Every Harry Potter game on PlayStation and Hogwarts Legacy — ranked!
Lee Brady
Harry Potter games have a storied history on PlayStation consoles, with Hogwarts Legacy now released on PS5: let's rank them from best to worst.
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Harry Potter games have a storied history on PlayStation consoles, with Hogwarts Legacy now released on PS5: let's rank them from best to worst.

Lee Brady

Published 29 Dec 2023

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Hogwarts LegacyWarner Bros. Interactive EntertainmentLee Brady

Hogwarts Legacy might not officially star Harry Potter — the game takes place years before The Boy Who Lived was ever born — but it still has quite a long legacy of Harry Potter games to live up to on PlayStation. With Hogwarts Legacy trophies new being collected on PS5 for some time, let's take a look back and rank the best Harry Potter games from PS1 to PS5.

We've gone deep with this one, playing and studying over 25 different Harry Potter games starting with 2001's Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone for PS1 and ending, for now, on the 2023 release of Hogwarts Legacy on PS5. Harry Potter games would vary wildly from console to console in terms of gameplay, so if two versions of the same game played differently, we've made sure to rank them as well.

That said, when the games are as similar are the entire Lego Harry Potter Collection, then we made the call to write those as a single entry. So, grab your beater and get ready to quaffle a snitch in the comments — here's our ranking of the 17 best Harry Potter games on PlayStation.

Every Harry Potter game on PlayStation — ranked

17. Lego Dimensions — PS4, PS3

When someone is asked to describe toys-to-life game Lego Dimensions, their response is probably not going to be “oh, it’s a Lego Harry Potter game.” They might eventually mention that there was a Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them story pack released for it, or that you could play as both Harry and Voldemort in the game, but they’re far more likely to refer to this one as Lego The Simpsons or Lego Sonic the Hedgehog before they land on anything Wizarding World related.

That’s why, despite in many ways sharing the strength of the Lego Harry Potter games, this title sits at the bottom of the list. Sure, it was nice to see Fantastic Beasts get some video game recognition, and getting to free-roam on a broomstick as Harry again was fun, but on a list of the best Harry Potter PlayStation games it helps to actually be a Harry Potter game.

16. Harry Potter: Quidditch World Cup — PS2

At the height of Pottermania, it was hard to imagine anything cooler or more desirable than broomsticks. Many a child wistfully eyed their boring backyard brush, desperately hoping by some miracle it would suddenly become the magical equivalent of a flying sports car. Then, if we fancied it, we could at last play Quidditch — the violent aerial fantasy sport that made people like you in wizard school.

Sadly, when it comes to actually playing the sport itself, Quidditch is an absolute mess, and Harry Potter: Quidditch World Cup unfortunately proves it. It's the terrible desk job of sports games, in which you spend a tedious forever toiling over a repetitive task (scoring goals) all for the guy with the fastest car (the seeker) to take all the credit by showing up and doing a single ounce of work (grabbing the snitch and ending the game). You can probably trace the decline in broomstick-related childhood fantasies exactly to this game's launch.

15. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 — PS3

The popular trends in video games had shifted tremendously by the time the Deathly Hallows films were out, and nobody chased trends quite like EA — the publisher of all but a few Harry Potter games. Fun casual game Plants vs Zombies? Make it a third-person shooter. Classic tactics game Syndicate? Vaguely generic first-person shooter. Harry Potter? Yep, that franchise is practically begging to be the next Gears of War.

So, in the early 2010s, we got two Deathly Hallows third-person cover shooters, and they're not great. Particularly Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, which loses the first game's variety and doubles down on the unsatisfying spell shooting. That said, you do get to play the Battle of Hogwarts as an array of b-cast characters, so if you’ve ever wanted to play a Gears of War clone starring Dame Maggie Smith, or other beloved characters like (checks notes) Seamus Finnegan, this is the game for you.

14. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 — PS3

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 had a little bit more to offer than its successor — for one, it features a few lightly explorative stealth sections involving Harry’s Invisibility Cloak which were pretty neat. There was the novelty of the shooting gameplay and its delightful soft-lock aiming reticle, the surprise of the graphics being actually quite good, and there was a lot to like game-design-wise in the navigational “point me” spell.

