Hogwarts Legacy: A starter guide for budding witches and wizards

Hogwarts Legacy is now available on Xbox Series X|S, and to help you get started on your journey as a student at the School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, we've put together a little guide.

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is a mammoth of a castle, sporting labyrinthine tunnels, winding staircases, multiple floors, hidey-holes, nooks, and crannies to discover. It's a large enough place to explore on its own, let alone the huge area surrounding it, and due to the magical nature of the Wizarding World in which Portkey Games' Hogwarts Legacy takes place, you can bet your bottom dollar that your time will be spent solving puzzles, learning spells, discovering secrets, and battling enemies.

To help ensure you get off on the right foot, and after spending many an hour exploring the game, we've put together this guide in the hope that it'll give you everything you need to make the most of your Hogwarts Legacy experience on Xbox Series X|S, and in April, on Xbox One — if you haven't already, maybe check out our Hogwarts Legacy review to see what we think about the game.

Revelio is your best friend

We're going to start this guide with the very first spell you learn when starting Hogwarts Legacy, Revelio. As you might have guessed, it's a revealing spell that highlights objects around you when cast, and it's going to be the most-used ability in your arsenal. It's automatically tied to the left D-pad button when you learn it, and with no cooldown, Revelio can be used as much as you wish. The first thing you'll notice is that the spell highlights interactable objects in three different colours: red, orange, and blue. Red highlights, as with most games, are enemy creatures and Dark Wizards. Orange highlights are basic lootable containers, like chests, bags, and sacks — if you can't reach a container, many of them can be pulled to you using the Accio spell, another early pickup. Blue highlights are multi-purpose and inform you of puzzle items, special doors, unique containers, tameable beasts, and other interactable items. When using Revelio, be aware that it highlights an area all the way around your character, as well as above and below — to improve the spell's range, unlock the Revelio Mastery Core Talent when you reach level 16.

Another note about Revelio, which isn't explained in-game very well, is the audio and vibration feedback that it gives you. When casting it, if the controller vibrates and you hear a 'ding' sound, it means that a Field Guide Page is available somewhere near you. The pages are pieces of lore scattered throughout the game, and when going for the completion, you'll need to find all 150 pages. To make it a bit more fun, the pages are invisible — bar a soft twinkle when they're highlighted — until you're right on top of them or have completed an activity to which they're linked. The majority are just loose, though, and your only way of finding them naturally is by using the Revelio cues. It's like a game of 'hot or cold,' so the closer you get to the page, the louder the audio cue will be and the deeper your controller will rumble, and vice versa. The audio cues are sound-directional, so using headphones will help a ton.

Why walk when you can fly?

There are four modes of transport in Hogwarts Legacy. The quickest, once you've unlocked the relevant Floo Flames, is fast travel, which is great for jumping from one end of the map to the other. The most fun, in my opinion, is via a mount like the Hippogriff and Thestral, but they're more for style than practicality. Then there's walking — yes, on your feet! — and travel by broom. Considering Hogwarts Legacy's world is absolutely rammed with content to complete, the first two modes of transport aren't the most helpful for those going for completions, while walking is pretty much saved for indoor use and fighting. The broom is the fastest and most practical way of exploring the game by far.

Aside from a few collectable bits, puzzles, talking to NPCs, fighting enemies, and travelling inside or in missions, everything can be done when mounted on your broom. Revelio is best used when in the air as it highlights a huge distance around you, while containers can all be looted, resources collected, and after you've earned the three available upgrades, it's a very quick way of traversing the environment without the need to clamber over obstacles.

Be your own wizard, not a pack mule

Hogwarts Legacy is all about giving you the experience of being a student at the School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, so as you'd expect, character customisation is a key factor in the game. When starting out, you can customise your magician to your liking. It has been said that you can change everything when you're actually playing, but that's not completely true. Visiting Madame Snelling's Tress Emporium in Hogsmeade will only allow you to change the cosmetics applied during the initial character customisation: hair, eyes, complexion, and scars/markings. Once you're in-game, your name, physical facial attributes, and voice are permanent, so ensure your character is to your liking before hopping in.

