The colorful spells of Hogwarts Legacy. How the open world wizard experience added an extra layer to combat

Introduction
Hogwarts Legacy is an open world RPG that allows fans and players to experience the Harry Potter universe in its most ambitious and complete form. Of course, a Harry Potter game isn’t really a Harry Potter game without spells! But how can a game include tons of abilities while still making sure that the combat is well balanced and compelling? In this document we will discuss these exact questions.

Fundamentals of combat
The bare bones combat is pretty straight forward in Hogwarts Legacy. Get an aggressive spell, aim at your enemy, and press the corresponding button once or multiple times, if you want to use combo attacks. Sounds good, sounds fun. However, even tho we can use items, level elements (like traps) and other throwable objects during fights, we would quickly realize that this approach might just be way too simple to carry a 40-50 hours long open world RPG. An extra bit of spice might still be needed.

All the spells
Thankfully, the Harry Potter universe doesn’t lack spell diversity. We have straight on, aggressive spells, like fireballs. But we also have utility, crowd control spells, support spells and much more. The designers figured out a way to implement this seamlessly in order to elevate combat. They gave each type a color and a 2x4 slot “spell kit” we can have on ourselves. In itself, this already adds a good amount of variety to combat. You can stun or root enemies, or push and pull them in all kind of directions which makes handling bigger groups easier. A good start! But the designers didn’t stop there. So what else did they do with the colors?

Enemy Shields
Some enemies received different colored spell shields. And just like that, the combat puzzle is completed, elevating many aspects of fighting.

How does it work?
The player needs to hit the enemy with the spell that’s color matches the spell shield’s color in order to break it and then damage the enemy. Yellow shield? Just use a yellow spell to break it. Purple? Purple spell it is then.

The benefits of this system
Having enemies with shields can throw chaos into the combat system, forcing players to assess situations quickly. We can have a feeling of combat mastery once we learn to react to each shield type accordingly. This mechanic forces players to tactically choose their spell kit to be as prepared as possible to as many color variations in a combat scenario as possible. They also need to play around their spell cooldowns, otherwise they can end up with enemies who cannot be damaged in time effectively. Players can also consider having multiple spells of the same color in their spell kit to make sure the needed color is always available for shield breaks.

Thanks to this system, combat is always fresh, and it also feels way more rewarding for players. If this mechanic wasn’t in place, designers could use a different approach to introduce variety. For example, enemies could be categorized by their type. And certain types could be weak to certain colors. Goblins could be especially weak to red spells, humans to yellow spells and so on. I think the color coded shield mechanic solves the issue of having uninteresting combat perfectly. It adds an extra layer where players have to carefully put together their spell kit in order to be more effective in combat.

Lets jump into theory land, just for some fun design exercising

• Could you use any spell against any enemy?
There are some minor limiting factors. On paper, every spell can be used on everyone, however it might not be effective enough or wouldn’t work at all.
• Would some enemies still offer some form of resistance and opportunity, despite having no shield?
For example: some enemies are more resistant to certain spells and can be critically damaged by other spells. Spiders can’t stand fire. Also, enemy size matters too. You can’t just push, pull and throw around a giant troll. So spell kit setup still has its place even if shields wouldn’t exist.
• Ultimately how do shields change how players play? Or how do they not?
Thanks to shields, combat is high intensity and forces players to multitask by making them dodge, roll, attack and switch spells/spell kits, giving the game a higher skill ceiling.