Unfortunately, the novelty wears off quick, leaving us with a 4-hour-long shooter in which you defeat enemies by aiming a laser pointer at them until they eventually vanish in a puff of black boredom. Neat ideas like using potions for grenades or turning cinematic setpieces into on-rails lightgun sections never translate into fun gameplay, and sadly they strip out all the non-shooting gameplay in the sequel, so it never gets any better.

13. Book of Spells — PS3

Book of Spells was a PS3-exclusive Pottermore spin-off and one of four games released for the PS3’s Wonderbook peripheral. With an excess of expendable income and a rag drenched in ether, your parents could buy you a PS3, a PlayStation Eye camera, a PS Move controller, a Wonderbook, and a copy of Book of Spells. Then you were all set for a glorious afternoon of fighting with your living room lights to get the camera to register the Wonderbook’s QR codes.

Working hand-in-hand with J K Rowling back when that name meant something, London Studio’s Book of Spells did offer a novel spell-casting experience. The little interactive pop-up book sections are pretty amusing, and casting spells along with the narrator does seem like a fun little activity to get lost in as a kid. We’ll give it points for novelty — even if the book would be better titled Baby’s First Buyer’s Remorse.

12. Book of Potions — PS3

Book of Potions does offer a substantially better Wonderbook experience than Book of Spells, although not one so great that you could rank it in good conscience higher than all but the blandest Harry Potter video games. This time around, kids could use their extravagant array of virtual accessories to prepare and brew potions in what basically amounts to Harry Potter’s take on Cooking Mama. It’s absolutely fine.

11. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince — PS3, PS2

Whether EA had lost faith in Harry Potter’s ability to bring in sacks full of cash on the cheap, or whether developer EA Bright Light had simply lost steam after making Harry Potter games for an entire decade, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince feels like a game that no one wanted to make.

After the strides the series had made with Order of the Phoenix (in the games, not in any other context), this time around Harry's school life feels boxed in by excessive minigames and hand-holding exploration. You can nary walk the corridors of Hogwarts for five seconds without Nearly-Headless Nick showing up to gormlessly guide you to the next story objective, just in case you wander off and accidentally have fun at some point.

The occasional duel or tedious Quidditch minigame can’t distract from the bulk of this very short game’s action: potion-making. Yes, you’ll spend at least 40% of your time getting told off by Professor Slughorn for recklessly scooping too much goop into a pot, and it is dull, dull, dull. It's a shame, especially because the graphics are quite good and the hilarious Felix potion first-person segment shows there definitely was love here somewhere — just not nearly enough.

10. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone — PS2

Perhaps a controversial take, but Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone for PS2 is a much-worse version of the original PS1 game. Firmly set in 'the Bean Era' of Harry Potter games, when the games' collectables and dialogue revolved most around Bertie Botts Every-Flavour Beans, Philosopher’s Stone on PS2 holds the crown for ‘beaniest game’ by having Harry audibly comment on every bean he finds. The boy can’t go five minutes without howling something like “HMM, FISHY! SARDINE FLAVOUR!”

While it looks a little better than its PS1 predecessor and the consistency of its world benefits greatly from having come out two years after the first film, Philosopher’s Stone on PS2 also drags its heels in the actual gameplay department. The game is far keener to have you watch the entire first Harry Potter film in PS2 cutscene quality than it is to let you take control of Harry and explore. Then, when it finally does let you off the leash, Harry jerks around like he's running on ice, and you find yourself craving another cutscene just to stop.

9. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince — PSP

The PSP version of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, unlike most of the other PSP ports preceding it, is actually an entirely separate game from its console counterparts and was made by a completely different studio. This actually worked in its favour, as a step back from the PS3/PS2 version of Half-Blood Prince was a step in the right direction.

Half-Blood Prince on PSP instead has the energy of a point-and-click adventure game in which Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, packs in his prophesied life of heroism and glory to become a Hogwarts delivery boy. While there is a token attempt at combat — a strange stationary fighting game that feels like that one LCD Street Fighter game you played on a fake iPod once — you’ll spend most of the game bartering with students for favours in exchange for items and knick-knacks.

