Every Harry Potter fan will know the importance of your wizard or witch wielding the right wand. Way back in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, we saw Harry visit Ollivander’s Wand Shop on Diagon Alley, where the young wizard was told his new wand contained a Phoenix Feather from the same wand once used by Voldemort himself.
Since then, the series has regularly focused on wands, with Ron’s broken wand causing havoc in The Chamber of Secrets and the Elder Wand being one of the Deathly Hallows.
So, when you’re setting out in Hogwarts Legacy, we don’t blame you for wanting to get this right.
Visiting Ollivander’s shop
In Hogwarts Legacy, there’s an Ollivander’s store in Hogsmeade, with a very early mission sending you to the town to collect key supplies for your magical education. After a few false starts, Ollivander finally finds the perfect wand for you, though unlike the movies and books, you’re then free to customize it as you see fit.
It’s worth underlining that once you’ve finalized this selection, it’s locked in for good, so it’s very much worth getting this right. It should be noted you can customize your wand’s handle throughout the game, though the wand itself cannot be altered once set.
Building a better wand
The wand builder is fairly similar to the game’s in-depth character creator. There are eight wand styles to choose from; notched classic, soft spiral, spiral, stalk, ringed, crooked, and natural. These appear to be lifted from the wand styles seen in the movies, so a little research will let you recreate your favorite character’s look.
More granularly, each style then has three variations to pick from, meaning you have 24 different options to decide between.
After this, you select your ‘Wood Type’. The developers have gone to town here with 38 variants covering just about every tree feasibly available to the late-Victorian magical community. Options range from alder, aspen, beech, English oak, poplar, willow, and yew. Each of these is said to say something about the user’s temperament and magical style, so if you’re stuck, give this article from WizardingWorld.com a read and decide which best fits your character.
After this, you select your wand’s length, then have 19 levels of flexibility to choose from, and as a measure of how distinct they are, you can ponder over whether you want your wand to be “swishy” or “surprisingly swishy.”
Finally, you must choose the core of your wand, from Dragon Heartstring, Unicorn Hair, and Phoenix Feather. Dragon Heartstring is the wand with the most power and allows for more flamboyant spells, Unicorn Hair is said to produce consistent magic and is hard to use for Dark Arts, and Phoenix Feather is for those wanting the most versatility.
Effect on gameplay
Annoyingly, despite the game very much leading you to believe that your wand choices will impact your character’s magical development and suite of spells, it’s actually all just cosmetic. Your choices have zero bearing on what powers you’ll wield throughout Hogwarts Legacy, though in its defense, it’s nice to be able to customize it so heavily — and this must be catnip to dedicated Potterheads.
It’s also worth mentioning that the many wand handles you’ll discover hidden throughout the game are also strictly cosmetic and unlike cloaks, hats, etc., these don’t affect your character’s stats in any way. As such, it’s a shame the game doesn’t include a photo mode, as at least that’d allow you to show them in action via screenshots.
Do you already have a wand?
Hogwarts Legacy also lets you link your Harry Potter Fan Club account to your WB Games account, meaning that if you’ve already built a wand there, you can import that into the game (the same applies to your Hogwarts house selection). If you choose this option, the wand Ollivander presents you with will be already personalized to you, though you can still edit it in-game.
This whole wand-building mode is perhaps a little too much detail, given that it has zero impact on gameplay, but hey, the core audience of this game are diehard Potter fans, and fun details like this only let you immerse yourself more deeply in the Wizarding World.
Hogwarts Legacy will be released on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S|X, and PC on Feb. 10, with the PS4 and the Xbox One releases set for April 4, and the Nintendo Switch on July 25.
