It didn't take long for modders to begin practicing their magic on Hogwarts Legacy. Within days of release there were already Hogwarts Legacy mods to improve performance, tweak the UI, add mouse controls for broomstick flying and spellcasting, and yes, to shoehorn in Shrek and the inevitable Thomas the Tank Engine.
One particular aspect of the open world RPG modders have been focusing on is the player's magic wand. Players can, of course, pick between different wand appearances in the game, but modders have taken further liberties, in some cases removing it completely and replacing it with something more interesting than a pointy stick.
I know what you're thinking because it's so completely obvious: did a modder replace Hogwarts Legacy's magic wand with a spear of asparagus? Of course they did. "You're a farmer, Harry."
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Oddly enough, asparagus is not the only green thing your little witch or wizard can clutch while casting spells and saying things like "Explodius!" (Note: I'm pretty clueless when it comes to Harry Potter but that sounds like something he'd say.) Legacy may take place in the 1899 but it looks like someone used a time travel spell (I assume by yelling "Timeius Travelius!") to collect a fabled artifact from the year 2006.
Now instead of staring at moving paintings, the students of Hogwarts will get to play Wii Bowling, because this mod lets you replace your magic wand with a bright green "Limited Edition" Luigi Wiimote (real copies of the Wiimote go for around $30 on eBay). You can also use a standard white Wiimote, but it's hard to resist injecting a bit of Luigi into your game.
I should probably point this out here: you can't actually play Wii Bowling, or do anything different with any of these mods. These are just replacement skins for the standard wand.
There's something funny about the idea of a wizard with a gun, but until we can play upcoming co-op survival game Wizard with a Gun (the name is based on a wizard with a gun) you can pair your wizard with a gun in Hogwarts Legacy. The Boomstick mod removes the wand and lets you point a twelve gauge double-barreled Remington at anything that moves. That's Ash Williams' boomstick from the Evil Dead films. S-Mart's top-of-the-line.
And if you're looking for a more compact sidearm, how about the Magic Gun mod which swaps the wand for a Glock. Or is it a Glock? "This mod replaces your wand with a magical device that is based on a 1800s historical design and bears no resemblance to any real-world counterparts of the modern era," the modder says. Fair enough.
If that's not quite your style (or if like me you live in the US and it's slowly dawning on you that it's not really super amusing to see a kid carrying a gun around in a school) you can still stick with lore-friendly wands, but mod in some much cooler wands.
For instance, you can replace your kid's wand with Voldemort's wand. Or, the Elder Wand, which Google tells me is the one Harry Potter used. There's also Lucius's Wand, which is the wand used by some other Hogwarts guy, presumably named Lucius. That one looks the coolest to me, because it's got a cool, shiny metal snakehead handle.
I know, there's a lot to choose from. If you can't make up your mind, why not go wandless? The Wandless Casting mod removes the wand entirely and doesn't replace it with a damn thing. See, the magic was inside you all along.
