The modding community fills voids many gamers never knew they had. Want to improve the graphics of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind? There’s a mod that. Maybe you would rather turn every Hinox in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild into Shrek? Again, someone has already coded that. But what if you want to play Hogwarts Legacy without playing Hogwarts Legacy? That might sound like a paradox, but there’s now a mod for that.
Garden of Eyes is a modding group we’ve talked about before. This time, Garden of Eyes decided to combine the open world of Elden Ring with the magic of Harry Potter in the most literal way possible. The group’s latest creation is the “Harry Potter” mod, which inserts a veritable steamer trunk worth of familiar faces from the Harry Potter franchise into Elden Ring. This mod includes Wizarding World spells, skins, and wands. Users can even replace Torrent with a flying broomstick, and it doesn’t just over a few feet off the ground; this mod’s broomstick can ascend, descend, and boost as if it were a bona fide Nimbus 2000. However, the “Harry Potter” mod is more than just a love letter to the Wizarding World.
When we said this mod lets users play Hogwarts Legacy without playing Hogwarts Legacy, we meant it. The Garden of Eyes team even injected that game’s combat system into Elden Ring. With just a tap of the R2 button, players can sling weak magic missiles, but they also can cast numerous other arcane arts. This mod obviously includes some Harry Potter staples such as Confringo and Accio, but it also utilizes every spell in the Elden Ring library. As an added bonus, Garden of Eyes even inserted their own mystic creations into the mix. To help really sell this mod, the Garden of Eyes gang also added custom icons for each Harry Potter spell. If two players using this mod happen to bump into each other, they can even engage in a friendly magical duel on broomsticks.
Currently, the “Harry Potter” mod only features seven Wizarding World spells (three of which are the Unforgivable Curses) one flying broomstick, the Elder Wand, and a Harry Potter skin. Depending on fan feedback, Garden of Eyes might add more. If the mod’s announcement video receives 15K likes, the modders will implement additional spells, character skins, and brooms. If 30K viewers like the video, we will get the grand prize of a functional Quidditch minigame. Can’t wait to see what kind of coding magic goes into that feature.
Now under normal circumstances, the “Harry Potter” mod would just be a fun new way to play Elden Ring (and a resume builder for the Garden of Eyes team). However, a controversy surrounding the Harry Potter license and its creator, J.K. Rowling, has turned Hogwarts Legacy into the most divisive game of the year. Unsurprisingly, some have already lumped this mod into that debate.
However, one of the team’s modders contacted Kotaku and told the outlet they were not politically motivated in the slightest. All they wanted to do was let players “enjoy Elden Ring in a very different way using flying brooms and mounts.” They just gravitated to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter because they thought it would be “a very nice way to implement such an idea.” Of course, according to this Garden of Eyes team member, they had a ton of trouble integrating flying into Elden Ring since all modding tools are unofficial, but that just makes this labor of love all the more impressive.
Even still, there’s something unnerving about this mod. The whimsy of the Wizarding World sometimes clashes with the dark fantasy charms of Elden Ring in ways that cannot be unseen. At the same time, the creepiest thing may be the ways it works better than it has any right to. The flying is particularly impressive, and the Harry Potter spells fit into Elden Ring surprisingly well. It’s certainly unusual to watch Harry tear his way through the nightmarish creations of a FromSoftware title with a smile on his face, but this idea is far more intriguing than you might think it would be based on the description alone.
In any case, we can’t wait to see what mod the Garden of Eyes team produces next.