Alright, so maybe Harry's more like a well-connected kid in juvenile prison than any delivery boy you’ve ever encountered, but it still makes for a weirdly interesting game. Not weirdly interesting enough to gift to a small child on their birthday without expecting confused tears of boredom, but certainly interesting enough for a middling spot on this niche internet listicle.

8. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire — PS2, PSP

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire for PS2 and PSP certainly isn’t a great game, but from this point onwards, you can at least say that the games on this list are games. Undoubtedly for some readers, Goblet of Fire was their unabashed favourite — it had the least guff and the least fluff. It had combat, it had multiple playable characters, and it had very light RPG mechanics.

Most importantly, it had three-player multiplayer — a bizarrely absent feature for most of the Harry Potter games. Players took control of Harry, Ron, and Hermione, and could perform special spell combinations to deal extra damage. If you’ve ever played Ratchet and Clank All 4 One, you’ll know exactly what this game is like — although with a touch less isometric platforming.

Goblet of Fire closes out the Bean Era of Harry Potter games by sanding off most of the series’ charm, but it still plays fine, and it even has Ron howling lines like “Over there! Beans!” from time to time, so there's still some goofiness here. The cardinal sin of having the finale be single-player only, however, is the most ‘unforgivable curse’ of all. It’s impossible to know if we’ll ever be finished paying the toll for the psychic damage this game dealt to siblings and friendships that fateful Christmas in 2005.

7. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets — PS1

Now, now — relax. If you bombed down this list to find out where Chamber of Secrets landed and are mere words away from throwing a slur at me in the comments, note that this entry is about the PS1 version of the game. Trust me, no one harbours intensely strong feelings for the PS1 version of Chamber of Secrets — not even its developers, unless apathy counts as an intense feeling.

While the PS2 version of Chamber of Secrets — the first in the series to be developed by EA UK, later renamed EA Bright Light — is deservingly beloved by many fans, the PS1 version has become largely forgotten. It’s a shame because this one comes from Argonaut Games, the team that made the iconic Philosopher’s Stone for the PS1. If you've played it, you could probably tell because it’s basically the exact same game.

Basically being the operative word there — it’s actually a good bit worse. Whether for lack of time or money, Argonaut decided second-time around to slap in a lot more minigames and a lot less everything else. Instead, when you’re free from the clutches of the minigames, you engage largely in picking up beans and the occasional awkward foot race, not so much of the platforming present in the original. The game still makes for a hearty dose of PS1 nostalgia on a revisit, but you’ve likely had better.

6. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban — PS2

If you think Harry Potter’s rapidly darkening mood and terrifying new facial animations are enough to signal an end to the Bean Era, you’re mistaken. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is as much an Ocarina of Time-era puzzle platformer as its predecessors. In fact, with its darker tone, its harder puzzles, and its time travel elements, we’re well within our rights to say Prisoner of Azkaban is the Majora’s Mask of Harry Potter games.

Built upon the bones of Chamber of Secrets on PS2, Prisoner of Azkaban scales back the free-roaming and light-hearted magical elements to let you play as either Harry, Ron, or Hermione throughout the game. This was a big deal at the time — fans definitely had their favourites between the three main heroes, and getting to divvy up the action between all three opened the door for more interesting puzzles and scenarios.

In practice, however, the three heroes don't differ much from each other and the character-swapping mechanic finds little creative use in puzzles, so the result is a bit of a step backwards for the series. The side quests here still make for fun little detours for fans, Buckbeak handles far better than any broom has up to this point, and kids were sure to have full-blown panic attacks when the Dementors show up in puzzle rooms. So we're happy to call this more of a half-step back — nothing overly dramatic.

5. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone — PS1

That’s right, we’ll give this one to the Americans among us because we feel bad for ignoring their silly alternative title for the entire article. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone for PS1 is, undeniably, an absolute marvel today — and not just because the amazingly dated 3D face-mapping makes for the finest Hagrid memes on the internet.

