Harry Potter game Hogwarts Legacy now has a ‘no spiders’ setting

Harry Potter Fans who are yet to visit the Forbidden Forrest, which is a spider-infested forest in Harry Potter Hogwarts Legacy will finally get some relief: WB Games and developer Avalanche Software have rolled out a new “arachnophobia mode” option for Hogwarts Legacy, which removes the game’s eight-legged creepy crawlies and replaces them with something far less threatening.

That’s better news for Hogwarts Legacy players — who are also afraid of spiders — who’ve waited this long to play the game on last-gen consoles. PlayStation 4 and Xbox One version of Hogwarts Legacy are out Friday on those platforms, and they’ll get the new arachnophobia mode from day one.

According to WB Games’ extensive patch notes, here’s what Hogwarts Legacy’s arachnophobia mode changes.

• The spiders have all been changed to a new appearance
• Removes and reduces spider screeches and skitters
• Removing small spiders ground-effect spawners
• Invisible spiders and their corpses
• To prevent the player from becoming stuck, collision is still on.
• The spiders in the Field Guide are unchanged

Here’s a tease of what spiders (and Acromantula) look like with arachnophobia mode turned on — basically a glowing-eyed balloon with rollerskates:

And here’s what it looks like in game:

You may be asking yourself, “…roller… skates?” Clearly this is a reference to Harry Potter and Prisoner of Azkaban, when Ron Weasley casts the Riddikulus charm on the Boggart — a very large spider, in the eyes of Ron — in Professor Lupin’s defense against the dark arts class. Ron’s charm gives the Boggart roller skates, diminishing its power to terrify.

Hogwarts Legacy’s latest patch rolled out on Thursday and includes more than 500 bug fixes and overall improvements to gameplay and performance, WB says. This game is now available on Xbox One, Windows PC, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5. Nintendo Switch will be getting a Nintendo Switch version. Hogwarts LegacyIt is expected to arrive in July.

Arachnophobe-friendly games are all the rage right now. Respawn Entertainment just launched a new title last week. Star Wars Jedi SurvivorWith an anti-spider settings.