Honestly, the first time I booted up LEGO Harry Potter Years 5-7, I expected a simple reskin of the first game. You know how it goes with sequels. Developers get lazy, they reuse the same assets, and you’re basically playing a $60 DLC. But TT Games did something weirdly ambitious here. They took the increasingly grim, color-drained atmosphere of the final four films—Order of the Phoenix through Deathly Hallows Part 2—and somehow made it fun to smash into tiny plastic bricks. It’s a strange vibe. One minute you're laughing at a skeleton wearing a wig, and the next you’re playing through the literal death of Dumbledore. It shouldn't work.
It works.
The game covers the final stretch of the Wizarding World saga. You’re moving away from the cozy, "troll in the dungeon" vibes of the early years and heading straight into a wizarding civil war. Because the source material gets so dark, the LEGO humor feels more necessary here than it did in the first installment. It acts as a pressure valve. If you’ve played the recent LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, you might find the fixed camera angles here a bit "old school," but there’s a mechanical depth in this specific title that many of the newer, flashier games actually lost along the way.
What Sets LEGO Harry Potter Years 5-7 Apart from the First Half?
Most people assume these two games are identical. They aren't. While Years 1-4 was all about discovering Hogwarts, LEGO Harry Potter Years 5-7 focuses heavily on the world outside the castle walls. You spend a massive amount of time in London, the Ministry of Magic, and the bleak, snowy forests where Harry, Ron, and Hermione camp out during their hunt for Horcruxes.
The mechanics shifted too.
TT Games introduced the Weasley Boxes in this one. If you’re playing as a Weasley—and let's be real, you're usually playing as Fred or George because they’re the best—you can interact with these boxes to pull out ridiculous joke-shop gadgets. It’s not just a cosmetic choice; it’s a core puzzle mechanic. Then there's the Aguamenti spell. It sounds simple, right? You just spray water. But the way the game uses water to solve puzzles, put out fires, and power machinery added a layer of interaction that the first game lacked.
Then we have to talk about the Dueling System. In the first game, combat was mostly just "point and click until the enemy explodes into studs." In this sequel, they tried to mimic the cinematic wand-fights of the movies. You enter a circle, you have to match the color of the spell your opponent is casting, and there’s this rhythmic back-and-forth. Is it Elden Ring? No. But for a LEGO game, it felt like a genuine attempt to make the combat feel like it mattered.
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The Darker Aesthetic and the "Hub" Problem
The color palette in this game is noticeably grittier. Everything is a bit more gray, blue, and washed out, reflecting the cinematic shift directed by David Yates. It’s moody. Some players hated this back in 2011 because it lost that "warm" Hogwarts feeling. But if you look closely at the hub worlds, the detail is staggering.
Diagon Alley is expanded. You have the Leaky Cauldron acting as your central base, but you can wander into Knockturn Alley if you're feeling edgy. The transition between these locations is seamless in a way that felt groundbreaking at the time. However, the game does suffer from what I call "Hub Fatigue." Because the story of the last two movies is basically a road trip, the game struggles to keep that sense of a central, evolving home base that made the first game so cozy.
The Mystery of the Red Bricks and 100% Completion
If you're a completionist, LEGO Harry Potter Years 5-7 is a nightmare. A fun nightmare, but a nightmare nonetheless. There are 200 Gold Bricks. 24 True Wizard ranks. 20 Red Bricks. 60 Students in Peril. It’s a lot of stuff.
The Red Bricks are the real stars here. In most modern games, "cheats" are hidden behind microtransactions. Here, you have to find them. The "Score x10" brick is essentially the Holy Grail. Once you stack that with the x2, x4, x6, and x8 bricks, the number of studs you collect becomes literally astronomical. You’re not just a wizard; you’re a billionaire.
- Pro Tip: Don't waste your studs on buying characters early on. Save every single penny for the score multipliers. Once you have the multipliers, you can buy the entire roster of 200+ characters in about ten minutes of gameplay.
- The Character Stud Magnet: This is arguably the most important Red Brick in the game. It saves you from having to manually run over every single coin. Find it in the Hogwarts basement areas as soon as you can.
One thing that still frustrates people today is the "Student in Peril" glitch. There’s a specific one in the London streets that sometimes refuses to trigger if you do things out of order. It’s a reminder that while these games are charming, they were built on an engine that sometimes felt like it was held together by chewing gum and magic.
