Hogwarts Legacy has announced that it launched an official Discord, days before the game’s launch. And immediately, those curious joined the server to see what the community is like. No surprise, anti-trans rhetoric was found in a server meant for a video game. Now, there are conversations to raid the Discord server, with some revealing they’ve already been banned
The Discord launch announcement was made on Twitter, and it sparked a bit of backlash and curiosity. As of writing, the server currently has over 129,000 members. Thankfully, the server has rules but it’s written like it’s a legal term of service page. According to the rules, the server will not accept users who participate in hate speech and say defamatory or hurtful language.
The rules also said that users can’t form and participate in groups whose “ideology is based on or resembles anti-religious, anti-ethnic, anti-sexual orientation, racist, or sexist philosophies.” Kinda ironic considering whose franchise this game belongs to.
And as expected, people immediately noticed that they found people using anti-trans language on the server. It’s currently unknown if those users got punished, considering that they broke the server’s rules.
Now, there are calls to give this server the “proper Discord welcome,” (a raid). People hinted at joining a movement where they enter the server and spam trans flags or do the general raiding gist. Some also decided to do a “ban speedrun,” where users will see how fast it takes them to be kicked from the server.
As of writing, new members are unable to chat with other members on the server. New members will have to select a Hogwarts House in their role page and will have to wait for 10 minutes before it’s approved. It seems like the mods are aware of what’s bound to happen so they adjusted the distribution of the roles. Also, the general chat has enforced a one-minute cooldown to prevent spam.
Hogwarts Legacy is an upcoming Harry Potter game set years before the events of the books and film. There are calls from Twitch streamers, trans and Jewish people, and activists to boycott the game due to its ties to JK Rowling and how the game has placed Jewish-coded stereotypes on the goblins, creatures that players will be fighting against.
Portkey Games and Warner Bros have confirmed that Rowling had little involvement in the game. But since the title is part of the Wizarding World franchise, she will likely receive a financial cut.
Hogwarts Legacy comes out on PlayStation 5, PC, and Xbox S/X on Feb 10, 2023.