I pre-ordered the Deluxe Edition of Hogwarts Legacy, so I got right into the game immediately after early access was granted.
As a result of that fact, I went into the game with very little knowledge about certain things that would otherwise have helped me to move quicker through the story.
Personally, I don’t mind having to figure everything out by myself, but it can be annoying when you spend so much time on something and eventually find out that a small tip would’ve saved you all that time.
This guide seeks to solve that problem for other players out there. It contains a handful of things that I did not know initially and found out while completing missions in the game.
It’s a lot of information to take in at once, but part of the fun of Hogwarts Legacy is in how much there is to know and do, so let’s get right into it!
Locked Areas and Assets
If you’ve bought the Deluxe Edition of the game as I did, then you know that there are certain quests, gear, and other assets that are included as a bonus.
It might confuse you at first then when you play the game for a few hours and none of these rewards have popped up, but there’s an explanation for that.
For instance, the pre-order exclusive Hippogriff and the Dark Arts Pack’s Thestral Mount are not accessible until you complete a side quest with Natsai, one of the characters in the game.
There are also several areas across the map that may appear bare or inaccessible until you get to a certain point in the main story.
For instance, when you go to Hogsmeade for the first time, you’ll notice that the broomstick shop is locked. It remains that way until you complete the flying class by Professor Kagawa and have to get your own broomstick.
The point here is that you need to be patient and follow the main story to unlock a lot of the good stuff, especially in the early stages of the game.
Transmorg System
If you play RPGs regularly, then you’ll be familiar with the transmogrification mechanic that allows you to alter the appearance of gear and other cosmetics in-game.
In Hogwarts Legacy, this is where you’ll find the Dark Arts cosmetic set if you have the Deluxe Edition, but you can also unlock quite a number of customization options for your robes, eyewear, headgear, etc.
Now, there’s a difference between the properties of your gear and the way that they look.
For instance, different types of robes offer different levels of extra defense or offense to your character. Changing gear appearance with the transmorg system does not increase or decrease those defense/offense points.
However, even if you do not have a piece of gear equipped, you can alter the appearance of the equipped one to look like it. This means that you can retain the physical properties of gear you don’t use even if you sell them for some extra Galleons (the gold currency of the game).
The more gear you find in loot and collect as rewards, the more options for customization you’ll unlock.
Upgrading Gear
Speaking of upgrading your gear, every piece adds a defensive or offensive boost to your character.
What you might not immediately notice (I didn’t) is that gear is color-coded, and the color of each piece determines its quality compared to alternatives.
Green gear is the most basic type and they’re termed “well-appointed” in-game. Blue gear is the next level termed “Superb” in-game, followed by Purple gear termed “extraordinary” and then the best type, orange gear termed “Legendary”.
If you like the looks of a gear’s traits, you can upgrade it further with three upgrade slots available.
However, altering pieces of gear with these upgrades can only be done after completing the 24th main quest “The Elf, The Nab-Sack, and the Loom” with Deek the elf.
Moonstones and Plants
During the first few hours of the game, I often had to go out of the castle and into the “wild” to complete certain quests. During these quests, I noticed that certain foliage could actually be taken and added to my inventory.
At the time, I was not sure what these things would be useful for, but I made sure to collect every one I came across regardless and it paid off.
Moonstone was one of the things that I collected a lot of before I had any use for them. I noticed them when I cast the Revelio spell and plucked them with a basic cast.
It wasn’t until the Room of Requirement quest that I realized that these Moonstones were needed for Conjuring spells. By then, I already had a few hundred of them which was a really nice head start.
Plants such as Dittany leaves (for Wiggenweld Potions) and Mallowsweet leaves (for Merlin Trials) will also be needed further down the line, so make sure to collect as much of everything you come across as you can from the start.
Collections
The “Collections” tab is one of the main tabs in the pause menu or whenever you open up the map.
In that tab, you will find ten item cards for tools, traits, appearances, Revelio pages, brooms, ingredients, wand handles, conjurations, beasts, and enemies that you can encounter or unlock in the game.
As you come across each one of the items in these cards, its collection card becomes accessible, providing more information about what it is.
I found this particularly useful for fighting beasts and enemies that I was encountering for the first time. Once my character saw them, a notification popped up to show that their card was now available in collections.
When you read these collection cards, it often provides information about weaknesses. This should help you to defeat them more easily than if you’d gone in with no information.
Broom Flight
To run in Hogwarts Legacy, you need to click the L3 button once and then click it again if you wish to stop.
What the game does not tell you in your first lesson on how to ride a broom is that the same rule applies to flying brooms.
The tutorial actually tells you to hold the R2 button for a speed boost, but you can simply tap the L3 button and let go instead. It’s a minor tip, but it makes flying simpler.
Loot
Throughout the world, there is a lot of loot that you can pick up and add to your inventory. This ranges from items of clothing such as robes and headwear to potions such as the Wiggenweld potion and in-game currency (Galleons).
The easiest way to find loot around you is by using the Revelio spell. Anything that you can interact with and pick loot from will glow orange, which makes it easy to locate.
If you upgrade your Revelio spell with a talent point, the spell will cover a wider range which means you can see more loot in your surroundings at once.
A side note about something that I did not enjoy so much in Hogwarts Legacy is the lifelessness of the NPCs. You can literally walk into a random NPC’s house, open a chest, take some Galleons and there will be no form of reaction from them.
But I’ve probably just been spoiled by games like Red Dead Redemption 2, so maybe that’s something many people won’t care as much about.
Anyway, the abundance of loot makes it extremely important to prioritize upgrading your gear capacity because when you fill it up, you can’t pick up any more free stuff.