Why the Spell Wheel Is Still the Best (and Worst) Mechanic
The spell wheel in LEGO Harry Potter Years 5-7 is iconic. You hold down a button, the world slows down, and you pick your flavor of magic.
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- Diffindo: The red spell that lets you cut shapes out of red walls. It’s weirdly satisfying, like a digital craft project.
- Focus: This was a new addition for this game. It allows you to see into the minds of certain characters or interact with white, cloud-like thoughts. It was a clever way to integrate the "Snape’s memories" plotline without just making it a cutscene.
- Spectrespecs: These are a love-it-or-hate-it mechanic. You put on Luna Lovegood’s glasses to see invisible LEGO pieces. It adds a layer of "hidden in plain sight" to the puzzles, but it also means a lot of backtracking to find the glasses dispenser.
The problem? By the time you reach the end of Deathly Hallows, your spell wheel is crowded. Switching between the specific variant of Lumos you need and the Reducto you need to blast a silver lock can feel clunky in the heat of a "boss fight."
The Reality of Local Co-op
This game was peak "couch co-op." It used the dynamic split-screen that TT Games pioneered. If you stay close to your partner, the screen is whole. If you wander off, the screen splits down the middle and rotates based on where you are in relation to each other.
It’s brilliant. And it’s also the cause of a thousand sibling arguments.
The physics in LEGO Harry Potter Years 5-7 can be a bit wonky when two people are trying to build the same object. One person holds the "B" button (or Circle), and the other accidentally jumps into the pile of bricks, resetting the progress. It’s part of the charm, I guess. But if you’re playing this with a kid or a non-gamer partner, be prepared for some "unintended" character deaths. Usually involving someone being "accidentally" blasted off a cliff with Wingardium Leviosa.
How to Maximize Your Playthrough in 2026
If you’re picking this up now—whether it’s on the LEGO Harry Potter Collection for PS4/PS5/Xbox or the original PC port—there’s a specific way to play it to avoid the grind.
First, ignore the collectibles on your first pass. You literally cannot get most of them. The game is designed around "Free Play." You’ll see a chest with a silver lock in the first level, but you won't unlock a character with a "Strength" potion or a dark magic user like Bellatrix Lestrange until much later.
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Secondly, get a Dark Wizard as soon as humanly possible. You need one to interact with the black-and-red glowing objects. The easiest one to grab is usually a version of Tom Riddle or a Death Eater found in the later levels. Once you have a "bad guy" in your roster, the entire game opens up.
Thirdly, pay attention to the pets. Hermione’s cat, Crookshanks, and Ron’s... well, various pets, are essential for getting into the small tunnels. People often forget that the "pet" slot is a dedicated mechanic that solves about 20% of the puzzles in the Hogwarts hub.
The Portkey Problem
One of the weirdest technical choices in this game involves the Portkeys. In the movies, they’re these high-speed, dizzying trips through space. In the game, they’re basically just loading screens disguised as gameplay. Occasionally, they lead to these small, isolated "bonus rooms" that feel completely disconnected from the rest of the world. It’s one of the few areas where the game’s age really shows. The transitions aren't as smooth as we've come to expect in the era of SSDs and instant loading.
Final Practical Steps for New Players
If you want to master this game without losing your mind, follow this trajectory:
- Blast through the Story Mode. Don't stop to smell the digital roses. Just get through the levels so you unlock the core spells and a baseline roster of characters.
- Unlock a "Strength" character. Find someone who can pull the chains (like Hagrid or someone after a Strength Potion).
- Go for the Multipliers. Hunt down the Red Bricks specifically. Use a guide if you have to; the x2 and x4 bricks are game-changers.
- Hogwarts is the real level. Spend time in the Hub. The actual story levels are great, but the secret rooms in the Great Hall and the moving staircases are where the real "magic" (and the most Gold Bricks) are hidden.
- Check your percentage. If you're stuck at 98.2%, it’s almost always a stray Gold Brick in the Library or a character token hidden behind a dark magic object in the Forbidden Forest.
LEGO Harry Potter Years 5-7 isn't just a kids' game. It's a surprisingly dense exploration of the franchise that respects the source material more than most "serious" AAA adaptations. It handles the transition from the whimsical halls of school to the terrifying reality of a wizarding war with a sense of humor that never feels disrespectful. Whether you’re a trophy hunter or just someone looking for a nostalgia hit, this game holds up remarkably well. Just watch out for the Mandrakes. They’re still as annoying as ever.