Hogwarts Legacy's map is the best open-world secret PS5 has to offer

The Hogwarts Legacy map offers a castle and grounds to explore on PS5. It's so perfect, that we think it might become the worst-kept open-world secret in gaming.

If collecting the Hogwarts Legacy trophies over the last week has taught us anything, it's that the magic of the Wizarding World is concentrated in one place — Hogwarts. The magical game has more than enough plaudits to land on the best PS5 games list, but the biggest secret of Hogwarts Legacy is how perfectly the indoor parts of the open-world tie the nostalgia, mystery, and magic together.

Hogwarts Legacy's castle is the game's best-kept secret

Hogwarts is built on nostalgia but uses it to furnish a castle tastefully

The Harry Potter books put together a magnificent literary castle school full of secrets, adventure, and homeliness. It was the ultimate fantasy retreat matched by the familiarity of school life — it just had massive Norman walls, strange staircases, spiralling towers, cupboards expanding in depth to match your need, and more than enough space for your imagination to fill.

The eight films took this a step further, adding a visual veneer that retained the magic while expanding the visual touchstones of the castle. Rickety bridges were matched by janky corridors stuffed with paintings, and, by the seventh movie, places like courtyards and astronomy towers were tangible places with familiar on-screen presences.

Hogwarts Legacy is just a wonderful world

Hogwarts Legacy uses the literary and film history of the school with exciting moderation. Those touchstones built over the years are there — the exact rickety bridge that Harry and Lupin chat on in Prisoner of Azkaban, the astrology tower of Dumbledore's death in Half-Blood Prince, and the recognisable balustrades and pillars from every single movie. From the books, it feels like the smaller details the films couldn't capture are hidden around every corner by virtue of the detail and minor touch a game can offer.

It gives you an immediate sense of belonging if you are a Wizarding World fan that very few — if any — other games could give you. Hogwarts Legacy's world map possesses magic that other muggle games simply cannot match, and it's an impressive feat that developer Avalanche managed to even capture it in the first place.

Hogwarts Legacy is full of indoor/outdoor spaces that defy reason

Hogwarts' map blends indoors and outdoors perfectly

Tension has naturally developed whenever video games attempt to create spaces that naturally transition between indoor and outdoor segments. Whether it has been technical limitations or supremely expensive to put together indoor and outdoor space like Hogwarts Legacy does in its map, it's not really happened in gaming before.

The closest analogue in a modern open-world game that I can think of is running in and out of two-story buildings in Saint-Denis or the saloons of frontier towns hunting for Red Dead Redemption 2 trophies. Perhaps the massive castle of Skyhold in Dragon Age Inquisition had a similar feel on a much smaller scale, but then that wasn't quite as packed with outdoor space as the Hogwarts Legacy castle.

Hogwarts Legacy has so many hats, but this is our favourite

Either way, this is the first time I can remember where a huge wide world filled with secrets, quests, and magic — and tedious Merlin trials — properly intersects with a massive indoor space like those that manifest within Hogwarts' walls. On PS5, at least, there is a small bit of loading on doors as you twist from corridor to intricate garden, but otherwise, it's a remarkably pretty and clean transition between the spaces.

This intersection of outdoor and indoor makes the world feel bigger and properly connected, rather than one distinct room placed near another. In particular, being able to run out into a garden after finding another 'Green Gardening Nightcap with Felt,' hop on a broomstick, then fly to Hogsmede, sell the thing, all before returning to a Hogwarts roof and belting it down some stairs on the way to a classroom — it just makes this feel like a persistent, tangible world. This is Hogwarts, something even the best Harry Potter games previously hadn't quite managed to get right.

Hogwarts Legacy duels with live-services at the top of the chart

Hogwarts Legacy will make you screech with joy

The secrets of Hogwarts are finally interactive

The distinguishing factor of video games from other forms of art is interactivity. Hogwarts Legacy has delicately selected a prime selection of aspects of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry to make interactive, and that gives the map another layer of success to boast of. The world itself is beautiful with an environmental design that truly shines. Add in music that, I would argue, is the best in a video game from this year, and Avalanche has set an immaculate Wizarding World foundation upon which to build interactivity into.

Magic allows you to interact with statues and tapestries which hide rooms, maximising that feeling of finding a secret, something that feels like drinking the nostalgia of both the books and the films simultaneously. You can move, conjure, and customise your Room of Requirement to give you a real Wizarding home. That level of customisation, from the types of walls to the way you furnish the space, expounds that feeling of belonging. Add in quests that see you exploring under the one-eyed witch statue or have you stumbling directly into the Headless Hunt's special party room — interacting with the world is a rewarding experience.

Hogwarts Legacy is full of outdoor spaces to enjoy

Yes, there are limitations to the Hogwarts Legacy map. Not all spaces are seamless and you have to load into some places. The overreliance on Revelio to highlight endless collectables becomes, particularly outside of Hogwarts' walls, quickly tedious after ten hours of a 60-hour-plus game. Then you have the ridiculous and arbitrary hunt to get to the third level of Alohamora so you can, get this, unlock progressively bigger locks.

Those are but drops in the pensive of a much grander memory, however. You will learn so much about Hogwarts, its pupils, and its long history all while filling yourself to the brim with the best kind of nostalgia and awe of the magic; so much so that you become indundated with pure joy. This castle map and the magic it's able to conjure up so effortlessly — likely at the expense of many efforts on the developers' part — is an open-world secret that unlocks the door to one of the most impressive video game spaces.

Did you enjoy this article? What do you think of Hogwarts Legacy's map? Let us know in the comments below, and see you there!

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Written by Kes Eylers-Stephenson

Editor Kes is our resident expert in PlayStation and other gaming news. He writes about PS5 exclusives like The Last of Us and Horizon, PS Plus news, and his favorite games — The Witcher, Assassin’s Creed, and God of War — before an evening swim.