LEGO® Harry Potter Years 1-4 video game coming in 2010

June 1, 9:54 PMChicago Children's Toys ExaminerRenée Carver

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Harry Potter LEGO® set fans rejoice! As part of the E3 Expo 2009 today it was announced that Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and TT Games are working with The LEGO Group to create a new video game based on the first four books in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. The look of the video game will of course be drawn from the wildly popular LEGO® Harry Potter sets.

About LEGO® Harry Potter: Years 1-4

Kids will be able to play this exciting and humor-filled game as Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, and several other beloved characters from the books. Players will be able to participate in normal Hogwarts student activities and "attend lessons, cast spells, mix potions, fly on broomsticks and complete tasks to earn house points." Settings will include such familiar places as "Hogwarts castle, Diagon Alley, the Forbidden Forest and the village of Hogsmeade."

Gameplay will consist of a mix of "puzzle solving gameplay with exploration and battle." Whereas previous LEGO® video games may have been family-friendly but actually suitable only for older children because of battle scenes and violence (like, you know, LEGO® Anakin Skywalker getting his lower half chopped off by LEGO® Obi-Wan Kenobi), the new emphasis in this game on wandering around and exploring Harry's world will, one hopes, make it appealing to and more suitable for a younger audience.

Darker themes in Harry Potter

Why will this game cover only Harry's first four years at Hogwarts? Reelz Channel reports that a representative from The LEGO® Group indicated back in February at Toy Fair 2009 in New York that the LEGO® Group had no plans to make any future Harry Potter-themed sets, explaining "With the films getting darker, it has become harder to produce kid-friendly sets." In a post today, Reelz Channel speculates convincingly that limiting the time span of the game to the first four years at Hogwarts sidesteps the darkness issue for now, but adds that the LEGO® Group and Warner Bros. may be left unable to make a family-friendly sequel with the material left in the remaining three books.

Not to spoil it for those who have not read the books yet (both of you), but yes, it would definitely be difficult for a family-friendly LEGO® game to deal with the many shocking deaths that occur in the latter part of the series.

And now, enjoy the trailer to the upcoming LEGO® Harry Potter video game!