Movie tie-in games tend to get a bad wrap; developers often have to contend with tight schedules to work with to ensure that the game’s release date coincides with the corresponding film’s. Despite this, theHarry Potterseries has been able to churn out several solid games, helped in no small partby having industry giants EA publishingand developing many of them.
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J. K. Rowling’s wizarding world provided developers with the perfect base for a video game to be built upon, with the wand-waving combat, strong narrative, and beautiful castle grounds that appear in the books and films. Although a handful of games have managed to capture the franchise’s magic, there have been a few that fell flat on their face.
Updated June 14, 2025 by Jack Pursey:Since the first Harry Potter film hit cinemas in November 2001, gamers have been crying out for an open-world role-playing adventure set in the wizarding school Hogwarts. After years of waiting, Potter fans have finally gotten their wish, asHogwarts Legacywas announced in 2020 with the promise of letting players explore an 1800s rendition of the castle’s grounds.
Sadly, it was announced at the start of 2021 thatthe game had been delayed in 2022. So to give Harry Potter fans something to keep them busy in the meantime, we have expanded this list to include every Harry Potter game that has been rated by the review aggregator Metacritic.
14Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1 (38)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1isn’t just the lowest-ratedHarry Pottergame to date, it’s also one of Electronic Arts’lowest-rated games, with onlyNBA Live 14,Dead Space: Ignition,andFIFA 21: Legacy Editionrated lower.
EA seemingly had theGears of WarandUnchartedseries' on their mind when making the 2010 game, asDeathly Hallows - Part 1ditches free-roaming Hogwarts exploration for a third-person shooter that replaces guns for wands. In fairness to EA,Deathly Hallows - Part 1is by far the toughest film to recreate as a video game, though the execution of theaction-gameplaycould and should have been much better.
13Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery (43)
Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mysteryis a role-playing game that released on iOS and Android devices in 2018. The game was developed by Jam City, who are best known for theirpuzzle-gameCookie Jam.
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A role-playingHarry Pottermobile game may sound like an ideal stop-gap while waiting for the similarly titledHogwarts Legacy, though sadly the game suffers greatly from excessive and intrusive microtransactions. It’s unlikely that Jam City will be easing the implementation of microtransactions anytime soon, asHarry Potter: Hogwarts Mysterygrossed an eye-watering $110m in just its first year.
12Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2 (44)
In stark contrast to the aforementionedHarry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1which was the toughest game to make a tie-in game for,Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2is almost certainly the easiest thanks to the Battle of Hogwarts. The Battle of Hogwarts didn’t seem to light much of a fire under EA Bright Light though, asDeathly Hallows - Part 2scored just a few points higher than its direct predecessor.
Among the sea of poor reviews was a brutal half star scorefrom Games Radar’s Jordan Baughmanwho listed “Turning the game off” and “Getting your money back” as two of the game’s three Pros.
11Harry Potter: Kinect (54)
Whereas mostHarry Pottergames are sold on giving players the ability to free-roam Hogwarts castle,Harry Potter: Kinectcondenses key moments from the books into a collection of mini-games.
Although the game is a unique Kinect release in the sense that the Kinect controls work fairly consistently, it’s mainly because the game only requires simple movements from players. This simplicity madeHarry Potter: Kinect a fun mini-game collection for younger audiences, but far from worth its$60 launch pricefor anyone else.
10Harry Potter: Wizards Unite
The huge success ofHarry Potter: Hogwarts Mysteryunsurprisingly saw another game release shortly after.Harry Potter: Wizards Unitewas developed by
Niantic, who are best known for work onPokémon Go. The game was intended to be a wizarding interpretation of the groundbreakingPokémon Go, though it struggled to reach anywhere near the heights of its once-booming success.
Although Niantic’s game struggled to garner much of a player base, it did win the accolade ofTechnical Achievement at the 2020 Webby Awards, as well as anomination for Family & Kids.
9Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (64)
Unlike most of theHarry Potterreleases which focus on spell casting action,Sorcerer’s Stoneis predominantly a platformer; spellcasting does feature, though much of it is reduced to situational rhythm-based mini-games.
DespiteHogwarts not being as vast as in other releases, developers still offered players the chance to free-roam the castle, which is commendable given the PS1’s limitations. These limitations are evident with the character models, though, with their distorted faces frequently being turned into memes in recent years. PS1 Hagrid, anyone?
8Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (66)
AlthoughSorcerer’s Stonetakes the crown as the most meme’dHarry Pottergame,Half-Blood Princeis a close second. From awkward character animations to poor voice-acting, to a literal record scratch when Ginny rejects Harry at one point in the game.
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Half-Blood Princemade up for this by having the series' largest and best-looking Hogwarts to explore. Furthermore, the game featured an incredible soundtrack, making use of the iconic music that accompanied the films. Something that was unfortunately overlooked in the other games.
7Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (67)
The developers were in an uphill battle withOrder of the Phoenixfrom the offset, as the corresponding film focused less on the action and more on the characters and politics in the wizarding world. Instead of opting for a Telltale style game, developer’s EA UK worked around this by focusing on the recruitment of Dumbledores Army.
Order of the Phoenixalso saw a fundamental change in the game’s mechanics, using the joystick to control Harry’s wand wielding hand, which replaced the simplicity of pressing a spell-assigned button. The change in gameplay seemed to be geared towards the Nintendo Wii release, which replaced the joystick with motion controls. Although fiddly at times, the joystick implementation added to the immersion and made the gameplay richer as a result.
6Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (68)
Goblet of Firetook the somewhat bizarre move of removing free-roaming, replacing it instead with a rudimentary level select screen. Moreover, the game felt very limited with just eight levels to choose from. This is presumably indicative of theGoblet of Firemovie releasing just one year afterPrisoner of Azkaban, giving EA UK little time to work on the game.
Despite this disappointment,Goblet of Firewas the first mainline game in the series that featured local multiplayer. Playing with friends was an excellent addition and made the levels far more enjoyable to play through.
5Harry Potter: Quidditch World Cup (68)
Since the firstHarry Potterfilm hit theaters in late 2001, a Quidditch video game seemed like a money-making idea just waiting to happen. EA capitalized on this in 2003 withQuidditch World Cup.
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The game’s pacing was excellent, with competing for theHogwarts Cup acting as the game’s tutorialbefore challenging national teams in the World Cup.Quidditch World Cupalso managed to intelligently solve one of Qudditch’s main issues, chief amongst them being that, in the books, Quidditch is simply a plot device created to give Harry his moment in the sun when he wins games almost single-handedly.
EA UK solved this issue by splitting the gameplay into two sections. The first consisting of a basketball-style game where teams try to score as many points as possible by throwing the quaffle through the opposing team’s hoops which directly affects the second style of gameplay, catching the snitch. Depending on how many more/fewer points players score than their opponent would determine how much boost they would have available when chasing the snitch.
