The Most Bizarre Hogwarts Legacy Mods

AAA games often deliver unique and exciting experiences that fans spend a long time waiting to enjoy. The hype for major releases is real, but after launch, one thing that helps keep games alive is the modding scene that surrounds them. Despite a ton of controversy over the game, fans were thrilled for "Hogwarts Legacy" to debut, and now that it has, they're diving straight into changing the title as much as possible.

There are dozens of mods for the title, and they have major impacts on both the best and worst parts of "Hogwarts Legacy." Of course, graphics-focused mods abound, with some addressing the game's shading and textures and others making adjustments that help the game's performance. Then there are mods that help players tear through the experience as quickly as possible by toning down the difficulty or unlocking spells early.

These are the types of mods that you expect to see for almost every new release, but they're far from the only things fans have thrown at the wall. Some mods make adjustments to the game that will leave you scratching your head wondering who exactly would want that change and why anyone would go through the effort to implement it. Sometimes those exercises in absurdism turn out to be exactly what you never knew you wanted for your own gameplay experience. Decide for yourself by pursuing what are truly the most bizarre "Hogwart Legacy" mods out there.

"Hogwarts Legacy" doesn't offer players the chance to become a Quidditch star, and that might be the most disappointing part of the entire game. Headmaster Phineas Black explains at the beginning of the narrative that Quidditch has been suspended for the year, but what makes the suspension even more frustrating is that the title still lets players fly around on broomsticks, and the flying mechanics are superb.

Unfortunately, modders haven't developed a Quidditch system of their own – yet – but they have found some creative ways to spice up those flying segments. There's already a huge variety of brooms in the game, but they all boil down to being fancy home cleaning tools. Some modders don't like sweeping, so they've upgraded and fly around on vacuum cleaners instead. Others prefer a ride that's a bit more absurd, and they've found a reliable way to travel the Wizarding World on Shrek's back.

For any players who are tired of brooms, but prefer their mods to be ever so slightly less immersion-breaking, there's an option that's almost in canon. It's possible to swap out a broom for Arthur Weasley's flying car. As long as you don't fly it too close to the Whomping Willow, it'll be a trusty ride throughout the game.

"Hogwarts Legacy" entirely succeeds at delivering an engaging combat system that takes advantage of the many spells in the Wizarding World. The game's combat is better than anything "Harry Potter" has seen before, and it manages to make every battle feel like real magic, rather than just a series of multicolored gunshots flying between combatants.

That said, some players really just want to pull out a trusted sidearm and blast their foes away. Luckily, there's a mod that lets players swap their wand for an 1851 Colt revolver and take to the streets as a 19th-century gunslinger. The mod doesn't actually change how combat in the game works, but it makes quick drawing on some poachers that much more satisfying.

Of course, if you're already going to the effort to replace your wand with a gun, why limit yourself to weapons that the player character could presumably have access to? The Magic Gun mod says to hell with historical accuracy and puts a Glock 19 in the palm of your hand. Magical creatures and enemies might not run in fear at the sight of the weapon, but that's only because they've yet to learn how destructive it can be. Lock 'n load, and let them find out.

The character creator in "Hogwarts Legacy" has a bevy of options that allow players to create the protagonist of their dreams. With a little patience, it's possible to recreate your own face and play through the game as though you're actually a student at Hogwarts. It's also easy enough to recreate other people or characters, and thanks to mods even people without a knack for manipulating face-shape sliders can play as anyone they want.

Bringing Spider-Man to Hogwarts might bend the "Harry Potter" cannon enough that it breaks in half, but it's still a possibility (and Peter's suit looks pretty great with the graphics on display in "Hogwarts Legacy"). It's just as easy to bring some classic video game characters to everyone's favorite magical school. One mod transforms the player character into CJ from "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas."

Another mod borrows a character from "Harry Potter" and transports him to Hogwarts several decades early. With just a little work it's possible to walk the halls as Voldemort himself. Installing the mod might throw the entire "Harry Potter" timeline into disarray, but at least it makes taking full advantage of the Unforgivable Curses even more realistic.

The team at Portkey Games paid incredible attention to small details while crafting "Hogwarts Legacy." The castle has never felt more alive than it does here, and every time you boot up the game and walk around, you're sure to discover something new. The developer deserves serious praise, but that doesn't mean that it managed to create a perfectly immersive wizarding school.

Modders are doing their best to make life at Hogwarts even more realistic than it already is. A sweeping mod overhauls the NPC AI and changes the schedule that named characters follow throughout their days and weeks at Hogwarts. With the mod installed, students will return to their common rooms at night while professors walk the halls. During the day, everyone will attend classes on a regular schedule, and when they have some downtime on the weekend they'll wander over to Hogsmeade to scope out the shops. NPCs are already good at keeping themselves busy in whatever area they currently occupy, so this one simple mod really makes the castle and its inhabitants feel alive.

Most spellcasters in the "Harry Potter" universe need a wand and a magic word to change the world around them. There have been times when the series plays fast and loose with that rule, but in "Hogwarts Legacy" players will be shouting out the names of spells as they cast them in battle. Hearing the same magical phrases for hours on end can get pretty exhausting, but there's a mod that can help mix things up and take at least one spell to a whole new level.

This particular mod is arguably not the most bizarre on the entire list, but it's for sure the most disturbing. The mod replaces the "stupefy" spell word with a soundbite from the song "Stupify" by Disturbed. Once installed, there will be a little nu-metal flourish every time you cast a stunning spell on your opponents. The mod is great for a laugh, and it might even encourage your fellow students at Hogwarts to kick off a new genre of music more than a century early.

For anyone who didn't closely follow the details surrounding "Hogwarts Legacy" ahead of its release, the Room of Requirement and the Vivarium inside it are probably the game's biggest, and most welcome, surprises. The level of customization offered by those two areas lets players sink into their Hogwarts journey as though it were really happening to them.

Among other things, the Vivarium can be filled with creatures that players can snatch up using an item called a nab-sack, which is a bit like a Bag of Holding designed specifically for small creatures. Players who dream of raising their own magical pet will finally have their deepest wishes fulfilled, but for all the nab-sack promises, there are certain creatures that can't be brought home, either because they're too large or just too dangerous to keep at Hogwarts.

No more! The Forbidden Vivarium mod does away with size constraints and safety concerns. It allows players to capture almost every monster in the game, though they'll have to do so at their own risk. Creatures that would be hostile out in the world aren't at all calmed down by being tossed in a sack and carried into the castle. Expect a growing monster collection to come with quite a few Vivarium-based battles, but on the bright side, the monsters are only concerned with killing you, not your other pets.