Hogwarts Legacy has just come out and is a strong contender for game of the year. Not only is the lore exciting from a Harry Potter fan’s perspective, but the gameplay and story have proven to be top-notch.
That being said, there are some things you should be aware of before getting into the game. I’ll share my top 10 tips you NEED to know before starting the game. These are the things that I wish I had known before I started, so hopefully, they help my fellow wizards and witches out.
Stick to the Main Story (initially)
Hogwarts Legacy is a classic open-world RPG. It is filled to the brim with random things to do, items to collect, and side quests to complete. However, for the very start of the game, you should avoid trying to 100% everything.
Instead, you should get through a couple of hours of the main quest before you start exploring the various areas around Hogwarts.
By going through the main quest, you’ll unlock a broom (your first flying mount), the room of requirement, and most of the spells you need to explore properly. The broom, most importantly. All of these things make it so much easier to travel and explore, and by checking off these boxes, you won’t find yourself stuck on a puzzle you can’t complete or forced to run across the map on foot.
Please trust me on this. The world is HUGE! It would be bloody awful to have to walk everywhere.
Find & Use Floo Flames OFTEN
Floo flames are the fast travel mechanic in Hogwarts Legacy and one of the most important things to keep track of. You can easily save hours of time if you use them properly. Also, Hogwarts is a maze unto itself, so being able to quickly skip floors and staircases is a godsend.
When doing quests, always make sure to pick up nearby Floo Flames. Some areas, like Hogwarts, are filled with Floo Flames, while other more desolate areas, like the Forbidden Forest, have them far more scattered.
Every class in Hogwarts has a Floo Flame attached to it, so coming back is always quick. Pick these up immediately, or you’re going to be playing a stairs simulator.
Oftentimes when I’m in a new section of the map, I’ll try and find one or two Floo Flames for later. This way, it only takes seconds when I inevitably have to return for a quest.
Also, be prepared to be driven insane when using Floo Flames. I’ve wanted to Avada Kedavra the statue after hearing about how she discovered Floo Flames for the 1000th time.
Revelio is OP
The first spell you learn to use in Hogwarts Legacy is probably the most broken spell of all, Revelio.
Revlio reveals everything around you (for quite a distance) and even allows you to see through walls. This makes most puzzles almost trivial, as you can merely use Revelio to reveal what you should be doing/exploding. Chests, resources, enemies, Merlin Trials, nothing is safe from Revelio.
Most of your Field Guide pages can only be collected when revealed by Revelio as well.
Just about every two steps, you should be spamming Revelio. And if you’re ever stuck, guess what? Revelio.
Sell Your Gear OFTEN
In the early game, you will pick up lots and lots of gear, especially if you explore a lot. This will often lead new players to have a full inventory while in the middle of a dungeon. This is no good. You should absolutely be heading to Hogsmeade often to sell all of your hand-me-downs.
The main reason you should sell often is because of how little gold you make at the beginning of the game. Some assignments can have you spending thousands of gold on plants and potions. For a new wizard, this will leave you a pauper!
To avoid this and to always make sure you’ve got some galleons stashed, sell all your unused gear. There really isn’t any other use for it. Most pieces can sell for 60-200+ gold.
So, if you destroy gear, you’re literally just burning money!
Also, a BIG thing to note, you keep gear appearances even if you sell the gear! So don’t worry about selling that cool piece of gear you got. You have the transmog perma unlocked.
Speaking of Gold – Eye Chests
After a certain quest, we won’t spoil which, you gain the Disillusionment spell. This spell allows you to sneak around unseen. Weirdly enough, there seem to be chests with a big ol’ eye on them that you can’t open. Hmmm.
To spoil the puzzle for you, these are eye-chests. You need to cast Disillusionment and sneak up on them before you can open them.
What’s inside? Oh, nothing. Just 500 gold! Like selling gear, the eye-chests are going to be one of your primary sources of income early on.
Just one or two chests can completely fund all the ingredients for most assignments, so you should always keep an “eye” out for them. winky face
Challenges
In Hogwarts Legacy, you will have a form of progression called “challenges.” These are, as you might have guessed, optional challenges you can complete to acquire gear and vanity items.
