After a few delays, Hogwarts Legacy has finally been revealed in full. The extra development time has not been wasted, as this game appears to be the most expansive take on Harry Potter’s world to date. Hogwarts Legacy will give players the chance to explore Hogwarts and the magical lands around it as part of an open-world game. Players will take the role of a young wizard enrolling as a fifth-year student, serving as a way to explain the player's initial lack of magical knowledge and their potential for powerful spells. While there are some compulsory activities including classes and outings with integral story characters, the player is given an enormous amount of free rein in one of the most interesting corners of the Wizarding World's universe.

Throughout the player's adventures, they will make use of magic, arcane tools, and alchemy, just like the heroes from the original Harry Potter stories. Hogwarts Legacy looks to bring an accurate simulation of living in a magic-filled world. To that end, magic of some sort can be found everywhere, whether it's coming out of the ends of various companions' wands or enabling the existence of fantastic beasts. Even the environment itself is magical, with things floating around and transforming being frequent sights as the player explores the grounds in and around Hogwarts. It's this pervasive magic, and how it shapes the player's interactions with the environment, that gives Hogwarts Legacy its appeal.

RELATED: Every Spell Highlighted in Hogwarts Legacy's State of Play

Hogwarts Legacy is Full of Environmental Puzzles

Hogwarts-Legacy-State-of-Play-Announcement-Harry-Potter

One of Hogwarts Legacy’s selling points is its small puzzles dotted throughout the game world. Setting aside, the magical foundations of Hogwarts, the staff and students over the years, as well as various other wizards, have set up plenty of site attractions within the world. Whether it's a puzzle on a sports field set up by some students or a portrait that must be adjusted to access the place depicted within it, there will be no shortage of brief activities for the player to tackle while exploring the open world.

It was mentioned at one point during the Hogwarts Legacy State of Play that Merlin, who had once attended Hogwarts himself, had left many small puzzles in and around the school's grounds. This is just one of many examples of how puzzles can be integrated into Hogwarts Legacy. Players can feel like they learn something about the history of the world and its characters through these puzzles, as well as being rewarded with loot and shortcuts. Whether it's a student having trouble with something, a ghost seeking challengers for a trial they prepared in life, or engaging a traveling wizard in a game of wits, there could be something new to try around every corner.

RELATED: Hogwarts Legacy Should Feature a Triwizard Tournament as Post-Launch DLC

Lots of Small Details Brings Hogwarts to Life

hogwarts legacy triwizard tournament post-launch dlc

The world of Harry Potter feels strange, yet lived in. There is no other location that embodies this as much as Hogwarts itself. The beating heart of the Wizarding World, the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is constantly abuzz with activity from the staff, students, and the building itself. The building is practically alive in a similar manner to Dracula's castle in Castlevania, but as a benevolent or at least neutral force instead of an evil one. Hogwarts Legacy looks to recapture this feeling by filling Hogwarts' many nooks and crannies with small puzzles and interactable elements that are sometimes just for fun, while others can open up entirely new areas.

Right from the first Harry Potter book, Hogwarts Castle was pitched almost like a giant environmental puzzle. There are well over a hundred staircases in the seven-story medieval castle, and their shifting variety can connect to almost every above-ground area. Leading off these stairways are many platforms and portraits, many of which hide secret entrances and shortcuts to other locations. There is even a secret tunnel to the neighboring village of Hogsmeade. The skeleton of a world built on puzzles was already laid out for the developer of Hogwarts Legacy, which needed only extrapolate from it. Combined with the chambers underneath Hogwarts, the Great Lake, and Forbidden Woods right outside the castle grounds, and the massive amount of area past that, there is plenty of room for forgotten seals and wizards’ abandoned projects all around the game world.

How Other Open-World Games Use Similar Puzzles to Hogwarts Legacy

raya lucaria academy night

Having lots of small, visually distinct puzzles scattered throughout the environment sounds like a reasonable request for an open-world game. It is true that many games in the genre make use of little challenges to keep players engaged. However, what Hogwarts Legacy has the chance to do is more reminiscent of two particularly well-regarded open-world titles. An open-world filled with lots of small magic-based puzzles sounds a lot like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Much has been said about how Breath of the Wild’s landscape is dotted with attractions, so a player will always find something new to do. Ideally, Hogwarts Legacy would carry on the spirit of both its Korok puzzles and some smaller Sheikah Shrines. Players can stumble upon them anywhere, and won’t feel pressured to engage with them if they don’t want to.

And as for how those little puzzles could be integrated, Hogwarts Legacy needs to look no further than Elden Ring. A few weeks after its launch, players are still trying to wrap their heads around how Elden Ring has managed to fit so much content into every part of its map. Hogwarts Legacy may not be able to surprise players with the geographical size of its space, but much like Elden Ring’s own Academy of Raya Lucaria, the wizarding school and its surroundings can be packed with unique magical encounters.

Elden Ring may not be heavy on traditional puzzles, but its Three Wise Beasts puzzles and other non-combat scenarios are definitely in line with what players could see around Hogwarts. With spells serving many functions and the ever-changing Hogwarts campus with an uncharted world beyond it, there will be lots of space for players to overcome challenges and discover the secrets of lost magic — or make it to class a little faster.

Hogwarts Legacy is set to release Holiday 2022 on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.

MORE: Hogwarts Legacy's Animations Could Be a Mixed Bag