The Harry Potter universe's ability to enchant and delight audiences often stems from creating magical, unexpected moments, like when Newt Scamander steps into his magical case for the first time in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Hogwarts Legacy re-creates much of the magical feelings of discovery from the movies, such as riding a Hippogriff over the Black Lake. However, some of Hogwarts Legacy's puzzle mechanics can feel repetitive, somewhat diminishing the delights the game offers and missing out on some significant opportunities to do more, like with the game's butterfly chest locations.
Hogwarts Legacy's butterfly chests involve players searching for and following kaleidoscopes of butterflies to a chest reward across the vast, open-world RPG map. However, all 15 butterfly chests are standard chests that reward players with conjuration items. Apart from location changes, players also find each chest in the same way. Instead, Hogwarts Legacy could have done more to subvert player expectations in exciting ways by looking to other magical creatures and mechanics in the game and the Fantastic Beasts movies.
How Fantastic Beasts' Creatures Could Add Interest To Hogwarts Legacy's Butterfly Chests
As a creature-themed chest, butterfly chests could pave the way for other magical creature encounters in the game who might want to guard the chest or claim its contents for themselves. Treasure-hoarding Nifflers seem the perfect creature to encounter when searching for butterfly chests, and it's left for players to wonder where they might have sourced their vast hordes of gold at Hogwarts Legacy's Niffler den locations. Nifflers showing up to steal the treasure inside could be an unexpected twist for players to stop them by catching them as Newt does in the Fantastic Beast movies. It could also give these charismatic creatures a different role beyond beast taming and breeding.
Although Hogwarts Legacy includes many magical creatures from the Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts movies, one creature it doesn't feature is the lizard-butterfly-like Swooping Evil that rests in a spiked cocoon, using its green-blue wings to save Newt and Tina in Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them. Swooping Evil is perhaps a less obvious but appropriate choice for bigger-butterfly-themed beast boss encounters that butterfly chests could surprise players with, whether it's something to tame or fight, like when players fight the Graphorn Lord of the Shore. Equally, Hogwarts Legacy has magical creatures not in the movies, so it could create unique butterfly-style creatures to add variety and interest to butterfly chest locations, with potentially better or varied butterfly-centric rewards up for grabs.
How Hogwarts Legacy's Butterfly Chests Could Lead To New Map Areas Beyond Hogwarts Castle
Butterfly chests could also be a fascinating way to expand the world map areas, using Hogwarts Legacy's Room of Requirement for inspiration. Following a magical trail of butterflies creates a sense of anticipation, and the end magical reward needn't necessarily only be a standard chest or chest variant. The Room of Requirement gradually adapts, and new magical rooms pop up, like the Thestral breeding area. Walking into these zones feels like walking through Newt's magical suitcase might, acting as a magical portal to a new habitat.
Rather than just offering similar conjuration rewards, opening butterfly chests could similarly portal players to one-off, new areas for surprise treasure-hunting encounters involving beasts or beyond. Although butterfly chests can be seen as a small collectibles side-activity to get Hogwarts Legacy's conjuration items, changing how players get the treasure and what type of reward players find could add more excitement and variety to otherwise simple chest collecting mechanics through existing in-game features.
Hogwarts Legacy is available now on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S, with PS4 and Xbox One versions launching May 5 and a Switch port releasing July 25.
