot of fun and competitive matches while playing, but I just can’t get over the emptiness that it currently has. However, the genuine good time I had while playing this game still conjures up a solid 7/10.