Hogwarts legacy out today on PS4 and Xbox One alongside a new Arachnophobia mode (available in all versions) that eliminates all of the action RPG’s spiders. An increasingly popular accessibility option for new games that Harry Potter Spin-off gets creative by using it to incorporate a reference from the films.
part of a huge new update which fixes over 500 bugs and aims to improve overall stability and performance, the Arachnophobia toggle removes almost every spider in the game. No more little ones on the ground, no more big ones attacking you, and no more spiders scurrying and screeching. Even spider corpses will disappear. The only images of the arachnids that will remain in the game are those in the Field Guide bestiary.
However, the mode does this in a clever way. Instead of simply removing enemy spiders altogether, it disguises them as pink balls and places roller skates on each of its eight legs. It’s a reminder of the time Harry Potter and friends faced a Boggart in their Defense Against the Dark Arts class in the third film. Scared to death of spiders, Ron Weasley’s boggart turns into one. To disarm it, Professor Lupine advises him to imagine it as his aunt instead. Now players with a similar fear of spiders can instead massacre hundreds of these same caricatures while exploring the Forbidden Forest.
Warner Bros. recently announced this Hogwarts legacy has sold over 15 million copies and grossed over $1 billion. That’s despite some overwhelming reviews Criticism of the lack of imagination and open world. An intense debate about a boycott of the game It also doesn’t seem to have derailed due to the transphobic baggage surrounding the source material’s author, JK Rowling, although it has prompted many longtime fans to do so reassess their personal relationship to fiction.
While Rowling isn’t part of the game’s development, she still collects royalty checks from her licensing deals with Warner Bros. and doesn’t seem keen on stopping overshadowing this Harry Potter world soon. The author is also said to be executive producer of a planned 10-year HBO TV adaptation of the books, with company executives to avoid any accountability for the views it expresses in an era when there is a full blown assault on transgender rights.
“My appreciation for these books remains – but it’s firmly in the past. If I continue, I won’t kill my memories Harry Potter— the forays into role-playing forums, the fanfiction I’ve written, the dates at the movies,” wrote my colleague Linda Codega in an excellent essay at io9. “I’m killing the part of me that imagines any attempt to relive those specific moments, to feel for a second like a kid magically transferred to Hogwarts – a place where your friends will support you your family will find you, and the monsters are the creatures with blood under their claws – well worth supporting JK Rowling.”
