Presentation
Developing a game from a universe already loved by millions of people creates a particular difficulty: the player arrives with their own memories. They know the places, the characters, the gestures, and sometimes even spaces that were never precisely shown. An adaptation must therefore respect what exists while inventing what the player will actually want to do once they can enter this world themselves.
This is probably the best way to understand Avalanche Software.
Founded in 1995 in Salt Lake City, Utah, the American studio has worked on very different projects, from Mortal Kombat to Tak and the Power of Juju, then on Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars universes, and finally the Wizarding World. This diversity could give the image of a simple specialist in licenses. Its journey nonetheless reveals a more precise skill: identifying the fantasy the public already associates with a universe and finding how to make it playable.
With Toy Story 3, this logic appears clearly in the Toy Box Mode, which understands that a toy does not only exist to replay a story but also to invent a new one. Disney Infinity then pushes this idea much further by bringing together characters, objects, and worlds in a vast digital toy box.
With Hogwarts Legacy, the principle changes form but not nature. It is no longer about mixing several universes. The challenge is instead to give enough depth to a single world so that the player can really inhabit it: choose their house, explore Hogwarts, learn spells, visit Hogsmeade, or simply stop in a corridor because they had always wanted to know what was there.
Between these two periods, Avalanche experienced a rare break: Disney closed the studio in 2016 after the end of Disney Infinity, then Warner Bros. relaunched it in 2017. A few years later, the team published the most ambitious project in its entire history.
This trajectory gives Avalanche a rather singular identity. The studio does not always create the universes it explores, but it has learned to look for the interactive space still free inside worlds the public already thinks they know.
History
1995-2005: learning to change universes
Avalanche Software was created in 1995 in Salt Lake City by a small group of friends who made games together. Its first years were marked by projects released on several machines and in varied contexts, notably around Mortal Kombat.
The studio also developed Tak and the Power of Juju, one of the properties directly associated with this first period. This diversity imposed a form of adaptability on it very early: Avalanche could not build its entire identity around a single engine, a single genre, or a single franchise.
A habit gradually took shape. The studio had to quickly understand what makes a universe recognizable, then determine which parts can really become gameplay.
2005-2016: Disney turns adaptation into a field of experimentation
In 2005, Avalanche joined Disney Interactive. This integration placed the studio in contact with an extremely varied portfolio and forced it to navigate between properties each with its own visual and cultural rules.
Toy Story 3, released in 2010, became an important step. The game accompanied the film, but its Toy Box Mode refused to reduce the experience to the reproduction of known scenes. It gave the player a space in which they could build, modify, and play more freely.
The idea fits Toy Story particularly well: a toy serves as much to reproduce a story as to invent a new one.
This intuition became the heart of Disney Infinity in 2013. Physical figurines, Play Sets, and a digital Toy Box progressively made it possible to bring together Disney, Pixar, then Marvel and Star Wars. Avalanche then no longer had to understand a single license, but build a system capable of welcoming several without becoming a simple interactive catalog.
The project profoundly changed the studio's scale. It also showed that an adaptation can be faithful without remaining prisoner of the original narrative: the player can become an actor in the license rather than a mere spectator.
2016-2017: closure then rebirth
In May 2016, Disney announced the end of Disney Infinity and its withdrawal from self-publishing console games. Avalanche Software closed.
The rupture was brutal. After more than twenty years of existence, the studio disappeared just as it had considerable experience in licenses, platforms, and large family productions.
Less than a year later, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment took over Avalanche and relaunched the team in January 2017.
This rebirth is important because it shows that a studio is not reduced to a legal structure or a building. Part of its value lies in the collective memory, the methods, and the people able to continue working together. Warner recovered precisely this skill at the moment Avalanche entered another portfolio of culturally very strong universes.
From Disney Infinity to Hogwarts Legacy: from the toy box to a livable world
After its relaunch, Avalanche began working on what would become Hogwarts Legacy.
The challenge is almost the opposite of that of Disney Infinity. Instead of mixing several properties in the same system, it is necessary to give enough depth to a single universe so that the player can project their own presence into it.
The game takes place in the 1800s, long before Harry Potter's story. This choice makes it possible to use the places, traditions, and rules of the Wizarding World without forcing the player to replay an adventure already known.
