To quote Ronald Weasley: Spiders? Why Spiders? Why couldn’t it be ‘follow the butterflies’?
This is a sentiment many Hogwarts Legacy players with arachnophobia have undoubtedly shared with everyone’s favourite redheaded wizard. Thanks to a much-appreciated accessibility update from Hogwarts Legacy, those players might be able to sleep at night after all.
Over the past few months, Hogwarts Legacy has become a fan favourite and one of the year’s best-selling titles. Since its release in February, the quality of life improvements from Avalanche Software has kept pace.
The most recent of these updates gives players with arachnophobia a way to play the game without facing their deepest fears. Arachnophobia Mode is a feature that can be toggled on and off at any time throughout the game. When on, it changes the appearance of all Spiders within the game to beetle-like creatures wearing roller skates – a cute little easter eggs for fans of the Harry Potter franchise.
Our latest patch for #HogwartsLegacy includes Arachnophobia Mode, making venturing into spider-infested areas significantly less intimidating!
Full notes: https://t.co/9Cods9n1G5 pic.twitter.com/nDck8b6SH1— Hogwarts Legacy (@HogwartsLegacy) May 4, 2023
As well as changing the spider’s appearance, turning Arachnophobia Mode on also reduces and, in some cases, removes spider sounds from the game and makes static spider corpses invisible. However, Avalanche Software has confirmed that spider images within the Field Guide remain unchanged even with the mode toggled on.
While some players might look at this feature and feel it’s unnecessary, it is nice to know that more players will now experience and enjoy the game without feeling paralysed with fear. Those who the spiders don’t affect don’t need to use the additional mode and won’t have their game altered in any way.
Hogwarts Legacy is available now for PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. 4 and Xbox One.