12 quality-of-life mods for Hogwarts Legacy that should’ve been there from the start
You know when you’re a dozen hours deep into a good game and just a handful of tiny problems are gnawing away at your enjoyment? I feel this constantly, especially in open world games like Hogwarts Legacy (opens in new tab), which is why I’ve been paying close attention to its rapidly-developing modding scene.
In just a week since launch, modders have delivered loads of simple quality-of-life upgrades to Hogwarts Legacy that really should’ve been there from the start. I’m talking about the little things: the ability to unequip your wand or fly over Hogsmeade without that annoying barrier, skip those lockpicking minigames, or finally shut up the annoying floo powder lady. The weirdly blurry minimap? Fixed. Obtuse broom controls? Improved.
Here are 12 quality-of-life Hogwarts Legacy mods (opens in new tab) (including one cool spellcasting mod to potentially make combat more interesting) that you should consider installing.
FreeFly Mod (opens in new tab) by R457
The first mod that I immediately had to have. As a Hogwarts Legacy player who doesn’t like to fast travel, flying around the needlessly huge magical marrier surrounding Hogsmeade was really getting on my nerves. This mod gets rid of that restriction entirely, though apparently it doesn’t always work if you have your minimap on.
Vivarium Upgrado (opens in new tab) by BorisJohnsonLies
Another must-have if you’re enjoying Hogwarts Legacy’s Room of Requirement (opens in new tab). Unshackles your vivarium from the 12 beast and four species limits, allowing you to truly make your home a zoo. This mod is actually a combination of several mods that also let you conjure anything in vivariums (not just outdoorsy stuff) and even capture/breed non-fantastical beasts. Though, the whole breeding thing can apparently get buggy if you’re incorporating non-beasts, so maybe steer clear of that pitfall. The mod author has also conveniently split the mod into chunks if you, for instance, only want the loosened vivarium limits.
I happen to like the Hogwarts Legacy lockpicking minigame, but if you’re looking for a lore-accurate Alohomora experience in which the spell simply unlocks any lock for you, then give this one a download. The auto-unlocking works on all doors, chests, and quest-related locks too.
Adds a potion to J. Pippin’s potion shop that allows you to reallocate all of your talent points. Interestingly, datamined info suggests such a potion was planned to be in the vanilla game (opens in new tab). I can see why Avalanche ultimately decided there was little need for the potion (you earn enough talent points to unlock almost everything anyways), but I can see this being useful early on if you want to experiment with the skill tree.
Hogwarts Legacy takes the lightswitch approach to UI, meaning you can turn individual elements on/off and that’s it. I much prefer the Red Dead Redemption approach to UI where elements disappear when they’re not needed. This mod is as close as you can get to that in Hogwarts Legacy, adding the ability to toggle any and all obtrusive elements (like the map and spells) with hotkeys instead of lengthy trips to the settings screen.
You could consider this more of a bugfix, but nonetheless it’s worth fixing the strangely lo-res default minimap. Down with the jagged edges!
Unequip Wand (opens in new tab) by nathdev
Geralt can sheathe his swords. Arthur can holster his revolver. So why can’t I pocket my wand? I spent most of Hogwarts Legacy flaunting my wand in-hand like a buffoon, always hoping that the game would finally decide to holster it. It’s time to take control. This mod lets you set a hotkey that’ll equip/unequip your wand at will. As a bonus, there’s also a toggle for taking on/off your cloak’s hood.
It’s fair to say that Hogwarts Legacy’s default broom controls are a little weird. On controller, I never quite got used to controlling my direction with the left stick and my elevation with the right, so this mod brings both of those controls to the left stick. It works and is a better overall control scheme than the default, but there are a few downsides: the mod does not currently remap the up/down on right stick to camera control, so there’s still no way to simply look in those directions while flying. The control change also disables the slowest flight mode on the left stick (the one where you’re not leaning forward), so keep that in mind. If you’re playing with mouse and keyboard, modder R457 also offers an alternative with Mouse Controls for Broom.
Game Pauser (opens in new tab) by YouYouTheBoxx
This mod undoes a cardinal videogame sin by allowing you to pause during conversations and cutscenes. This got on my nerves a lot over my 50-hour playthrough, so jump on this immediately.
There will surely come a time in your Hogwarts Legacy playthrough when the stone Floo powder lady embedded in every fast travel point repeats the same line of dialogue one too many times and goes from charming to totally irritating. When that time comes, this mod will make it all stop.
Your mileage may vary, but this mod purports to reduce the stuttering that has plagued Hogwarts Legacy since launch and improve erratic framerates. This one has a more involved installation process than most other HL mods, including its own custom installer, so pay close attention to the instructions. Don’t expect a silver bullet.
This is more of an experimental change than an essential one, but you may find it adds a welcome layer of immersion to Hogwarts Legacy’s simplistic default spellcasting. The mod essentially creates shortcuts for casting spells executed with mouse gestures, so wiggling the mouse left and right while aiming your wand could, for instance, cast Lumos (or whatever spell you want). There is some fiddling involved in getting every spell assigned the way you want, but the mod page is equipped to help you figure it out.