The design question then becomes particularly clear: what has a fan always imagined doing if they could really go to Hogwarts?
Avalanche therefore had to build what the films and novels can leave off-screen: intermediate corridors, small rooms, paths, spaces around the castle, and enough detail for the walk itself to have value.
The castle thus becomes more than a setting. In certain situations, the place is itself the reward of exploration.
2023: a change of scale that keeps an old logic
Hogwarts Legacy was released in 2023 and transformed Avalanche's place in the industry. The studio moved from productions historically associated with family licenses and Disney Infinity to a very large-scale open-world action RPG.
The continuity remains visible, however.
In Disney Infinity, Avalanche gave the player pieces of a universe so they could recombine them. In Hogwarts Legacy, it builds a world habitable enough for the player to inscribe their own experience there.
In both cases, the license is not only something to recognize. It must become something to practice.
Avalanche then continues to work on the game and adapt it to other technical contexts. These developments extend its historical experience of adaptation, but they do not fundamentally change its identity: the studio remains above all defined by how it transforms a familiar universe into a playground.
What Sets It Apart
Finding the fantasy before choosing the mechanic
The best adaptation does not necessarily start with the question of genre. It often starts with a simpler question:
what does the player dream of doing in this universe?
For Toy Story, the natural idea is to play with the toys and invent. The Toy Box thus becomes central. With Disney Infinity, this freedom turns into a mix of characters and worlds. With Hogwarts Legacy, the fantasy changes: being oneself a student who can live in Hogwarts.
This way of working allows Avalanche not to reduce a license to its appearance. Systems must translate an emotional expectation already present in the public.
Adapting also means inventing
A linear work does not need to answer all the questions a player asks.
In a film, a door can stay closed without problem. In a game, someone will try to open it. A novel can mention a great city without describing every street. An exploratory world must decide what exists behind its facades.
Avalanche works precisely in this space.
Fidelity therefore does not only consist in reproducing already-known elements. It also requires imagining what could logically exist around them without breaking the coherence of the universe.
The more famous a franchise, the more delicate this exercise becomes: the public immediately recognizes mistakes, but at the same time expects to discover places and possibilities that did not yet exist.
Making the player something other than a spectator
The thread linking Toy Story 3, Disney Infinity, and Hogwarts Legacy holds less in their genre than in the place given to the player.
The Toy Box lets them craft their own activity. Disney Infinity gives them the means to mix universes. Hogwarts Legacy invites them to personally occupy a known world rather than follow exactly the path of an existing hero.
Avalanche now uses the idea "by fans, for fans." The formula only has interest when it produces this kind of concrete choice.
The most effective fan service is therefore not necessarily a spectacular reference. It can simply consist in letting the player enter a room, walk down a corridor, or try a gesture they had been imagining for years.
An identity able to survive changes of scale
Avalanche has worked on very different productions, gone through several generations of hardware, joined Disney, closed, then been relaunched by Warner Bros. before developing the most ambitious project in its history.
This trajectory could have produced several almost unrelated studios.
A continuity nonetheless remains: quickly understanding a universe, identifying what must be preserved, and turning that knowledge into interactions suited to the project's scale.
The 2016 closure makes this continuity all the more remarkable. Avalanche had to rebuild an organization while part of its collective memory had already dispersed. A few years later, this new team was able to carry Hogwarts Legacy.
Its history thus shows that a studio can change owner, technology, audience, and dimension without entirely losing the skill that made it useful in the first place.
Good to Know
- Avalanche Software was founded in 1995 in Salt Lake City, Utah.
- It should not be confused with Avalanche Studios Group, a Swedish company notably associated with Just Cause.
- The studio worked on many universes and platforms before joining Disney Interactive in 2005.
- Toy Story 3 introduced in 2010 a Toy Box Mode that foreshadows part of the Disney Infinity philosophy.
- Disney Infinity was launched in 2013 and combines physical figurines, themed adventures, and a vast digital Toy Box.
- Disney ended Disney Infinity and closed Avalanche Software in May 2016.
- Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment relaunched the studio in January 2017.
- Hogwarts Legacy was released in 2023 and represents a major change of scale for Avalanche.
- The studio now belongs to the Warner Bros. Games ecosystem and remains based in Salt Lake City.