Some of these challenges are relatively easy. For example, just completing the main quests is a challenge. Some, however, are much harder and require you to do specific things, like complete dueling challenges.
Whether or not you do them is entirely up to you, but you should also check your collections tab for any completed challenges. This is because for you to get the rewards, sometimes rare traits, you actually have to go in there and accept them.
Although sometimes tedious, it is very important to do, as the traits you unlock are very powerful! And, of course, the appearance items look cool.
Gear
It is important we talk about gear here for a second.
For gear in Hogwarts Legacy, you can find them in four rarities. These are green, blue, purple, and orange. Or well-appointed, superb, extraordinary, and legendary, respectively.
All gear has stats, either offense or defense, which will either increase your damage or decrease your damage taken.
You can upgrade your gear at the Room of Requirement to get a stat boost of the opposite stat on your gear. A confusing sentence, I know. Basically, it just means if you have offense gear, upgrading will give it some stats in defense and vice versa. Only blue gear and up can be upgraded.
You can also add traits to gear as well. These traits boost proficiency with certain spells, increase damage against certain targets, and decrease damage taken against certain enemies.
Upgrading and adding traits early on is unlikely to be feasible because you need lots of beast ingredients. These will either cost gold, which you won’t have a lot of, or you will need to make it yourself from beasts, which you also won’t have a lot of.
That being said, keep an eye out for good traits you might want to add to gear later on.
Inventory Space
As we said earlier, you only have so much inventory space before you are full. Early on, your inventory can get full after just one or two quests. Not ideal.
However, you can increase inventory slots by doing Merlin Trials that are scattered about the map. By completing Merlin Trials, you will complete the Merlin Trial challenge (remember how we said it was important?).
Each tier of the challenge unlocks four more inventory slots for your character. This goes all the way up to a total of 40. Quite an improvement on the meager 20 you start with.
As you progress in the challenge, it will require more and more Merlin Trials to unlock the next tier. Certain areas only have a few Merlin Trials, while others, like the Forbidden Forest Merlin Trials, have lots.
I recommend that you start with Iron Dale first, as these are the easiest trials.
Room of Requirement is SUPER Useful, BUT
One of the most important mechanics to master in Hogwarts Legacy is the Room of Requirement. This is a room where you will be doing lots of different things.
You’ll be making potions, growing plants, upgrading gear, and farming/breeding beasts. But you’re going to need a few things before you can really make it worthwhile, and once you do, you’ll realize just how good this room is.
First, you’ll need lots of Moonstone. This is randomly found in the world in various locations, so if you ever see Moonstone rocks, make sure to farm them! You’ll run out quicker than you’d think.
Second, you’re going to need LOTS of gold to afford all of the seeds and conjuration spells for the stations. Seeds can cost 1000+ gold, and the conjuration spells you buy will also be similarly priced. You’re going to need to be fairly wealthy before you can really get mass production of potions going.
Third, you need to complete all of Deek’s quests. Deek is the house elf in the Room of Requirement, and all of his quests give you lots of beast-related items and space. You’ll go from just being able to collect beasts, to being able to breed them. It’s like a magical FarmVille.
Beasts are one of the best ways to make gold, so make sure to follow his questline closely.
TALENTS CAN’T BE CHANGED
I need to scream this from the rooftop. There is no way to change talents in Hogwarts Legacy. Once you pick a talent, you’re stuck with it for life.
Because your level only goes up to 40, and you only get 35 talent points, you won’t be able to get every talent in the game. You won’t be able to be a dark wizard slinging potions with the stealthiness of a fox (wait, is that just Snape?).
Plan out your build as best as you can before you start dropping points in random things. You’ll thank me for it.
I recommend going into the core talent tree and grabbing at least one or two extra spell sets. Once you get later into the game, you will have to start swapping out spells fairly often and not even just for combat. I personally have a beast spell set (nab sack, food, brush, and conjuration) and two combat spell sets. One combat spell set is for longer cooldowns, and the other is for shorter ones.
You can mix and match spells however you want, but grabbing a spell set will save you quite a bit of frustration.
Conclusion
Those are my top tips for Hogwarts Legacy that I wish I had known earlier. Hopefully, these allow you a much easier experience as a student in Hogwarts than I had.
