Playstation’s “Harry Potter Book of Spells” director provides insight to new JKR content

by · June 22, 2012

As we reported previously, Sony announced at the E3 conference that they are releasing a new Harry Potter Book of Spells for Playstation’s new “Wonderbook” technology platform.

A new interview has emerged with the director of the SCEE London Studios, Richard Harding, who revealed some of the important new details behind the collaboration with J.K. Rowling and what fans can expect to see with this new Book of Spells product.

3 News: We have a lot of Harry Potter fans in New Zealand who are sad the books and movies have come to an end. Is Book of Spells the next step for them?

Harding: Well I think the Book of Spells explores the wizarding world further. It’s full of unique spell descriptions written by JK Rowling herself, so giving some of the background behind some of the famous spells, she’s created some really fun stories around how those spells were discovered.
We also have five nice poems that have been written around the moral values that wizards really need to obtain. They’re great pieces of poetry that are written by JK Rowling and are totally unique. So the fans will absolutely love that. There’s a lot more depth to this world.

3 News: Were any additions made to the Harry Potter universe in Book of Spells endorsed as canon?

Harding: It’s been a total collaboration with JK Rowling, she’s added a lot more depth to the world by exploring the spells, giving more background, naming some of the wizards that previously we hadn’t heard of, telling us dates when certain spells were invented and so on. She’s added more richness to that world herself.
This is a book that belongs in the restricted section at the library of Hogwarts, and you’re given the opportunity to take it from the shelf and actually explore it. No Muggle has been given that opportunity before.

3 News: What we’ve seen here at E3 is a lot of training spells and destroying targets and so on. Can players expect to face more fierce enemies from the dark side of the Harry Potter world?

Harding: As you explore the chapters through the Book of Spells of course you’ll meet a number of magical beasts, and as you go through the chapters the spells will become more challenging. There will be more depth to the book as you go through. You’ll meet some of those well-known foes and we’ll be revealing those as we go through our campaign over the [northern] summer.

You can read the entire interview right here.

Thanks to Hypable for the tip!