One of the key aspects of any open-world RPG is the world itself; having a huge, open world is only meaningful if that world is interesting and fun to explore. The Harry Potter universe has many fantastic and magical locations, so the developers of Hogwarts Legacy shouldn’t lack for ideas when it comes to locations in their upcoming RPG. As of yet, there is only the official reveal trailer, the 2018 leak, and a few screenshots to go by. However, we’ve scoured what official and unofficial information there is and created a list of locations that will be in Hogwarts Legacy:
The Great Hall
House Common Rooms
The Forbidden Forest
The Herbology Greenhouses
The Potions Classroom
Hogsmeade
Ollivanders
Azkaban Prison
The Great Hall
A central location in the Harry Potter tales is the Great Hall of Hogwarts Castle. Lit by thousands of floating candles, and with enough space to seat all of the students and staff, the hall is an sight to behold. Located off of the Entrance Hall, the Great Hall is both the main location for meals in the castle, as well as the primary gathering place for important events and announcements. In addition to their meals, students receive their daily owl post in the Great Hall. Perhaps most notably, the Sorting ceremony is performed in the Great hall at the start of each school year. Our character in Hogwarts Legacy is admitted late to Hogwarts (for reasons unknown), so presumably we missed the Sorting ceremony, leading to the question of when and how our character gets sorted into their house.
Looks kind of romantic for a school mess hall
House Common Rooms
Each house has a shared common area, leading to the boys and girls dormitories, where students can study and socialize. Each house common room’s entrance is a secret, and their methods for entry are distinct: Gryffindor and Ravenclaw are housed in towers and for entry require a password and an answered riddle respectively; Hufflepuffs reside in the basement near the kitchen and must tap barrels to a rhythm to gain admittance; Slytherins call a dungeon their home, and also have a password protecting the entrance to their common room. The interiors of each common room are also very different, from the overstuffed chairs in the cozy but cramped Gryffindor tower to the spacious, airy common room of Ravenclaw. It will be interesting to see how much variety there is in terms of the in-game portrayal of the four houses living areas, as it would be a disservice to the source material if the variations in the common rooms was restricted to house colors or a few minor details.
The cat is wisely keeping its distance from students practicing magic
The Forbidden Forest
Bordering the grounds of Hogwarts, the Forbidden Forest is an ancient place that hides many secrets, as well as a myriad of creatures friendly and deadly alike. As the name implies, the forest is strictly off limits to students (with the exception of Care of Magical Creatures lessons). That isn’t likely to stop our intrepid player character, who looks to end up embroiled in an adventure that should take them far beyond the relative safety of Hogwarts Castle. Many of the scenes from the trailer take place in a forest, which it seems safe to assume is the Forbidden Forest. All sorts of fantastic beasts lurk in the depths of the woods, and it would make an excellent location for any number of quests in Hogwarts Legacy.
These Mooncalves seem friendly, at least
The Herbology Greenhouses
Herbology is the study of plants both magical and mundane, and its equivalent course at a muggle school would be botany. A core class at Hogwarts, all students are expected to attend Herbology while attending the wizarding school. The many greenhouses that hold the herbology plants lie on the grounds behind Hogwarts castle, and are divided by how advanced (or dangerous) it is to utilize of the plants within. For example, Greenhouse 1 holds relatively safe plants, and is used for first year Herbology lessons.
In addition to the magical properties that the plants have on their own, many are key ingredients in potions, which is another class (and therefore another location) that exists in Hogwarts Legacy. It would make sense for there to be quests that involve both the Herbology greenhouse as well as Potions class.
Let’s hope the Herbology professor has a name as on-the-nose as Professor Sprout’s
The Potions Classroom
One of the longest sequences in the official reveal trailer takes place in the Potions class, suggesting that we might spend a lot of time over a cauldron in Hogwarts Legacy. Another core class, Potions is — naturally — the class where students learn the correct way to brew potions, by following recipes and utilizing magical ingredients. Potions is known as a difficult class; in The Order of the Phoenix we learn that Snape considers earning high marks on the Potions O.W.L. to be hard to accomplish.
How Potions class will work in game is unknown; perhaps quick-time events will play a role in potion creation, or maybe a quest to collect the correct ingredients or recipe will be the key to success.
Eye protection is conspicuously absent in Potions class
Hogsmeade
The village of Hogsmeade is special not only because it is the only meaningfully populated location near Hogwarts Castle, but because it is the only all-wizarding village in Britain. There are a number of shops and pubs in the town: the village houses the Hog’s Head pub; Honeydukes is a popular sweets shop among Hogwarts students; Zonko’s Joke shop was another favorite of students due to its sale of Dungbombs, Sugar Quills, and a variety of other joke and prank items. The Shrieking Shack is another well-known location, though its reputation as a haunted house means it has a few less visitors than Honeydukes.
The brief glimpse we see of Hogsmeade in the official trailer hints at a fully-realized town to explore. Besides the Forbidden Forest, it is the nearest point of interest to Hogwarts, and should play a role in a variety of quests and activities in Hogwarts Legacy.
Where will you visit first in Hogsmeade?
Ollivanders
Not just a wand shop, Ollivanders is the wand shop. The Ollivander family, which owns the shop, are generally considered the finest wandmakers in Britain. The official screenshot (seen below) definitely appears to be Ollivanders, and it would be hard to imagine Hogwarts Legacy choosing anywhere other than the famous Ollivanders as the place where the player receives their wand.
Given that it appears to be possible to end up in any of the four houses, it seems equally likely that there are different sorts of wands the player may end up with. What sorts of aesthetic or even gameplay changes the different wands may impart are anyone’s guess, however.
The wand chooses the wizard
Azkaban Prison
It’s hard to imagine how or why a Hogwarts student finds their way to Azkaban, but there’s no question the notorious prison makes a startling appearance in the official reveal trailer. A fortress prison located in the North Sea, Azkaban houses Britain’s magical prisoners, who are “guarded” by the Dementors. Azkaban has been the home of the Dementors for centuries, and the main reason why Azkaban is still used as a prison is that the wizarding community fears what might happen if the Dementors were every deprived of victims.
One of the many magical creatures to make an appearance in Hogwarts Legacy, Dementors are almost sure to be a serious challenge for the player to overcome. Whether we end up at Azkaban as part of a rescue party, as a prisoner, or for some other reason entirely, remains to be seen.
In terms of punishments, Dementors seem like they’d qualify as both cruel and unusual
A World to Explore
That’s all the notable places we spotted either in the trailer, or in official Hogwarts Legacy screenshots. Of course, Hogwarts Legacy is an open-world RPG, and there are likely to be many more places to visit. The trailer narration itself states that there is a “larger world beyond [Hogwart’s] walls”. In addition to the familiar locations covered above, there are a number of scenes that take place in catacombs or dungeons of some kind. These could easily be under or around Hogwarts, but they could also be somewhere else entirely. There is also the Ministry of Magic, Diagon Alley, and any number of other places already known or yet to be discovered.
Looks like a good place to find some Inferi…
Where will you go first in Hogwarts Legacy? Let us know in the comments!
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DanielD
Unabashed FromSoftware fanboy still learning to take his time with games (and everything else, really). The time he doesn't spend on games is spent on music, books, or occasionally going outside.
