Remembralls, Portkeys, Howlers, and Gillyweed are only a handful of magical items that can be found within the lore of Harry Potter. Items such as these serve either a minor or significant purpose where they are introduced, but all are a fascinating exploration of creativity in the Wizarding World. Because Hogwarts Legacy belongs to that world, however tangentially, it is exciting to imagine which enchanted artifacts may make an appearance in the game, and how significant they may be to gameplay.
Hogwarts Legacy is already confirmed to feature potion brewing, for example, that will then allow players to craft consumables for use in combat. Other activities allow players to engage with Hogwarts Legacy’s customizable Room of Requirement, where players will also be harvesting plants and upgrading gear. However, there is one consumable item in particular that would generate some exciting moments in gameplay if players were able to craft it in Hogwarts Legacy: a Polyjuice potion.
Polyjuice Could Enable Frequent Character Customization in Hogwarts Legacy
For the uninitiated, Polyjuice potions shape-shift their drinker, allowing them to inhabit the appearance of a desired individual whose particulars are brewed in a mixture of other ingredients. It may seem moot then to apply this consumable to a game where players may already customize their character, but fans might want to change their appearance at any time. Not many action-RPGs afford this option, which indeed adds weight to the customization players had decided upon beforehand, but few modern games such as Elden Ring do still allow players to change their appearance at will. Especially considering the fact that Hogwarts will be teeming with adolescents experimenting leisurely with magical abilities and expressing themselves through such magic, it would be unsurprising to see students expressing themselves through a physical or biological change that is facilitated by magic.
So while players ultimately create a base canvas for their character in the beginning of Hogwarts Legacy, it would be an inclusive touch to allow players to alter that appearance thereafter. That said, Polyjuice is not known to be permanent, and only alters the drinker’s physiology for a period of time. In terms of customization, then, either the potion’s rules would have to be liberally changed or players would not be able to fully transition to a different character customization for longer than a day. Polyjuice also only gives its drinker the appearance of someone else from whom the potion is brewed, meaning that the player would be wandering around the castle as a physical clone of another student who also attends Hogwarts. Still, Polyjuice would create a fantastic opportunity and incentive to explore the grounds.
Brewing Polyjuice Could Require Materials Found Throughout Hogwarts Legacy
Polyjuice typically requires a mixture of ingredients such as Lacewing flies, powdered Bicorn horns, and shredded boomslang skin. Further, in order to adopt someone’s precise physiology, the drinker also needs an ingredient nicked from the person in question, such as a strand of hair. Having to explore Hogwarts Legacy's Hogwarts and Hogsmeade for these ingredients, as well as tailing a certain NPC in order to claim a loose hair from their robes, could make for an exciting optional incentive to browse merchant wares or explore new areas of the castle. Players will likely be engaged in multiple quests and activities at the same time, but finding these ingredients could be an accessory to players’ exploration while out-and-about.
Likewise, it may be possible that players could simply harvest their required ingredients in the Room of Requirement, though players will likely need to take a few Herbology lessons before they are able to produce any sort of plant or resource they would like. It would probably be best to have players search for at least a few of these items, and taking an NPC's loose hair or other article would certainly be the most intriguing, since it would require players to use stealth.
Players could also have to go out of their own way and perhaps miss a class or two in order to be in the same place as the other character in order to take it. If players are in the same class, then maybe players will want to pair up with them for a potion brewing task and take it when they are unaware. There are multiple permeations for how any Polyjuice materials could be collected, and all would contribute well to gameplay and exploration as players attend Hogwarts.
Polyjuice Could Allow Players to Infiltrate Other Hogwarts House Common Rooms
Perhaps the most exciting opportunity that a Polyjuice potion could afford is having players be able to sneak into the common rooms of other Hogwarts houses. Indeed, players select their own houses in Hogwarts Legacy and will seemingly not be able to visit other common rooms in any capacity, though that is unconfirmed.
But if Polyjuice is featured as a consumable in Hogwarts Legacy, it is plausible that players could gain at least temporary access to another house’s common room to which they do not belong. Players could specifically select a student from Ravenclaw to turn into, for example, if they wished to infiltrate Ravenclaw’s common room, and so forth.
Players would not need nefarious intentions in order to brew Polyjuice, and instead they could use it to simply explore areas in Hogwarts Legacy that they may not otherwise be able to, or perhaps have more time spent with companions who belong to another house. The most difficult challenge with having Polyjuice would be that any and all characters would need to be considered for potion brewing, which essentially means every character would need to have a loose hair or other identifiable artifact of their person that players could take.
In order to reduce how insurmountably overwhelming that may be, WB Games Avalanche could instead make only a certain number of characters from each house be available to turn into, as well as only a few members of the Hogwarts faculty. This would be limiting, but Polyjuice being implemented at all would be a joy that could enable players to explore unique areas and adopt personas in order to achieve other efforts in Hogwarts Legacy.
Hogwarts Legacy is scheduled to be released holiday 2022 for PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.