Hogwarts Legacy beginner tips you need to know before playing
Hogwarts Legacy is available to play right now, at least it is if you’ve combined your Early Access order with a New Zealand account to play early. In this guide we’re running through a few essential beginner tips you need to know before exploring the world around Hogwarts.
Hogwarts Legacy is a surprisingly deep and expansive RPG, one that you can spend hours exploring and questing your way through. There are dozens of topics we don’t even touch on here, but once you read through these tips, you’ll have a pretty good idea of how to play Hogwarts Legacy to make the most of your time with it.
Take your time to explore
The land around Hogwarts is shockingly detailed, with a lot of things to find, from bandit camps to wipe out and pillage, spider dens to wipe out and pillage, to hidden chests to pillage. There are also Merlin trials, Floo Flames, beast spawns, and more. You’ll be able to run straight past most of it, but you should slow down and explore a bit. You’ll be surprised at what you might find.
Sell gear to shops often
You have limited inventory space for gear, and all of your gear shares the same space, so you might not be able to pick up a new pair of gloves if you already have a robust hat collection. Luckily, there’s no reason to hold onto low-level items in your inventory. It will, ultimately, just prevent you from getting new items, and there’s a way to avoid fashion faux pas…
Fashion taste
You can change the “appearance” of any piece of gear by pressing a button when hovering over that gear slot in the menu. Deluxe Edition purchasers will have exclusive appearance items available to them, and you will receive many appearance items from the Challenges you will complete over the course of the game. All of the different types of gear you’ve collected thus far will also be added to the appearance menu, meaning there’s really no reason to hold onto an old low-level cloak, even if it looks really nice.
Complete character quests
There are dozens of character quests in the game, and you should complete them often. Character quests often take you to new parts of Hogwarts, and will even teach you brand new spells. If you don’t want to miss out, make sure to take on character and relationship quests when they crop up – and there will be many.
Main quest completion
The same goes for the main quest, but for different reasons. If you explore the wilderness around Hogwarts, you will undoubtedly level up very quickly. Enemies and the gear you find will scale to around your level, so you don’t need to worry about it too much. However, you shouldn’t outpace the main quest too much, as it will unlock access to flying a broomstick, mounts, new rooms, abilities, and more. Most of these things are rewards from side quest, but you won’t get access to them until you’ve progressed far enough through the main quest. Make sure to not ignore anything.
The Room of Requirement
The Room of Requirement is a bit of a home base in Hogwarts Legacy, and you’ll be able to customize it in a variety of ways, including by placing furniture and decorations. Most importantly, though, you’ll be able to place plant pots, potion stations, and will even get vivariums in which you can place your “rescued” (definitely not poached) beasts. You should work with Professor Weasley to unlock this room as early as possible.
Plants and potions
Once you’ve got the Room of Requirement, it’s time to work on the plants and potions we mentioned above. Some plants, like Venomous Tantacular and Fluxweed, require Large Pots, while others require small and medium size pots. Potions will also require a mixture of plants and other resources in order to craft them. Plants and potions will become important for a variety of quests, so make sure to unlock the Room of Requirement and purchase the essential furniture from Tomes and Scrolls in Hogsmeade.
Beastmaster
Another thing you’ll get from the Room of Requirement and its caretaker Deek is the Nabsack, which allows you to rescue beasts from the wild. It’s easiest to do this by casting Accio and Arresto Momentum before using the Nabsack while targeting a wild beast. You will also, eventually, get access to multiple vivariums, and the ability to breed your capture- rescued beasts. Yes. Rescued. Oh, you can also sell your excess beasts at the Brood and Peck in Hogsmeade. Don’t think about that last point too much.
Hogsmeade shops
There are a variety of shops in Hogsmeade, and if you ignore any of them you’ll be in trouble later. We’ve already mentioned Tomes and Scrolls along with the Brood and Peck, but the Dogweed and Deathcap to the North of Hogsmeade is the only place you can buy a variety of necessary seeds, while potion recipes will only come from J. Pippin’s Potions. Gladrags Wizardwear also sells gear that should be appropriate for your level, while being very strong – ideal if you need a quick power boost before taking on a tough fight.
Flying lessons
You get access to a broomstick and the ability to fly it around Hogwarts quite early on. You should work through your quests until you unlock the Flying class. You can then purchase a broom from Spintwitches Sporting Needs, and fly that around the grounds surrounding Hogwarts.