The beginning missions of the game will also give you the opportunity to join one of the school's houses via the use of the Sorting Hat. You can choose the house you want to be in after the hat has said its piece, so don't just accept whatever house it gives you if that's not where you want to be. The house you choose will cause you to play out the story in subtly different ways, and you'll naturally be housed in its dormitory. You'll also be given the chance to create your own wand, choosing the material it's made from, its rigidity, and the core inside of it — this is for role-playing purposes only and does not affect gameplay.

Much like loot-packed games such as Borderlands or Destiny, Hogwarts Legacy will constantly throw new items for you to use, so you're never without a new piece of gear to wear. Everything you pick up can be transmogrified by pressing X when hovering over the piece of equipment you'd like to change. It's completely free and can be used as much as you like. Many of the cloaks also have hoods, which you can apply by pressing Y — it was a good day when I realised this!

All of those items you find, though, need somewhere to sit... and no, it's not in your inventory. Your inventory is an unlimited space for collected lore and ingredients, and the place to see the beasts you're holding. The gear you find is carried in gear slots, as seen when looking at an item in the Gear tab. You start with only 20 slots, so make sure you're regularly selling everything you don't need so you're not deleting it... you'll need the cash.

Save your gold for the Room of Requirement

As we said before, Hogwarts Legacy will inundate you with gear, so you don't really get left in a position of having to purchase new threads. In the early stages, it's tempting to keep yourself topped up with potions and the like, but you really only need a couple: Wiggenweld for healing and Edurus for additional defence. Other than that, save your gold, as the main quest quickly gives you access to the Room of Requirement, your personal space to grow ingredients, brew potions, and turn into a home of magic with plenty of cosmetic items. This is where your gold is best spent in the early portion of the game.

Once you have the Room or Requirement — or before, it doesn't matter — head to Tomes and Scrolls in Hogsmeade to purchase Conjuration spellcrafts for potting tables and potions stations, and then run up to The Magic Neep for ingredient seeds, or Dogweed and Deathcap for consumable seeds like Mandrakes and Venomous Tentacula. The seeds only need to be purchased once and will give a fresh crop to harvest every 15 minutes or so, giving you the majority of what you need to brew your own potions — the other ingredients will come from the monsters you kill when adventuring.

Don't be afraid to raise the bar

Game difficulty is a subjective topic. Some players like to fly through on easy modes, while others like to smash their faces against metaphorical walls until they crumble. Hogwarts Legacy can be most easily completed in its Story difficulty, which practically takes all of the challenge out of the game. If you want the very best experience, though, Normal, or better yet, Hard, is definitely the way to go. Difficulty can be changed on the fly, so you're not stuck with whatever choice you make, but the higher difficulties will ensure the combat encounters you end up in are chaotic. Even on Normal difficulty, you have a ton of breathing room between blocking and dodging, whereas Hard is a constant fight for dominance, and it's a ton of fun.

No matter the difficulty you choose, make sure you're attempting to complete the Dueling Feats given to you at the start of each fight. They're randomly assigned for each battle and task you with killing enemies in specific ways or by using certain spells and the like, but their best feature is the XP bonus you're rewarded upon completion, which you'll need to purchase Talents and further upgrade your character.

And there we have it, a few tips to help you get started. Hopefully, this gives you the tools you need to get to grips with Hogwarts Legacy. Now off with you... you have an adventure to enjoy!

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Guide Xbox Series X|S

Written by Tom West

Tom has been playing video games since he was old enough to hold a controller, experimenting with a number of systems until he eventually fell in love with Xbox. With a passion for the platform, he decided to make a career out of it, and now happily spends his days writing about that which he loves. If he’s not hunting for Xbox achievements, you’ll likely find him somewhere in The Elder Scrolls Online or fighting for survival in Battlefield.