Argonaut Games were not some yesteryear nobody developer — these were the guys who helped pioneer the Super FX chip for Nintendo and co-developed the original Star Fox. These devs made era-defining PS1 games like Croc: Legend of the Gobbos, The Emperor’s New Groove, and Aladdin in Nasira’s Revenge. There’s a reason Harry Potter hit the ground running in video games — it had star power behind it. Better yet, it had Croc Power behind it, for goodness sake.

That’s why, if you owned a PlayStation instead of a Nintendo 64, you didn’t feel like you missed all that much when Ocarina of Time passed you by. You had Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, a magical blend of bean hunting, exploration, tight puzzle platforming, and a child screaming the word "Flipendo" over and over again. Who needs Zelda? You’ve got Harry Potter.

Sure, playing it today, the game is a little misshapen. Each and every minigame handles like its own PlayStation-brand circle of hell. Playing Sorcerer’s Stone in 2023 feels like when your mischievous uncle gaslights you about your own childhood memories — are you sure Hogwarts had a big moving staircase just past the entrance? I think you’ll find that was just a big flight of stairs this whole time. Unfortunately, your uncle doesn't know how powerful that nostalgia hits when you pick up those wizard cards and hear that knock-off John Williams music — it's like you're [insert age] all over again.

4. Lego Harry Potter Collection — PS4, PS3, PS Vita, PSP

Lego Harry Potter, in all its shapes and forms and platform differences, is probably the one Harry Potter game you’ve definitely played. Even if you think you haven’t played it, you might just be misremembering — maybe it was called Lego Batman or Lego The Lord of the Rings when you last played it, but one way or another, you have definitely played this game.

That’s the worst thing you can say about the Lego Harry Potter games — they’re just more of the same Lego titles TT Games have been producing for generations now. You’ve got your puzzles, your brick-building, your funny gags, your abysmal combat, and some lovingly playful Lego renditions of the Harry Potter movies, and that’s your lot.

The best thing you can say, however, is that you just can’t beat the Lego series when it comes to consistency. Whereas other Harry Potter games take the source material and go wild with it, often ruining a child’s Christmas in the process, the Lego series serves up exactly the parts of the films you love. A touch of parody here, a little reference to the books you now have a dubious relationship with there, and you have a recipe for a perfectly fine time no matter how attached to the series you are.

3. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets — PS2

When I started researching this list, I was certain that by the end of it all that Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets for PS2 would be the best Harry Potter game on PlayStation. So if you’re staring at this entry, mouth-agape, fingers primed over your keyboard as you prepare to call me a slur in the comments — know that I’m as baffled and as outraged as you are.

Chamber of Secrets on PS2 just had it all. It’s a heavier take on Sorcerer’s Stone’s PS1 design, keeping some of the goofy minigames but doubling down on the spells, the exploration, and the tried-and-true puzzle platformer design. This one goes right past Ocarina of Time’s influence and takes aim for the holy grail that is A Link to the Past, making full use of its environments and slowly giving you the keys to every door in Hogwarts as you play.

By the end of the game, you’re free-roaming and completing side quests like it’s a full-blown RPG, but somehow it’s 2002 and this is somehow a licensed title from EA. You have an active tally of your house points running throughout the game as you play. You have hidden shortcuts that actively change your route through the castle. You can play a season’s worth of Quidditch like it's FIFA career mode, and it’s not even completely terrible!

Duels are like a fun little game of tennis, so even the combat is pretty good in this one. Plus, you actually get to ride around on your broomstick at your own leisure in the outdoor areas, a feature that should be mandatory in every Harry Potter game. Even the drawbacks of the Bean Era can’t even hurt it as the beans become your currency to spend on spells and upgrades. It’s a wild game, much bigger and better than it has any right to be, and it still deserves your affection today.

2. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix — PS3, PS2, PSP

It didn’t matter which PlayStation device I played Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on — I was floored equally by all three versions. Naturally, given this is the worst book in the series, and subsequently the most boring film, I was prepared to be bored out of my skull playing Order of the Phoenix. I was not bored even a little; I was utterly enthralled.

