I've been replaying Hogwarts Legacy in 2026, and the more I wander the Scottish Highlands, the more I hear the echo of FromSoftware's design. The castle and its surrounding valleys feel like a pocket watch with too many gears: every hill rotates into an ambush, every corridor ticks with the threat of a dark witch or a dugbog. It is not a pure Soulslike, but it borrows enough—stamina-adjacent spell timing, dodge rolling, enemy mobs that punish overconfidence—that I keep wanting the sequel to borrow one more thing: summoning.

Hogwarts Legacy already treats exploration like a pilgrimage. Once I leave Hogsmeade, the game becomes less about attending classes and more about reading the land. In Soulslikes, that reading is deepened by messages left by other players. They are bread crumbs left by invisible travelers, sometimes cryptic, often funny, occasionally the only reason I do not walk into a boss arena poisoned or unprepared. I have missed entire interactions in FromSoftware games because I ignored those messages. In Dark Souls 2's Earthen Peak, a message hinted that burning the windmill would drain Mytha's boss arena of poison. Without that ghostly note, I might have fought her in a green haze for hours.

A Hogwarts Legacy sequel could mirror that without breaking its fiction. Messages could appear as enchanted parchment pinned to trees or as Nearly Headless Nick-style whispers near boundaries. More importantly, the sequel should let players summon allies. Right now, Hogwarts Legacy is a cauldron missing its last ingredient when I face a troll or a Pensieve protector and realize I must always do it alone. The single-player decision made sense for the original, but the sequel could take Floo Flame—the game's established fast travel system—and turn Floo powder into a summoning resource. Each major boss arena could include a fireplace. I toss in a pinch of powder, the flames turn green, and a fellow witch or wizard steps through to fight beside me.

This is not a new idea. FromSoftware has built decades of goodwill on the tension between lone exploration and optional cooperation. NPC summons in those games sometimes depend on earlier conversations or quest progress, while player summons can be resource-intensive or illogical. Floo powder already solves the logic problem in the Wizarding World. It is familiar, finite enough to matter, and deeply tied to travel. If Avalanche wants immersion, this is the cleanest bridge between the Harry Potter fantasy and Soulslike mechanics.

I would also argue that summoning could quietly satisfy the multiplayer hunger. When Hogwarts Legacy was confirmed single-player, many players felt the school could have supported online play. Individual summoning for boss fights—like FromSoftware's co-op signs—would not demand a fully persistent online world. It could give me a taste of companionship without turning the Room of Requirement into a lobby simulator. Perhaps limited co-op could extend into the castle before a boss: two students racing through moving staircases, sharing a few minutes of chaotic exploration, then parting at the boss fog.

There is a fair criticism of summons in Soulslikes: they sometimes scale bosses upward, making the fight harder for players who just wanted a breather. Lies of P's NPC Specter summons avoided this by not scaling bosses, which actually made fights easier. A Hogwarts Legacy sequel could follow that gentler path. Summoning Poppy, Sebastian, or a custom house classmate could draw aggro without inflating the boss's health, letting me learn attack patterns and survive long enough to see the second phase.

To make the idea concrete:

• 🔥 Floo Powder as a summon currency at boss fireplaces.

• 🧙 NPC summons from classmates with no boss scaling, similar to Lies of P's Specters.

• 🚪 Optional short co-op inside the castle before a boss, not a persistent online world.

As I imagine the sequel's map, I keep picturing green fireplaces scattered like checkpoints at the edges of dangerous glades, ruins, and Forbidden Forest clearings. They would be silent invitations: step through alone, or bring a friend. That choice would make the Highlands feel less like a beautifully decorated hallway and more like a real frontier.

Avalanche has already shown it understands how to build a detailed action-RPG. The original Hogwarts Legacy was a debut open-world game with more mechanical depth than many established franchises. Now, in 2026, with FromSoftware's influence still rippling through open-world action-RPGs, leaning into summoning would make a sequel feel less like a repeat and more like a proper evolution. I do not need the sequel to become a clone of Elden Ring. I only want the option to throw Floo powder into a fireplace and see someone else's green flame answer.