Chess in Videogames #4 - Hogwarts Legacy
Welcome to Chess in Videogames, the series where I discuss various interesting chess-based minigames, puzzles, and references in videogames!
In Hogwarts Legacy, there are three chess puzzles hidden within treasure vaults in Poidsear Coast, Marunweem Lake, and Cragcroftshire, in addition to a chess-themed puzzle in the "Minding Your Own Business" quest.
The treasure vault chess puzzles are fairly simple, with one unique twist: They must be solved by dropping a new piece on the board, not by moving a preexisting piece. In this way, these puzzles could be thought of as "Crazyhouse puzzles".
The chess piece models are accurate to the ones from the movies! Chess sets can also be found lying around at various points throughout the game, along with the Haunted Hogsmede quest and Imelda Reyes' introduction featuring chess.
Treasure Vault Puzzles
While in the vault, you will need to cast Revelio to find an object that can be transformed into a chess piece using Transformation. This object can transform into either a rook, bishop, or knight depending on the object. The pot transforms into a rook, the vase transforms into a bishop, and the chair transforms into a knight. Once transformed, you can use Wingardium Leviosa to move the piece into the correct position to solve the puzzle.
To help players who might be struggling, a special sound effect plays when the piece is hovering over a correct position.
If the player successfully solves one of these puzzles, they are rewarded with a chest containing a random item.
There are three of these puzzles in the game, but only two unique board states. Here are examples for both of them that you can try to solve yourself:
With black to move, where would you drop a bishop to solve this puzzle?
The solution is to drop the extra bishop on a2 (B@a2#) for an immediate checkmate! This bishop is defended by the queen, the c2 square is defended by the pawn, and a1 and b2 are defended by the bishop that was already on the board.
With white to move, where would you drop a knight to solve this puzzle?
The solution is to drop the extra knight on either c7 (N@d7#), g7 (N@g7#), or f6 (N@f6#)!
Haunted Hogsmede
The quest "Minding Your Own Business" was originally a PS5 exclusive on the game's release, but is now available for everyone and contains a small but notable chess-themed puzzle.
Partway through the quest, the player encounters a giant chessboard, reminiscent of the one from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. The goal is to simply reach the other side of the room without walking over any squares that the pieces are threatening.
If you don't know how chess pieces move, not to worry, the dangerous squares are visibly cracked. If that wasn't enough, you can also use Revelio to highlight these squares. So it's not that much of a puzzle.
The Slytherin Common Room
If your chosen house is Slytherin, when you first meet Imelda Reyes in the Slytherin common room, she will be backseating another Slytherin's chess game, but her suggestions fall on deaf ears with checkmate coming one move later with Bd2, Rxb2#.
In addition to this, you can also find another chess set magically playing itself, where White plays the Grob Opening and gets checkmated in two moves with 1.g4 e6 2.f4 Qh4#. After the game is over, the pieces eventually disappear and the board is reset.
Thank you for reading!
I hope you enjoyed this edition of Chess in Videogames!
Stay tuned for next week's Chess in Videogames, where we will be covering Baldur's Gate 3.