Hogwarts Legacy's new arachnophobia mode is a throwback to Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

gamesradar.com:

The latest Hogwarts Legacy update has added an arachnophobia mode that'll appear mighty familiar if you've seen Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

First, the spider-altering mode itself. As Avalanche Software explains on Twitter (opens in new tab), the new mode can be switched on in the accessibility menu in-game. Not only will it change the appearance of enemy spiders, but it'll also reduce and remove skitters and screeches, take away small spider ground effect spawners, and make static spider corpses in the world invisible. 

It's worth noting that Collision is still active to prevent you from getting stuck while the mode is enabled. Also, the new mode doesn't change the spider images in the Field Guide, so keep that in mind.

So, then, how do the spiders change their appearance? Alongside looking cuter and more cartoonish, you'll notice they're now on roller skates. It reminds me of a scene (opens in new tab) from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban where Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher Professor Lupin shows his third-year students a spell to help them confront their darkest fears. For Ron Weasley, that means facing a big ol' spider by putting them on some roller skates. It was as amusing then as it is now.

Elsewhere in Hogwarts Legacy's latest update, you've got fixes for game save issues, a resolution for the Lodgok quest lock, and much more. You can see the patch notes in full over on the Harry Potter RPG's website (opens in new tab), though be warned - as community manager Chandler Wood teased (opens in new tab) on Twitter before the patch's release, over "30 pages of patch notes" were reviewed, and it shows.

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