With Hogwarts Legacy set to release near the end of 2022, the fantasy of attending Hogwarts and experiencing a unique journey there has never seemed more real than now. But Hogwarts Legacy is far from the first time video games have tackled the Wizarding World.

Back when the Harry Potter films dominated the box office in the 2000s, movie tie-ins were still a massive part of the video game industry, and the studios cashed in heavily with this franchise, continuing all the way until Deathly Hallows Part 2. Some games they produced were much better than others, and voters on IMDb have distinguished the leaders of the pack.

Lego Creator: Harry Potter – 6.7

Lego Creator: Harry Potter gameplay

The first Harry Potter video game ever released, Lego Creator: Harry Potter is an expansion of sorts to the original Lego Creator released in 1998, a sandbox game with an emphasis on building with Lego elements that's almost reminiscent of an early Minecraft.

Related: 10 Franchises That Deserve The LEGO Video Game Treatment

Since the tech was already in development, it was easier for Harry Potter to be incorporated in rather than building a title from scratch. Still, while an exciting Lego tie-in for its time, there was no story driving the game, and it relied instead on player initiative and imagination, which may have led later games to surpass it in terms of appreciation.

Harry Potter: Quidditch World Cup – 6.7

The Harry Potter Quidditch World cup video game gameplay

While it would certainly be fun to fly around on broomsticks as part of a sport, Harry Potter's Quidditch can be quite confusing. Yet, Harry Potter: Quidditch World Cup, released in 2003 for Windows and 6th-gen consoles, managed to set a whole game around the sport; like Lego Creator, the focus is heavily favored toward play with little in the way of storytelling.

Aside from giving players a chance to play just Quidditch for an entire game (whereas in the story-based games it was only available at certain moments), Quidditch World Cup also added to Harry Potter lore by giving names and information to Quidditch players from other schools and countries, which was a nice bonus for the hardcore fans.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II – 6.9

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 game

Even though it's the best Harry Potter movie, Deathly Hallows Part 2 produced a much-less-acclaimed video game when compared to the film it was based on. In the same year it was released, Uncharted 3Mass Effect 2, and Batman: Arkham City also came out, which were miles ahead in terms of gameplay. The rushed productions that always happen with tie-ins also didn't help.

Still, like its source material, this game was much more warmly received than its Part 1 (5.8 on IMDb). To its credit, the game is an adaptation of an adaptation, as well as the final game in the series, which heavily limited what the studio could do with it. Within these constraints, it provides a satisfactory conclusion to the decade-long game series and fits in with the past few previous titles.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince – 7.2

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince game

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is, just like its film, the last to take place at Hogwarts. But at this point, gamers were very familiar with how the series operated, so the game had the challenge of keeping itself from being repetitive.

It actually adapts the humor from the movie quite well, with several moments of gameplay having laugh-out-loud moments. One example is after Harry drinks the Felix Felicis potion, jazz music starts to play and Harry walks on his own, without player input. The best, though, is when Harry finds out Ginny is going to Hogsmeade with Dean, and an in-game record scratch interrupts the music.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone – 7.3

Harry Potter Sorcerer's Stone Game

Just as the Sorcerer's Stone movie still holds up 20 years later, so too does its video game adaptation, at least when compared with a few later entries in the series. The 5th- and 6th-gen consoles couldn't produce photorealistic animation yet, so these early games instead chose to use a cartoon-like style.

But the odd thing is that there were several different versions produced of the same game, depending on the console it was going to be played on, and so this single score for the video game represents an average of all those different versions. Unsurprisingly, the 6th-gen versions play and look a lot better.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets – 7.4

Harry and Snape in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets video game

Following that same cartoony style, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was released alongside its film in 2002 and was even slightly more appreciated than its predecessor. While spells are limited, the control scheme on consoles allows players to assign spells to certain buttons, which makes spell-casting much simpler and more fun than later games, because a spell can be cast even when not needed.

Related: 10 Differences Between The Chamber Of Secrets Book & The Movie

The game also responds to player actions to give one of two endings: either Gryffindor or Slytherin win the House Cup, depending on how many points the player lost for Gryffindor over the course of the game. It's not revolutionary, but it does add a little bit of realism to the game and more plot agency to the player.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix – 7.4

Harry in the room of requirement in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix video game

The Order of the Phoenix adaptation was much better received than its predecessor (6.1 on IMDb), and returned gameplay to a more forward-on view after the Goblet of Fire video game changed the formula by presenting a more top-down perspective of the action.

The biggest addition in Order of the Phoenix, though, was open-world gameplay; while there were some free-roam aspects of Hogwarts in earlier games, this one steps it up a notch. The map is bigger, the spaces always available to explore, and the NPCs act like real people going about their day. All of this allows Hogwarts to feel like a real, lived-in place, like players truly have been transported there.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban – 7.5

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban game cover

Alfonso Cuaron's direction of the Prisoner of Azkaban was very different from Chris Columbus's style on the first two, and it seems that may have influenced the video games running alongside the series, because there's a big jump in both the type of animation and the game's tone from Chamber of Secrets.

Related: 10 Memes That Sum Up The Prisoner Of Azkaban

Harry had unsurprisingly been the playable character in the previous games, but Prisoner of Azkaban has players switch off between the core trio of Harry, Ron, and Hermione, sometimes by choice, sometimes by necessity. It's Harry's friendship with Ron and Hermione that really makes the series' story work, so it's smart to have all three as playable characters. It almost certainly helped it garner such a relatively high score.

Lego Harry Potter: Years 1-4 – 7.6

Hermione, Ron, and Harry in the game LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4

Harry Potter did return to Lego form with the 2010 release of Lego Harry Potter: Years 1-4. The Lego video game developers had already adapted some of the most well-known franchises of all time, like Star WarsIndiana Jones, and Batman, so why not do Harry Potter?

The developers smartly split the series in half. They probably used the Goblet of Fire as the first-part finale because of its placement in the series, but the added development time clearly benefitted it and its sequel, which is something to be thankful for.

Lego Harry Potter: Years 5-7 – 7.8

A promo shot for Lego Harry Potter

One of the best Lego video games, Lego Harry Potter: Years 5-7 is also the best Harry Potter game ever made, and has the distinction of being a better game than the original, at least according to IMDb. Following along the lines of the movies, the non-magical Muggle world is also given additional screentime/explorability.

But it really seems that the biggest boost is the fact that this is the finale, featuring some of the series' most acclaimed storylines. It's also telling, though, that the Lego Harry Potter games, released between the two Deathly Hallows titles, were much more beloved than either one of them. Perhaps the cartoon style really does fit better in some ways.

NEXT: The 10 Best Video Game Tie-Ins To Movies