The chief designer of Avalanche Software’s Hogwarts Legacy, an old-world Harry Potter adventure set to launch in 2022, has left the project. Troy Leavitt, whose YouTube channel has garnered Gamergate sympathy and other far-right cultural criticism, said Thursday night that he has divorced Avalanche and will explain more in a YouTube video later.
On Twitter, Leavitt said he had left Avalanche on good footing and that he wanted to resign “for reasons I will explain in the upcoming video.” He said he had “nothing but good things to say about the game, the development team and the World Cup.”
1. I decided to divorce Avalanche Software. I have nothing but good things to say about the game, the development team and WB Games.
2. I will soon be releasing a YouTube video on my channel.
– Troy Leavitt (@Troylus_true) 5 March 2021
To clarify: I felt absolutely safe in my position. However, I still wanted to resign for reasons I will explain in the upcoming video. I am in an excellent mood and very satisfied with my relationship with WB and Avalanche.
– Troy Leavitt (@Troylus_true) 5 March 2021
Hogwarts Legacy attracted controversy from the day it was announced in September, especially because of the creator of Harry Potter, JK Rowling’s recent history of transphobic statements and writings. In response, WB Games specified in a frequently asked question, published after the game on September 16, that Rowling himself had no direct involvement in Hogwarts Legacystory or development.
Then, on February 19, Liam Robertson of Did You Know Gaming? attention drawn to Leavitt’s four-year-old YouTube channel, of which 60 or so videos plead hard, right-wing criticism of pop culture critic Anita Sarkeesian, other feminists and social justice. Some of Leavitt’s videos also sympathized with Gamergate, a six-year-old reactionary harassment campaign that focuses on feminist, progressive, and other social justice voices that develop or comment on video games.
In one video, Leavitt said he told his employers at Avalanche and WB Games in Utah about his YouTube channel and its contents, and that none of them were worried about it. “Of course, not that they endorse anything I said,” Leavitt said. “But at least they seem more concerned about making good games than driving a kind of social justice agenda, so there is hope.”
In response, the popular video game forum ResetEra, whose users regularly share trailers, screenshots, and other promotional material of games in development, has all the promotional discussions, or ‘hype threads’, of Hogwarts Legacy go forward.
Then, earlier this week, Bloomberg reported it Hogwarts Legacy includes gender agnostic characters to create characters, enabling users to expand a player character with unrelated voice and body types, or any gender presentation.
Bloomberg’s report added that other developers of Avalanche Software were “sad and frustrated” about the controversy that plagued the game, more than a year away from launch, and that the management of the project believed developers’ efforts to to establish transclusive character-creator. in the game.
Polygon contacted Leavitt and WB Games representatives for further comment. WB Games confirmed to Polygon that Leavitt “made the decision to leave Avalanche Software”, and declined to comment further.
Hogwarts Legacy is expected in 2022 on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One and Xbox Series X.