Quidditch Champions doesn't deserve all the loathing directed its way, far from it. What we experienced was a (mostly) polished Quidditch experience, complete with all the locations, characters, music, and most importantly, decent mechanics you'll ever need to make a Quidditch game work. Get over the rule changes, dive into the online scene, and have a blast. We'd advise doing that sooner rather than later, hwoever.
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Gameplay
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Visuals
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Performance
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Soundtrack
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Multiplayer
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Replayability
We were a little sceptical about Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions (we’re dropping the ‘Harry Potter‘ from here on out) when it was first announced. That might have something to do with the disappointing lack of Quidditch in Hogwarts Legacy – cut so that Quidditch Champions could live on as this separate, R560 title.
It didn’t help that the consensus appeared to be less-than-stellar where Quidditch Champions was concerned, noting a distinct lack of the magic from the books. We’ll be the first to let you know that Quidditch Champions is far from perfect, sure it’s easily the most fun we’ve had playing a sports sim for some time. It employs tight controls, a slightly wonky art style, and enough oomph to keep us playing well into the, er, near future.
Bending the rules
Try as you might, there’s just no defending J.K. Rowling’s original idea for Quidditch. Sure, it reads great when following a character like Harry Potter, whose plot armour ensures he wins most of the games he plays in some flashy fashion. But as an actual sport? No thanks. The idea that the Golden Snitch can immediately end the game and earn an additional 150 points doesn’t gel in this gaming landscape. At all.
Unbroken Studios, the minds behind Quidditch Champions, were forced to make the hard decision of fundamentally changing Quidditch. Never-ending matches and Seekers spawn-camping the Golden Snitch wouldn’t work in an online scenario, no matter how hilarious it would be. But the “new” rules of Quidditch, the ones that end the game after a set time or whichever team hits 100 points first, work surprisingly well.
Now, catching the Snitch – only appearing once or twice per game (depending on your skill to cross the 100-point threshold during a match) – earns the Seeker’s team an additional thirty points before disappearing to let the meat of the game continue. It’s also limited gameplay to feature only one beater per team (those club-carrying rage-filled teammates that knock other players off their broomsticks) to keep things a little more balanced.
Otherwise, this is the Quidditch you know and love. Three sets of hoops dominate both ends of a rather large pitch, with keepers guarding them, while the ‘Chasers’ attempt to wrest the Quaffle from the opposing team and put the ball through their hoops for ten points apiece. The Seeker, the supposed star of the show, has been relegated to the sidelines while the real action takes place.
Rocket League without the staying power
Make no mistake. Quidditch Champions is fun. Real fun. More so if you manage to convince your friends that a Quidditch game is half-decent and worth the price (or you know how to game the PS5’s account system, but we’ll stop talking about that here), and less decent if you decide to sit back and main something as boring as a Seeker. This is a team game. There’s no changing that.
Whatever you think your go-to position may be, you’ll have to git-gud at them all eventually. There’s only so much you can leave in the hands of the somewhat incompetent bots, and taking on players in real life? Being a one-trick pony won’t fly. You’re about to learn some life lessons the hard way, whether you like it or not.
Once you get the hang of the various positions and controls – boosting, passing, scoring, and even drifting – everything changes. Sure, you’ll still take some Ls on the way, but you’ll feel the sudden urge to play more and more, in the hopes of bringing your game up to scratch. It reminds us of Rocket League – back in the 2015 era when nobody knew, well, anything. The only difference? Quidditch Champions doesn’t have the staying power.
That’s, in part, due to the somewhat kneecapping repetitive gameplay. Games like Rocket League have yet to find their skill ceiling nearly nine years later. Quidditch Champions, being an already niche title sworn off by the Twitter mob, doesn’t have the necessary mechanics to keep players invested for years on end and has likely already found ‘the best’ player. “Hit the ball into the net with a rocket-powered car,” on the other hand, sells itself. See what we mean?
But for the game’s assumedly short future, we’re having a whole lot of fun with Quidditch Champions. We can already feel the tiring nature of the repetitive gameplay in the grind-y solo ‘campaign’ that’ll see you reaching for the World Cup if you know what you’re doing – which feels tacked on to keep players invested in the free yet sluggish battle pass (a rarity for a Warner Bros. game. Cherish it).
Take the fight online, however, and you can wash away the staleness that crept in elsewhere. Online is the place to be in Quidditch Champions, although we can already notice a dwindling player base that likely won’t see the end of 2025. If Warner Bros. can manage to keep the game alive until then, hats off. Otherwise, the writing is on the wall. It’s a damn shame for a game that’s as fun as this is.
Uncanny Valley
The Quidditch Champions art style won’t be for everybody. We, however, are split. On the one hand, we love the casual, cartoony style Unbroken Studios has opted for here, lending itself to the extremely cartoonish gameplay and bringing a vibrancy that befits the series’ often darker tone. On the other hand, we try to look away from the legacy characters – Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, those guys – as often as possible. They’re… not the prettiest.
Fortunately, their involvement is limited. Aside from the Weasley-filled tutorial set at the Burrow, you’ll be dealing with your own, custom-made characters in your team. Sure, you can buy and unlock ‘Hero Skins’ using hard-earned gold and winged keys or completing challenges, but we avoided those as thoroughly as possible. Instead, we spent our hard-earned gold and ‘winged keys’ on unlocking flashier goggles or something similar.
On the music front, Quidditch Champions hasn’t disappointed. How could it? Even loosely basing any sort of soundtrack on John Williams’ work equals an instant winner, and that’s what Quidditch Champions does here. It’s got just enough of the original series’ beats to keep you hooked while mixing in all new notes to mix it up and deliver something new and (nearly) as good.
Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions verdict
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with Quidditch Champions (as long as you look away from Ginny Weasley). Contrary to what you might hear in the streets, it is in fact, fun. Sure, that comes with a rather big caveat that the only real exciting gameplay takes place online, but that’s entirely okay. You don’t ever hear about anyone boasting about beating the bots in Rocket League, do you? How long this will last, however, is another matter altogether. If you’re interested, Quidditch Champions is well worth the R570 admittance. Just… be quick about it, will ya?
