Summary
Hogwarts Legacyallows players to rescue and collect a wide menagerie of magical beasts such as Mooncalves, though based on some footage captured by a player, not all of them are particularly bright. While this aspect of the Wizarding World was always present, even in the firstHarry Potterbook, it wasn’t until Newt Scamander’s spin-off that the fantastic beasts gained such a fierce popularity among the more casual fans. The unprecedentedpopularity ofHogwarts Legacyon Steamcemented it as one of the biggest titles of 2023, and it brought even more eyes to the more obscure and esoteric aspects of the Wizarding World.
While many fanspraised the open world inHogwarts Legacy, the ability to decorate the Room of Requirement was also a highlight of the game. In addition to being able to lavishly spruce up its interior with furniture, players also had access to a Vivarium to store all the magical creatures they could come across in the wild.Hogwarts Legacytied its crafting system with the beasts, as players could collect the animal byproducts to craft or upgrade their gear, but many also took a simple joy in having their gloomy marsh filled with Thestrals or Unicorns.
These magical beasts could either be procured from vendors, captured from nests, or rescued from poachers, and one of the very first creatures that players could come across inHogwarts Legacyare the Mooncalves. A Reddit user named DogifyerHero cleverly pointed out that Mooncalves were small enough to fit through the bars of their cage, and therefore did not need a rescue, using the popular “Are they stupid?” meme format to further emphasize their point.
If one were to judge the size of their eyes with the size of their skull, it’s hard to make an argument in the Mooncalf’s favor. The game’s lore even explicitly describes them as not being particularly bright, though that certainly doesn’t make them any less adorable. Many players have flooded theirVivarium inHogwarts Legacywith mooncalves, and their pivotal role in upgrading equipment makes them almost mandatory for any playthrough.
Despite being a successful launch by any measure for Avalanche Software,Hogwarts Legacyonly has rumors of a sequelbeing in production, with no major DLCs planned for the first game. There are plenty of obvious things that a sequel could improve upon, but magical beasts such as the Mooncalf have rightly earned their place as one of the best realized concepts inHogwarts Legacy.
Hogwarts Legacyis available for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S, with a Switch version releasing on November 14.
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