Anyone who grew up reading the Harry Potter series probably went through a phase where they secretly hoped that they would get a mysterious letter in the mail on their 11th birthday, inviting them to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Now Harry Potter fans can really live out the fantasy by playing Hogwarts Legacy, coming to next-gen consoles next year. It promises an adventure of epic proportions in and around Hogwarts, all about mastering magic while uncovering ancient secrets and attending the school during the late 1800s.
Of course, Hogwarts Legacy wouldn’t be a complete Harry Potter game if it didn’t feature any magical creatures. The fantastic beasts of the wizarding world are so important to the setting that they’ve spawned their own series of films starring Newt Scamander, Magizoologist and Harry Potter deep lore mainstay. Plenty of creatures were showcased at the first trailer for the game revealed at the latest PS5 showcase.
These mysterious shapeshifters are liable to keep players on their toes. They don’t just transform into anything – they’ll take the form of a person’s worst fear, making them intimidating by nature. Thankfully, Hogwarts Legacy looks like it’ll teach players to deal with these creatures as a part of Defense Against The Dark Arts classes. Beyond their attempts at intimidation, they might not be much of a threat in the game, since they seem easy to leave contained in closets. One wonders if some element of player choice or character customization will determine the player character’s worst fear.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban brought these lesser-known cousins of griffins to the forefront. Half griffin and half mare, these proud and noble creatures fly masterfully but have something of a temper. Based on a brief flying shot in the trailer, it looks like players might get to interact with hippogriffs in Hogwarts Legacy. It wouldn’t be surprising if they came up as a core part of a Care for Magical Creatures class and served as some means of fast travel besides things like broomsticks.
This is something of a darker creature that’s liable to serve as a significant threat. There’s a form of dark magic that can animate human corpses into mindless but highly aggressive undead minions known as Inferi. If Harry Potter’s own encounter with them is anything to go off of, they’re not to be trifled with. However, the name somewhat ironically hints at their weakness: they have an aversion to fire. If the team at Avalanche Software keeps that bit of lore in the game, players would be wise to pack some sort of fire spell before exploring ruins and dark wizard lairs.
The soul-sucking wraiths known as Dementors made their first appearance in Prisoner of Azkaban as well, but plague Harry Potter and his allies throughout the series. A swarm of them appears in the trailer for Hogwarts Legacy, suggesting that players will be forced to confront them outside of magizoology studies. It’s likely that they’ll appear as a late-game enemy, since the most reliable way to combat them is using the Patronus Charm, which is famously difficult to master. Dementors might serve as an obstacle that keeps players from entering certain areas or achieving certain objectives until the late game.
Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them did more than just launch Newt Scamander into the forefront of Harry Potter media. It also introduced fans to a wealth of new creatures, including the graphorn. These titans have a gait and posture sort of like a rhinoceros, but they have a vast crown of horns and a mass of tentacles that cover their mouths. Based on the trailer, players will have to contest with graphorns at some points, but they can also be tamed or calmed down. Notes taken in Care for Magical Creatures might be lifesavers in this game.
Another creature that got some attention more recently in Fantastic Beasts is the mooncalf. These odd little creatures have long necks and huge, round blue eyes; supposedly they only emerge from their burrows during full moons, a likely namesake. They seem pretty docile, but considering there’s a short of a Hogwarts student feeding a group of mooncalves, players should expect to come across them in the classroom, and perhaps elsewhere too.
Trolls are classic fantasy brutes. Not even wizards in the Harry Potter universe are free from contending with them. Harry, Ron, and Hermione famously had to battle a troll during their very first year at Hogwarts. Though these slow, hulking creatures might not be the quickest or cleverest enemies in Hogwarts Legacy, they are famously durable and usually come equipped with oversized clubs. For all the tricks that Hogwarts is sure to teach players over the course of the game, trolls are likely to be a regular nemesis to players, soaking up damage while dishing it out.
Unfortunately for arachnophobes, trolls aren’t the only classic fantasy monster that will show up in this game. There’s a shot of a student fighting off a giant spider, which makes it likely that the Forbidden Forest and other deep, dark locations like it will feature large spiders in scores. These spiders might be Acromantulas like Aragog, meaning a much bigger spider might still be waiting in the wings. Interestingly, the game takes place well before Aragog arrived and populated the grounds of Hogwarts with his kind. Considering the Forbidden Forest’s reputation, it wouldn’t be surprising if there were always wolf-sized spiders lurking out there.
The trailer saves perhaps the most climactic magical creature of all for the end: there will be dragons in Hogwarts Legacy. As one would expect, the player is dwarfed by dragons, and they look like they’ll serve up some very dramatic battles, perhaps towards the end of the game. It’s a little hard to know what to expect from the dragons in Hogwarts Legacy, since the setting’s lore is rich with a wide range of dragon species that Avalanche Software could incorporate. It could be that the player will have several dragon encounters throughout the game, gradually leading up to some of the deadliest species in the world.
Finally, it looks likely that thestrals will appear in the game. Although they’re not objectively confirmed, there are multiple shots in the trailer that involve a flying carriage seemingly pulled by nothing. It’s not unlikely that those carriages are actually being pulled by thestrals, the skeletal winged horses only visible to those who have witnessed a death.
With that in mind, it’s not unlikely that there will be a plot point involving the player seeing thestrals for the first time. Altogether, these magical creatures only scratch the surface of what Harry Potter‘s world has to offer. Odds are many more fantastic beasts will come to the forefront once Avalanche is ready to tell us where to find them.
Hogwarts Legacy releases in 2021 for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S.
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