Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions Review (PS5)

The wizarding world of Harry Potter is home to many fan-favourite moments, yet nothing has quite managed to surpass the magic of Quidditch, a fictional sport where the students of Hogwarts and Wizarding World alike engage in a competitive goal-based game, while riding broomsticks. A video game adaptation of Quidditch is nothing new, as EA released its interpretation of the wizarding sport in 2003’s Harry Potter: Quidditch World Cup on PS2, but fast forward 21 years later, and we’ve now got a follow-up in the form of Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions, developed by Unbroken Studios, which follows a similar framework with a few extras added on top.

Quidditch on the surface is like other traditional sporting events, notably football (or soccer), where a team consists of distinct roles, with each one having their own responsibility on the field, or in this case, Quidditch pitch. Each team will have Chasers, Beaters, a Seeker, and a Keeper, and each role has its own gameplay style that can shape the outcome of a match. The main goal of Quidditch is to score as many points as possible within a given time limit, with the overall score usually capping at 100 points.

When you load up the game for the first time, you are instructed in the ways of Quidditch by Ginny Weasely, Harry Potter’s love interest in the books and films. This is where you create your own custom Quidditch team using a character creation menu, assigning each character to a role within your roster. Although the thought of creating your very own Quidditch team sounds like a Harry Potter fan’s dream, the customization options are very limited, meaning you’re likely to run into players that look exactly the same as you do when playing online or against friends. There are unlockable cosmetics to add a few extra bits of flair to your Witch or Wizard, though these require significant playtime investment to receive.

You are gradually introduced to each role in a series of tutorials, which are delivered by some of the Wizarding World’s most iconic and influential characters, such as the titular Harry Potter himself. Chasers are the game’s main scorers; they are supposed to zip across the pitch with the fictional sport’s version of a ball, a Quaffle, and attempt to launch it into the opposing team’s hoops. It’s then up to the Keeper to defend their territory, preventing the opposing team from scoring points, while the Beaters launch a ball called Bludgers at their opponents to stun them temporarily to give their team’s Chasers a window of opportunity to score more points. Then last of all, there is the iconic Seeker, the role that Harry Potter takes on in the books and films, where your main priority is to locate and catch the Golden Snitch to score bonus points.

For the most part, each playable role feels great to play owing to the smooth flight controls that provide you with multiple traversal manoeuvres to enhance your Quidditch skills. Flying itself is consistent across the board, aside from the Keeper, which has more restrictive movement as you’re playing a defensive position, making it a tad frustrating to play. Nevertheless, movement itself is exhilarating, something that is a necessity when adapting Quidditch into video game form, however, like the source material its based on, there are some slight balancing issues that can make playing online annoying.

This is most noticeable when playing as the Beater, as launching projectiles can feel a little bit overpowered, despite the inclusion of a cooldown. The target has a small window of opportunity to dodge using the L1 button, but this feels inconsistent and unresponsive at times. For example, this author was on target for scoring a goal, got targeted by a Bludger, pressed L1 to dodge at the correct time, but still got punished for it. This and other small balancing issues can occasionally dampen the experience, especially when playing online against other players.

Quidditch Champions is akin to other sports games, where most of your time is spent competing in matches of Quidditch to reap a variety of rewards across multiple game modes. At launch, there are a few single player offerings such as a tournament mode, in addition to a few extras such as offline exhibition matches and general practice options. Unfortunately, most of the single player content can be finished relatively quickly; there are only four single-player tournament cups, though diehard Harry Potter fans will be excited when they see the naming conventions for these competitive scenarios. Single player progress contributes to your overall career and seasonal experience, something that many other games don’t allow, which is great to see.

The online functionality works extremely well, with matchmaking having zero issues during our experience playing. Although you have six slots on a Quidditch team, Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions only supports 3v3, with every player taking on the mantle of a Chaser, and then deciding if they want to play as a Beater, Seeker, or Keeper. Therefore, when playing a match, you are expected to switch to the required role by pressing down on the d-pad. In single player content, you are expected to do this for all roles, and although switching on the fly can be jarring, it’s nice to be able to have this level of autonomy over your team. Nevertheless, it would be nice to see a proper 6v6 mode sometime down the road.

Speaking of career and seasonal experience, this is how you unlock most of the game’s extra content, such as cosmetics and skill points for your Quidditch team. Most live service games typically launch with a hefty amount of microtransactions, but Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions has none of that stereotypical nonsense, which is a breath of fresh air these days. There is a Battle Pass of sorts, mostly containing cosmetics, such as a PS1 Hagrid mask (which is awesome by the way), that resets every now and then with new items to unlock, as well as your career level. The latter is where you unlock skill points and currency to buy items in the game’s market, or to level up specific attributes for your team. Overall, these don’t feel like pay to win, something that usually plagues multiplayer games.