Hogwarts Legacy Cinematic Trailer Breakdown

The cinematic trailer for Hogwarts Legacy was released today on the Hogwarts Legacy YouTube channel, featuring an owl flying through a wide variety of places and events in order to deliver a note to a character, presumably the player characters. The trailer shows brief glimpses of a lot of different scenes, making it easy to miss some of the smaller details as the owl zips through Hogwarts and the surrounding area. That’s where we come in, to break down some of the things you might’ve missed in the Hogwarts Legacy Cinematic Trailer.

The trailer opens with a shot of an owl’s eyes, which zooms out to reveal the out-of-focus face and hat brim of a mysterious witch. She then speaks, saying, simply, “Take this. Find them,” presumably talking about the main character. While she does so, she ties a small note to the owl’s ankle, and we see ruffled white sleeves coming out from a black overcoat. This is interesting, as that outfit doesn’t match the attire of any witch that has been officially revealed yet (or has been seen in the art book leak), and her voice isn’t immediately recognizable as any of the announced voice cast.

After receiving the letter, the owl looks at it for a moment before flying out the window of the aviary, showing that it is located at the top of one of Hogwarts many towers. Now, Hogwarts has many towers, and you might be thinking that this could be at the top of Ravenclaw Tower, where the Common Room for the house is, which might reveal who our mystery witch is. Instead, however, it is actually the West Tower (also called the Owlery Tower), which is also where the Headmaster’s Office resides. This would be a hint — after all, Deputy Headmistress Matilda Weasley does seem to be an ally who might want to send out a note — except that we see Professor Weasley later in this trailer, keeping the identity of the note-sending witch a mystery.

As for the West Tower, in the movies it was often shown as disconnected from the main castle at Hogwarts, whereas the books described it as a part of the main castle. Based on the swooping of the camera, it is actually impossible to tell which style Hogwarts Legacy has opted for, though… At least, until we take a look at the official art, and see that the tower in question is actually shown as being quite far from the castle, across its bridge, which about lines up with the owl’s trajectory.

The trailer continues, and the owl swoops by various Hogwarts towers and buildings before, eventually, flying through the window above the Courtyard to reach the Great Hall, whose hovering candles and stained glass windows are sure to bring back some childhood memories.

In the Great Hall, three students seem to be practicing some kind of magic below the owl, levitating an unlabeled book. Strangely, the book glows blue while levitating, something that Wingardium Leviosa, at least as it has been seen so far, does not typically do. When the book drops, we can see the faces of two of the three students, all Gryfindors. One of them we can recognize as Natsai Onai, daughter of Professor Onai (who will be voiced by Candace Kaine). We don’t know who the other student we can see is, though his reddish hair does indicate that he may be a Weasley, likely related to Deputy Headmistress Professor Matilda Weasly.

In the next shot, the owl whizzes past nearly-headless Nick, voiced by Jason Anthony and nearly knocks his head off.

Then, we cut to the owl flying above a classroom, where several students are approaching the aforementioned Professor Weasley who states, cryptically, “We don’t know what magic caused this.” It is unclear what magic she is referring to, but it looks to have the student’s feathers ruffled. Behind Weasley, we see Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher Professor Dinah Hecat, who has her hands clasped with worry as the Deputy Headmistress addresses the students. As for the students, it is hard to make out who any of them are, aside from there being one Gryfindor witch, two Ravenclaws, and a Hufflepuff wizard. The rest of the crowd, peculiarly, is not dressed in school robes, but rather in regular (if nice) clothing for the time.

The owl then leaves Hogwarts, and we see it is nighttime. It then flies over the Forbidden Forest when it sees flashes of light below the treeline, and swoops in to investigate. Spells fly between the trees as the owl weaves before the camera pans to reveal what is causing the commotion. Two students are seen warding off a fast-encroaching swarm of giant spiders (presumably Acromantulas). The wizard on the left casts Glacius, freezing a spider in place with some ice, while the witch on the right casts Incendio to burn a different spider with a firey blast.

The owl then travels on, coming across the camp of some poachers, one of whom is attempting to wrangle a struggling, bound Hippogriff while threatening, “Come on, you son of a… I said settle!”

Once the poacher sees the owl fly overhead, however, he shifts his focus, casting Avada Kedavra without hesitation at the owl. He narrowly missed, but several other poachers feed out of a nearby tent to pile on, also missing with the Killing Curse at the fleeing owl.

Next, the owl flies up to a group of students engaged in combat with a firebreathing dragon, which looks to be the same breed (and likely the same one) as from the previous State of Play trailer (a Hebridean Black Dragon, to be precise). One of the students is using a ward spell to protect her friends from the dragon’s fiery breath. The owl swoops in very close to the dragon, who is distracted by it and attempts to blast it with its fire-breath, turning the screen white.

When the flash of white fades, the owl is high in the snowy clouds. It then, finally, drops the note. Below, somebody catches it. She is standing on the streets of London, facing the Great Clock of Westminster (Usually nickenamed Big Ben) from somewhere around Tothill street. We see her begin to unfurl the note as the iconic Hedwig’s Theme begins playing in the background (you know it as Harry Potter’s main theme music).

The camera then cuts to the face of the character, who we assume to be a stand-in for the player character. Her look of revelation upon reading the note quickly turns to one of wonder, and then the camera zooms in on the character’s eye. A voiceover begins, stating “Your legacy begins now” before showing the game’s marketing main marketing image and another screen urging the watcher to pre-order.

And that is it for the Cinematic Trailer for Hogwarts Legacy. It has less new information than many fans were hoping, and was only a minute and twenty second long, putting it at the ideal length for a longer TV ad spot. Still, there are some interesting aspects to it, such as the mysterious witch at the beginning of the trailer and the unknown magic Professor Weasley was referring to. Those are two new mysteries that we can’t wait to figure out when the game released on February 10th.