Hogwarts Legacy’s Vivarium Felt Like One Step on a Much Larger Journey

Posted by By our-little-miss-is-home January 9, 2025 2 Views 6 Min Read
Hogwarts Legacy’s Vivarium Felt Like One Step on a Much Larger Journey

Hogwarts Legacy was a really solid attempt at delivering the Harry Potter RPG fans had been dreaming about for decades. Hogwarts Legacy‘s narrative was intriguing, its characters were fairly memorable, its spellcasting combat was surprisingly deep, and its open-world featured some rewarding side activities. That all said, Hogwarts Legacy still left plenty of room for improvement.

Many of Hogwarts Legacy‘s mechanics feel as though they’re just the first iteration of what could someday be a truly innovative feature. That’s the case with Hogwarts Legacy‘s Vivariums, a promising feature that could see plenty of further expansions and refinements.

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Hogwarts Legacy’s Vivariums Are Teeming With Untapped Potential

Hogwarts Legacy’s Vivariums Were a Good Way to Introduce Life-Sim Elements

Just one part of Hogwarts Legacy‘s expansive Room of Requirement feature, Vivariums are where players store and tend to their magical animals. Throughout Hogwarts Legacy‘s open-world, players will be able to find an assortment of fantastic beasts, many of whom have been captured by poachers. Players can rescue these creatures and take them back to their Vivarium, where they’ll be able to feed them, play with them, and ensure they’re kept in good health.

Players are encouraged to visit their Vivarium frequently, as the more they care for their animals, the more upgrade materials are dropped. Players are also able to customize their Vivarium with an array of scenery objects and structures, such as ancient castle ruins and medieval wells. A total of four Vivariums are available by the end of Hogwarts Legacy, each one offering a distinct biome.

Hogwarts Legacy‘s Vivariums were a good way for the game to offer some light life-sim elements, borrowing mechanics from popular titles like Animal Crossing to make the game feel all the more nostalgic and cozy.

How Hogwarts Legacy 2 Could Evolve Its Vivarium Mechanics

But Hogwarts Legacy‘s Vivariums feel like they’re only scratching the surface of what they could be. If/when Hogwarts Legacy gets a sequel, there are a few different ways it could evolve the original’s Vivarium feature. The most obvious and simple evolution would be a continuation of the same system, merely adding more customization options, magical beasts, and biomes in the sequel.

But a much more interesting option for Hogwarts Legacy‘s hypothetical sequel is to take the original’s Vivarium mechanics and apply them to a completely new aspect of the series, expanding the mechanics in bold new ways. For instance, Hogwarts Legacy‘s map was filled with enemy encampments that the player needed to clear. It might be fun if a potential sequel allowed players to claim the encampment for their own after clearing it.

Once claimed, these encampments could be turned into a variety of different fantasy structures, such as a stable to house the player’s Hippogriff mount, or a practice dueling ring for the player and their companions to use outside of class time, offering gameplay benefits that would make their construction worthwhile. Players could then customize each space, using the Vivarium system as the groundwork to place objects and alter terrain.

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