Maybe it’s just the plain surprise that EA UK went back and made another sandbox after switching gears with Goblet of Fire doing most of the heavy lifting here, but there is so much good in Order of the Phoenix. The stakes are, for the most part, ultra-low — your main mission is to systematically hunt down schoolmates from a list and recruit them into Dumbledore’s Army. That’s it, that’s basically the bulk of the game.

What this actually does, however, is fully free up the game’s structure, making this the most sandbox-like game in the series. You can hunt down your schoolmates in largely any order, and you’ll need to both find them and complete a mini-quest for them to win their trust. It turns the explorative structure of Chamber of Secrets on PS2 into the Grand Theft Auto of itself, and it works spectacularly.

Very few Harry Potter games really capture the fantasy that is simply going to Hogwarts, but Order of the Phoenix does so with aplomb. Here, you might have to win a game of Wizard’s Chess to convince a schoolmate to join your cause. You might need to duel a Slytherin, which means mastering the game’s at first awkward, but ultimately fun spell combo system. You might just have to play a game of snap, or explore a little more of the castle — either way, you’re always entrenched in the natural sensation of attending Hogwarts.

The game also introduced a new physics engine to the series, one that lets you prank fellow students with floating vases and benches whenever you feel like it. The new spellcasting system being handled by specific movements on the right analogue stick would be tricky to nail in any game busier than this one, but in Order of the Phoenix it just feels like you're casting spells with your wand. Also, one final gush: the navigation system. Having the footprints of the Marauder’s Map form your guide around the castle rather than some hideously invasive HUD? How has no one taken this approach again?

It’s a hard sell to non-fans — many will likely prefer Chamber of Secrets, even though it’s taken some pretty loud inspiration from games that are in many ways better than it. Meanwhile, there's absolutely nothing like Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix — no other game captures that sensation of getting to actually be Harry Potter for a while and live in his world at your own pace. That’s why it’s the second-best Harry Potter game on PlayStation — and it’ll be stiff competition for Hogwarts Legacy to beat, that’s for sure.

1. Hogwarts Legacy — PS5

But beat Order of the Phoenix it will, as Hogwarts Legacy takes the top spot in our list of the best Harry Potter games. Sometimes, you have a dream of a game for a series you love as you spin another fictional yarn for the fictional characters, places, and things you love. Very rarely are these dreams fully realised, but somehow Hogwarts Legacy has transfigured the dream into reality. Finally, you can literally become a student of magic at Hogwarts and have an adventure of your own.

From the shape of your character's mug to the school robes you don, you'll feel like you have finally entered the Wizarding World of the 1890s that Mr Potter will later inhibit. The world is magnificently designed, with the Hogwarts Legacy map being one of our favourite things in video games ever. The combat is great, surprisingly tricky and fun, while the characters you'll meet become actual friends.

Yes, there are a few issues with the game. The overarching story is a bit non-sensical and some of the magic systems feel like they operate in opposition to the very same Wizarding World years later. Some of the quest structure is occasionally boring and if we see another open-world map with this many collectables again beyond 2023 we will be seriously disappointed.

However, don't let that sway you. We love Hogwarts Legacy on PS5. Attending classes or designing a Room of Requirement is fully immersing and the castle is gorgeous and full of fun trivia. Hogwarts Legacy is truly a wonder that we can't believe exists. What an unbelievable achievement — what a legacy of games it tops to be the best Harry Potter game!

That's the list! Now, should you need it, reach into your oldest hat and pull forth the Sword of Gryffindor, then take to the comments and unleash your sharpest opinion. And if you're in the mood for more nostalgic recommendations, check out our list of the best PS Plus Premium games.

Written by Lee Brady

Staff Writer Lee keeps one eye on the future (Shadow x Sonic Generations), one eye on the past (PS1, PS2, and PS3 games), and his secret third eye on junk he really likes (Final Fantasy, Sonic, Kingdom Hearts). A PlayStation fan since childhood, he loves nothing more than to scrutinize PS Plus and PS5 player data.

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