Several familiar voices are returning to Hogwarts. The upcoming mobile game Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery will feature several actors from the film series reprising their roles. Fans will hear Maggie Smith and Michael Gambon as McGonagall and Professor Dumbledore once again, but the films’ leads, the actors who played Harry, Ron, and Hermione, are MIA. Are Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson too good for this video game?
Well, probably, but there’s a better explanation for why the main trio isn’t appearing in the game: It’s set before they ever came to Hogwarts.
The upcoming game, slotted for an April 25 release on iOS and Android, takes players to Hogwarts School of Whichcraft and Wizardry, where they’ll be able to create their own avatars, attend class, and solve magical mysteries. Radcliff, Watson, and Rupert Grint aren’t in the game because their characters would be too young. Heck, Harry wouldn’t even know he was a Wizard yet. The game is set a decade or so earlier, “in the time between Harry Potter’s birth and his enrollment at Hogwarts, when Nymphadora Tonks and Bill Weasley were students,” according to an earlier statement from Jam Studios, the company behind the game.
Natalia Tena and Domhnall Gleeson, who played Tonks and Bill, respectively, have not been confirmed to be part of the voice cast, however.
In addition to Smith and Gambon, Hogwarts Mystery will also feature the voice talents of Warwick Davis (Professor Flitwick), Sally Mortemore (Madam Irma Pince), Gemma Jones (Madam Pomfrey), and Zoe Wanamaker (Madam Hooch).
“If I could attend Hogwarts as a student, I would be most excited to attend the potions class taught by Severus because it is the most exotic,” said Dame Maggie Smith in an unintentionally hilarious quote from the press release.
Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery comes out on April 25.
