Summary
Hogwarts Legacy 2has drummed up a lot of expectations for many aspects of its storylines and gameplay, and interactive paintings are but one of the underrated features it could iterate on. The grand castle is lively, full to the brim with magic, and easily the hallmark of the game. Yet, despite the many secret rooms, moving staircases, and hidden puzzles the school harbors,Hogwarts Legacyarguably missed its mark with paintings.
The school building is replete with paintings of different people and different sizes. Given the game’s scope, there are naturally many that are repeated throughout the various halls and rooms; there are also unique magical paintings in houses that dot the countryside and in the many shops and dwellings in theneighboring wizarding town, Hogsmeade. There are some with stationary characters, and there are also many moving, magical portraits. They might be magical, but there isn’t anything that players can really do with them. Overall, they’re nothing more than mere decoration. And that’s precisely what needs to be changed going forward.
Hogwarts Legacy 2 Needs to Shed More Light on Paintings and Their Importance
Hogwarts Legacy Missed the Mark With Portraits
Paintings are one of the many wonderful magical items that an average wizard has access to. The world is full of them, whether it be standard locations like a shop, someone’s home, or Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. OneHogwarts Legacyside quest, “Portrait in a Pickle”, had players locate and return the portrait of Ferdinand Octavius Pratt, but it was nothing more than a standard fetch quest.
Given that these are echoes of actual people, there is easily room for the art to do more than just hang on a wall. Even the side quest’s dialogue revealed that Pratt used his second portrait at The Three Broomsticks to spy for the Headmaster, and Avalanche could dig deeper into what magical portraits are capable of in a sequel.
How Hogwarts Legacy 2 Should Showcase Magical Paintings In-Depth
Now thatHogwarts Legacy 2is all but officially confirmed, Avalanche and Portkey Games should add a questline in it on how paintings are created and how much magic they can channel, if at all. If they could, say, enter a painting or get trapped in one and have to escape, the adventure would be quite unique compared to how portraits have been illustrated thus far. It would also benefitHogwarts Legacy 2to involve these “art decorations” in making their personalized environments more lively.
These could be instances like players befriending a few portraits of their own to create a spy network, learning arcane and forgotten magic from them, discovering useful clues to long-drawn mysteries and secret locations, and more.
Given that portraits are present seemingly everywhere, making them more interactive can help takeHogwarts Legacy 2’s immersion to the next level. If one portrait character becomes a sort of companion—someone with Sir Cadogan’s chivalrous and boisterous antics, perhaps—it may lead to quite a bit of fun and humor in a playthrough.
Including them as an ally or a sort of “dead"companion inHogwarts Legacy 2can add another level of immersion. Additionally, having some that offer procedurally generated, RNG, or event-based conversations, even if not exceptionally specific, can enrich how players approach even the most overlooked room decorations.
Paintings Are an Important Part of Harry Potter’s Wizarding World
Paintings have a good level of importance in theHarry Potteruniverse, especially since they’re magical and of real people. Albus Dumbledore’s portrait echo inHarry Potter and the Deathly Hallowsexemplifies this since he’s dead by that point, though the echo contains enough of his memories to helpSeverus Snape make plans for the Dark Lord’s defeat.
Granted, paintings are much different fromghosts in theHarry Potteruniverse, who are actual people who stick around after they’re dead. But the fact that some portrayal or image of them can linger and interact with anybody in a multitude of ways has a lot of scope forHogwarts Legacy 2.
