Hogwarts Legacy Update Made A Secret Change To Ignatia Wildsmith (Thank God)
"Hogwarts Legacy" is still making record-breaking sales for Warner Bros. and is showing no signs of slowing down. Though the game's release and reception has been mired in controversy, there are still plenty of folks out there enjoying this virtual trip into the Wizarding World. Of course, not every element of the game has been received warmly by fans, and Avalance Software has just revealed that it's made a big change to Ignatia Wildsmith, one of the most annoying NPCs in the entire game. However, this change may have gone unnoticed by all but the most dedicated players.
Set a century before Harry Potter and his pals attended the titular school, "Hogwarts Legacy" tells a story of the Wizarding World in crisis. Between a goblin uprising and the discovery of an ancient wellspring of magic, it's hard to imagine finding the time to go to class and be a normal teenager. The game's story also digs into the history of several spells and devices that fans of the "Harry Potter" series will no doubt recognize, including the Floo Network.
The Floo Network, invented by none other than the aforementioned Ignatia Wildsmith, is a method travel in which a witch or wizard uses magical floo power to transport themselves, typically by way of an enchanted fireplace. As long as the user announces their intended destination, they can travel from one place to another with few issues (other than tracking a ton of soot and ash behind them). In "Hogwarts Legacy," the Floo Network is the game's answer to fast travel. Unfortunately, in order to use the Floo Network, players have to contend with Ignatia Wildsmith, who has become a contentious character.
Read on to learn more about the problems players have with Ignatia Wildsmith, as well as how the developers have fixed her.
Ignatia Wildsmith is getting a lot quieter
It's not entirely clear at first glance why players seem to have such a beef with Ignatia Wildsmith, who appears in the form of an animated engraving next to the enchanted flames of the Floo Network. She seems very excited to see people still using her creation after all this time, and will typically ask the player what kind of adventure they're up to. But she only has a handful of dialogue options, which she cycles through pretty quickly, especially if players find themselves using the Floo Network often.
It seems the old Ravenclaw's repetitive greetings have rubbed a number of gamers the wrong way, along with her penchant for congratulating herself for the invention of Floo powder. Her excitable personality has led to a number of memes being made of the character, many of which point to her as being severely disliked by the community.
Because of these complaints, Avalanche Software has quietly decided to silence Ignatia Wildsmith in the latest update for the game. Players would be forgiven for missing this change, since it was not included in the official patch notes for the game. This update was later confirmed by community manager Chandler Wood (no relation to Oliver Wood, presumably), who tweeted about the fix:
Just confirmed an additional feature in this patch that didn't make it into the patch notes:
-Reduced the frequency of Ignatia Wildsmith's lines (a significant reduction), so while travel is definitely more convenient with Floo powder, you won't have to hear about it constantly. https://t.co/aNTkZ2ViuG
— Chandler Wood (@FinchStrife) March 9, 2023
The patch has been celebrated by fans of the game, many of whom retweeted his comments and thanked Avalanche for finally making Ignatia clam up.
Ignatia Wildsmith originally had even more to say
Believe it or not, but Ignatia Wildsmith originally had several more lines of dialogue to use when greeting travelers. Since the release of "Hogwarts Legacy," players have found unused voice files in the game's code, which were ultimately discarded for an unknown reason. It's possible that Ignatia might have been less annoying if she had more variation in her dialogue, but we may never know for sure.
This isn't the first time a developer has been forced to admit that one of their creations has a big mouth. Back in 2021, "Biomutant" players across the board found themselves immediately fed up with the game's chatty narrator, which constantly spouted exposition, jokes, hints, and other asides that took up a ton of aural real estate. It got to the point where the player could literally just be walking around and the narrator would intone, "Feels like something's about to happen today." Realizing this was too much and taking player feedback into consideration, Experiment 101 issued a patch that allowed players to tone down or silence the narrator entirely. It didn't fix the game's other issues, but it did make the experience more enjoyable overall.
For players enjoying "Hogwarts Legacy," Ignatia Wildsmith's talkative nature was a small blight on a game full of interesting side characters.