Now, you can obviously sell items that you don’t need at Hogsmeade, but it’s easy to lose track of how much space you have left until you actually run out. So, you have to plan ahead and upgrade.
If you open up the map and hover on any location, an inventory of the lootable items in that location will pop up on the top right-hand side of the screen.
This way, you can easily keep track of places that you might need to revisit if you were unable to pick up all the loot in your prior visits, and places you have not visited at all that hold valuable loot.
Eye Chests
The eye-chests that you’ll find all over the map offer some of the best loot in the game – 500 Galleons.
You can identify them with the large eye in front of the chest, swiveling to look at you whenever you come close.
To unlock these chests, you need to cast a disillusionment spell (Learned from Sebastian Sallow during the quest “Secrets of the Restricted Section”) so that the eye can’t see you. Then, you can approach it and take the loot.
There are 25 eye-chests in the game, and you’ll find a large portion of that number inside Hogwarts and all over Hogsmeade.
Cast the Revelio spell often when you’re in these two areas so you can see if there’s one close to you. Those Galleons will really come in handy when you have to purchase certain expensive items!
Passing Time
There are certain quests in Hogwarts Legacy that can only be attempted during specific times of the day. If you arrive at the required location ahead of time, you will have to wait.
It gets even trickier because there are also certain items that you can only find and collect based on the time of day. For instance, the demiguise moons that you need to collect to complete the quest “The Caretaker’s Lunar Lament” can only be collected at night.
Instead of waiting, you can simply open the map and press R3. Note that you cannot do this while you’re flying on a broomstick.
Talent Points
Another mechanic that is characteristic of RPGs is the inclusion of skill trees. In Hogwarts Legacy, assigning talent points is the equivalent of building up your skill tree to level up your character’s abilities.
Just like other RPGs, there is a limited number of points that you can gain over the course of the game, so it is important to spend wisely. They are non-refundable, so you cannot reallocate points once you’ve done it the first time.
There are five talent trees in the game, including Spells, Core, Room of Requirement, Dark Arts, and Stealth.
The first set of skills in each category are available once your character hits level 5, the next is unlocked at level 16, and by level 22, all skills are available to be unlocked.
The maximum number of talent points that you can gain is 35, so take that into consideration and have a plan before you start to spend at all.
Floo Flame Travel
The open world in this game is a thing of beauty, and I often found myself walking/running everywhere instead of taking the shorter broomstick route just to take in the view.
Even flying on a Thestral or Hippogriff doesn’t show you enough of the land below, but at least you can ride them on the ground and move faster than walking/running.
Speaking of shortcuts, Floo Flame traveling is an even quicker way to get across the vast map if you’d like to fast travel in Hogwarts Legacy.
There are several Floo Flame locations scattered everywhere across the map, and each time you visit a place and pass by the Floo Flame situated there, it becomes accessible by fast travel. This is indicated when the Floo Flame location turns green on the map.
I still recommend going everywhere on foot as often as you can, but there will be situations where you feel the need to get somewhere quickly and Floo Flame traveling is a useful solution for that.
Companion Quests
Apart from your main quest, there are a few other major quests in Hogwarts Legacy that involve working closely with other characters in the game.
These quests are optional, but completing them often alters the way the main story plays out in a significant way.
For instance, a side quest with Sebastian Sallow leads to you learning the Unforgivable curses, and another with Natsai Onai leads to unlocking the use of the Thestral and Hippogriff.
Involving these major characters in your story can also lead to them accompanying you on quests that you would otherwise undergo alone, which improves your chances of success as you have some extra support in combat situations.
Classes
Classes are pretty straightforward in Hogwarts Legacy, and there is often an important reason when you’re asked to attend one.
This is the case especially in the early stages of the game when you often have to meet a Professor and attend their class to learn a particular spell. Sometimes, you’re given an assignment to complete out of class instead, and the spell is a reward for completing that assignment.
For instance, to unlock the Levioso spell, you have to attend your first Defence against the Dark Arts class with Professor Hecat.
On the other hand, the Depulso spell unlocks when you complete Professor Sharp’s first assignment outside of class.
Apart from spell unlocking, these assignments are often important to furthering the main story. So, if you feel like you’re stuck in the game, you should check if there’s a classroom quest that you missed.
Owl Posts
Something else that you may also not immediately realize is that reading owl posts is important to progressing the main story in Hogwarts Legacy.
If an owl post stays unread in your mail, then whatever quest is attached to it may not come up in your list of quests. This makes it easy to miss what you’re supposed to do next to further the main story and you may find yourself taking on side quests with no real progress in the game.
To avoid this, make sure you check your owl posts as often as you can. It can be found on the bottom right side of the wheel displayed when you pause the game.
Color-Coded Combat
If you leave the mini-map enabled, the game indicates when you’re moving close to an enemy or beast with a red arrowhead indicator on the map.
The first time I really noticed the color-coded combat mechanic was during Percival Rackham’s first trial quest.
When you’re fighting against an enemy, they will often put a shield to defend against your attacks. The color of the shield determines which spell you need to cast to break it down.
For instance, “Control” spells are yellow-coded, so if an enemy puts up a yellow shield, then you need to cast any control spell to break it down.
I recommend having a different spell category for each spell slot in each spell wheel. This will help to make sure that you’re always prepared for these dueling scenarios.
With this, you don’t have to waste time waiting for a spell cooldown to break an enemy’s shield down – you can just use another spell from the same category in another spell wheel instead.
Obviously, it helps if you unlock all the spell slots available in the game, so do that as quickly as you can.
As I said, all this information can be a tad overwhelming at first. If you’re struggling or think you’ll struggle with adopting these tips, I recommend adjusting the difficulty level at the start. You can always increase it once you get comfortable. Best of luck!
