J.K. Rowling created the Hogwarts Legacy universe. You can learn more about Rowling's history of transphobic remarks here, as well as resources for LGBTQ organizations.
Hogwarts Legacy is more of a Zelda-like adventure game than you'd expect, because the game is packed with puzzles. Most of the puzzles are fairly straightforward to navigate, but the "puzzle doors" encountered early and often are already confusing quite a few players.
To be honest, those are some of the most difficult puzzles in the game by some distance. After you've explored Hogwarts' most ancient mysteries, you'll likely find yourself staring at these doors filled with numbers and animal symbols without a clue what you're supposed to do about them.
The challenge of working with those puzzle doors is figuring out how to operate them and what they're actually asking of you. So, let's take a look at how you're supposed to operate these tricky doors.
How to Open the Puzzle Doors in Hogwarts Legacy
Here's a look at the "Puzzle Doors" I mean when I say "Puzzle Doors."
During the game, you'll encounter many of these doors. Although each is different, they all have a few main features. Firstly, each shows two triangle-and-circle diagrams when you interact with them, each contains a few seemingly random numbers, and each is surrounded by some pictures of various animals/creatures. Secondly, each is flanked by two circular "switches" that allow you to choose between the same creature portraits you see on the doors.
You may think that you need to find a way to match the walls to the diagrams, but it's a little more complicated. Actually, these doors are complex math problems.
Here's an example of one of the game's puzzle doors to give you an idea of what I'm talking about.
What you're basically trying to accomplish is determine which number needs to go into the "?" and "?" spots in order to make the numbers in the outer circle add up to the numbers in the inner circle. So, for the bottom diagram, we see 0, 1,??, and a 4 in the middle. Essentially,?? is the number that will allow the numbers on the outside to add up to the middle number.
Here's where things get tricky. While you'd expect that you'll just need to change the nearby?? switch to a 3, you'll notice that those switches only allow you to switch between the pictures of creatures you see around the door. Likewise, you'll notice that the top diagram shows a snake rather than a number. As you probably already knew, those creatures are meant to represent numbers.
There are a few ways to deduce which number a creature represents. Ideally, you'll find this handy cheat sheet near the Arithmancy Classroom that tells you which number each design represents. Some of the designs also clearly represent a certain number (one horn on the unicorn, eight legs on the spider, etc.), although relying on visual cues can be problematic.
Alternately, you may just examine the order in which the pieces are arranged around the puzzle frame. The design in the very bottom left of the frame is "0." The design in the bottom right of the frame is "9.." The other designs represent the missing numbers in clockwork order.
Here's what each design is intended to represent if you'd rather not bother with all of that:
0 – Owl (?)1 – Unicorn2 – Goat3 – Snake4 – Perched Animal5 – Headcrab (?)6 – Lizard7 – Squid8 – Spider9 – Hydra
The "??" switch would need to be flipped to the Snake (which represents "3").
Once you understand the number each symbol represents, it's much easier to solve those puzzles. From there, it's simply a matter of finding the nearby switches and making sure they match the correct symbols.
Every Puzzle Door Solution in Hogwarts Legacy
Would you rather not bother with any of the above information? It's fine. Here's the answer to every puzzle door in Hogwarts Legacy:
? – Spider
?? – Hyrdra
? – Perched Creature
Snake?
– Perched Creature?
?? – Headcrab
– Lizard
?? – Unicorn
– Goat
?? – Unicorn
? – Goat
Squid –??
– Perched Animal
Headcrab??
Lizard?
?? – Squid
Owl?
?? – Headcrab
– Perched Animal
Hydra??
Spider? –
Snake??