Hogwarts Legacy is shaping up to be an extensive experience that many fans may not have anticipated it being. It was made clear that Hogwarts Legacy would be an open-world action RPG with the titular school being fully explorable, but even that definition has been pushed to its extremities in Hogwarts Legacy’s latest gameplay showcase. This showcase displays a lot more that fans will be able to explore at their leisure, and reveals that there will be a lot more customization available for players to indulge in beyond their character avatar and personal dormitory room.
Hogwarts Legacy previously teased its Room of Requirement as a space where players could craft and brew consumables and other items for use in gameplay. Players will still be able to do so in this environment, which canonically presents to the student whatever they require, but will also be ripe with customization options. One of its most fascinating qualities will be that it houses an interactive vivarium for players to decorate, and within it, players will be able to pet, clean, and care for a collection of Hogwarts Legacy’s magical creatures, not unlike in the Fantastic Beasts movies.
Hogwarts Legacy Features Explicit Fantastic Beasts Iconography
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them’s Nifflers were perhaps the movie’s standout creatures due to how adorable they are. Their mischievousness and compulsion to collect shiny treasure only add to how cute they are, and their CGI iconography is likely one of the more memorable parts of those movies.
Fantastic Beasts’ Newt Scamander cares for Nifflers and a plethora of other magical creatures, and in order to do so he possesses a bottomless suitcase that descends into an elaborate and spectacular vivarium. The new gameplay showcase for Hogwarts Legacy revealed that fans may immerse themselves in Newt’s niche lifestyle as someone who personally tends to these creatures.
In the Room of Requirement, players will have access to a vivarium of their own where certain creatures can be stored and looked after. Rather, some fans are concerned about this connection due to how poorly received the Fantastic Beasts movies have been. This is understandable, especially considering how closely the vitriolic Harry Potter author worked on them.
Thankfully, it seems that the connection between Hogwarts Legacy and the Fantastic Beasts movies concerns their iconography alone at the moment. Instead, the game may be sticking to magical creatures in particular and not dabbling in any of the characters that are featured in the Fantastic Beasts trilogy.
Hogwarts Legacy’s Vivarium Stands Out with Elaborate Customization
Besides seeing students with either an owl, cat, or toad, there is not much of an emphasis on students caring for magical creatures in the Harry Potter movies. Of course, Hagrid’s Care of Magical Creatures class was a nudge in that direction, but still only functioned as an introduction to riding a hippogriff.
Many incredible creatures are introduced throughout the franchise in general, and though only a few seem to be involved in the 1800s lore of Hogwarts Legacy it is great to see that players will be able to tend to their own creatures. It seems as though the only gamification of tending to creatures is to harvest their resources in a noninvasive way, and the enclosure environment they are kept in is open for full customization.
Like Hogwarts Legacy’s Room of Requirement, the Vivarium will be customizable with different objects and furnishings that players can place, size, and change on a whim. Many fans will surely be excited to hear that they can pet and interact with Hogwarts Legacy’s friendly magical creatures this way, and it will be fun to see how many creatures can occupy this personalized space.
Hogwarts Legacy releases on February 10, 2023 for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S, on April 4, 2023 for PS4 and Xbox One, and on July 25, 2023 for Switch.
