In 2026, more than three years after Hogwarts Legacy first sent players through the gates of the castle, one piece of fan art still makes the rounds with a knowing smirk. Artist ketto_art drew classmates from Avalanche Software's wizarding open world — Everett, Imelda, Sebastian, and Ominis — in the bold, brassy art style of Rockstar's Bully. The result is not just a clever costume change. It is a reminder that both games are school stories wearing different robes, and that the overlap between them is more than surface-level window dressing.

Think of the two games as neighboring dormitories in the same strange boarding school: they share a corridor, a curfew, and a rumor mill, but each room smells completely different. Bully arrived in 2006 as a Rockstar experiment that swapped cars and crime for classrooms and cliques. Players attended lessons, made friends (and enemies), and pushed through a storyline while the school itself became a playground. Years later, Harry Potter fans hoped Hogwarts Legacy would borrow a page or two from that design. They wanted to pick a House, attend classes, make friends, ride brooms, and duel with customizable wands. Avalanche Software delivered most of that, and the game became one of the biggest titles of 2023.

The comparison is easy to make because both games treat a school as a living map. In Bully, the timetable is practically a character. In Hogwarts Legacy, the schedule is more of a mood than a mechanism. That difference matters. Hogwarts Legacy does not force players into a rigid class calendar the way Bully does. Instead, it uses lessons to teach basic and advanced mechanics, then wraps those lessons in cutscenes or montages that try to sell the feeling of being a Hogwarts student. Sometimes that works beautifully; sometimes it feels like a tour guide waving at a portrait. Still, the core fantasy lands: players are not just exploring a castle, they are enrolled in it.

Here is where the fan art earns its keep. ketto_art's drawings capture the likeness of the classmates while filtering them through Bully's distinctive visual language. Sebastian Sallow, in particular, becomes a reminder of how both games use classmates as story engines. In Hogwarts Legacy, Sebastian has a complex storyline of his own, and players can choose how to engage with him through dialogue choices. Bully built its social web from similar pieces: cliques, loyalties, and the small politics of who sits with whom at lunch. The two games are like two lockets that open with the same tiny key: the settings differ, but the hinge is friendship, rivalry, and the awkward business of growing up in a place that keeps giving you homework.

A quick comparison shows why the conversation has legs:

The table is not a scorecard. It is a map of a shared idea. Bully still carries that unmistakable Rockstar charm, and Hogwarts Legacy established its own charm that Avalanche could tap into and expand upon in a future project. The 2023 conversation also left fans with a clear context: no DLC was planned, and a sequel was reportedly in development. In 2026, that context still shapes how players read the fan art. It makes the crossover feel less like a novelty and more like a signpost. It says: remember what these games have in common, because the next Hogwarts game could learn from the schoolyard blueprint without losing its own magic.

In the end, ketto_art's crossover is a bit like finding a secret passage behind a bookshelf: both games share the same wall, but they hide different doors. Bully's door leads to a clockwork campus of cliques and schedules; Hogwarts Legacy's door leads to a castle that wants players to feel like a student first and a hero second. The art does not prove the games are identical. It proves they are cousins in the same sprawling, weird, beloved family of school-life adventures — and that, in 2026, fans are still happy to compare notes in the hallway. 🎨🧙‍♂️🔔