Hogwarts Legacy Update Changes the Game’s Most Annoying Enemy

Hogwarts Legacy is based on the Wizarding World universe created by J.K. Rowling. You can read more about Rowling’s history of transphobic remarks as well as find resources to support LGBTQ organizations here.

An absolutely massive Hogwarts Legacy update just dropped alongside the PS4 and Xbox One editions of the game. You can read the full patch notes here, but the bulk of the update consists of bug fixes. However, there is one interesting new item that allows you to change the most annoying enemies in the game.

See Hogwarts Legacy‘s latest update adds an “Arachnophobia Mode” to the game. As the name suggests, this mode is designed to help those who have a fear of spiders and don’t want to see them in their games. Jedi: Survivor recently featured a similar mode, and it’s becoming a popular trend/request in many modern titles.

It’s a particularly fascinating addition to Hogwarts Legacy, though. See, Hogwarts Legacy didn’t just feature a couple of spiders. The majority of the enemies you faced in the game’s dungeons and open areas tended to be either spiders or dark wizards. In fact, the sheer number of spiders you fought in the game ended up being one of Hogwarts Legacy‘s most annoying features. Most spiders behave roughly the same, so you end up repeating the same basic combat sequences against them.

As such, there was some hope that this update would actually replace those spiders with more interesting enemies. However, the Hogwarts Legacy team went a…different route.

Hogwarts Legacy‘s Arachnophobia Mode simply changes the design of the game’s spiders. Specifically, it removes their legs, makes them look more cartoonish, and, in a nod to the books, puts rollerskates on their feet. For context, this is what a spider looked like before:

With the new mode enabled, though, you end up with…this:

As someone with only a minor fear of spiders, I’m genuinely curious to hear if this change addresses the central issue. No, that’s not a creepy realistic spider like the ones the game previously featured, but it’s incredibly creepy in its own way. Did the Hogwarts Legacy team just unlock one fear by addressing another? Those new spiders certainly look like something you find in the wilds of Fallout: New Vegas.

It’s not just the visual design of the spiders that has been changed. The “skitters and screeches” that spiders previously made have been reduced and removed. Furthermore, static spider corpses in the world are now invisible, and “small spider ground effect spawners” have been removed. Those last two options might actually make spiders a little more tolerable than before. Spiders retain their “realistic” look in the Field Guide, though, so watch out for that if you have this mode enabled.

It’s a nice addition all around, though it would have been fantastic if someone had found a way to drop the spiders entirely. Specific fears aside, the game really would have benefited from some greater enemy variety, and these spiders may be a bit too close to…well, spiders for all parties involved.

Ultimately, it’s a fun and potentially valuable addition to the game. Even if you’re not afraid of spiders, the latest Hogwarts Legacy update offers enough excuses to dive back in while you wait for Tears of the Kingdom and other new releases. It not only allows last gen hardware owners to get in on the fun, but it fixes a ton of little glitches that plagued earlier versions of the game. Of course, nobody is going to judge you if you just want to set some monstrous new spider designs on fire and knock them out of their roller skates.