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Hogwarts Legacy is full of secrets and puzzles, but among them, the Hogwarts Legacy animal puzzle doors dotted around the wizarding school are a genuine head-scratcher. How exactly do the puzzles work? What do the symbols mean? And how do you get to the riches concealed behind these stubborn symbol doors?
In this guide, we’ll explain how the animal puzzle doors work in Hogwarts Legacy and how to solve them to access the loot hidden behind them. If you’re gunning for 100% completion or eager to hoover up collectibles like chests and Hogwarts Legacy demiguise statues, getting to grips with how these mysterious doors work will make things a lot easier.
Finding the Arithmancy Study Guide Page location
While you can conceivably figure out how the animal puzzle doors work with sheer determination and patience, Hogwarts Legacy includes a major clue to help you.
Fast travel to the Divination Classroom Floo Flame in The Library Annex portion of Hogwarts. Take a left into the room with the wooden rafters and follow the path until you can take a right. Follow the path until you find one of the animal puzzle doors.
In a chest opposite the animal symbol door is a parchment you can pick up called the Arithmancy Study Guide Page. The description reads: ‘A page torn from an Arithmancy study guide that contains a list of numbers assigned to various magical beasts.’
Open up the document, and you’ll see that a roster of beats and animals assigned a specific number. If you look closely, the animals are the same as those found on the doors and key to solving each puzzle. Here’s a list of the beasts and their corresponding numbers. Note that some beasts aren’t easily described, so bear with us when reading through the names given to each. We’ve tried to keep things simple, and free of any ambiguity.
- Owl – 0
- Unicorn – 1
- Horned Beast -2
- Three-headed Serpent – 3
- Second Owl – 4
- Four-legged Beast – 5
- Salamander – 6
- Tentacled-Beast – 7
- Spider – 8
- Multi-Headed Serpent/Hydra Beast – 9
How to unlock animal puzzle doors in Hogwarts Legacy
Each animal puzzle door has triangle diagrams (usually two) featuring several animal symbols, a set of numbers, and question marks. The key to opening the Hogwarts Legacy animal doors is to add up the three symbols on the extremities of each triangle to get the number in the middle. Let’s look at an example using the top triangle in the image above.
We are aiming to get a total of 9, as represented by the 9 in the middle of the triangle. We know there’s a 2 from the number 2 on the left. Using the Arithmancy parchment, we know that the Three-Headed Serpent’s number is 3. So, 2+3 = 5. We need a symbol corresponding to the number 4 to get 2+3+4 = 9, which is the Second Owl according to the parchment.
Next to each puzzle, you’ll find dials you can interact with to change the symbol. Here, we’ll use the one to the left of the door and turn it to the Second Owl.
Now, let’s solve the second triangle on the animal puzzle door. We need a total of 4, and we already have a 0 and a 1 on two extremities of the triangle, meaning we need the symbol for 3 – the Three-Headed Serpent. Change the dial on the right accordingly. Head back to the door, and you’ll now be able to open it. Inside, you’ll usually find a collection chest and other loot.
That covers how to solve the animal symbol puzzle doors in Hogwarts Legacy. The process above applies to all of them you’ll come across throughout Hogwarts. For more help exploring Hogwarts, check out how to climb the battlements, how to open eyeball chests, how to transmog, the Ghost of our Love treasure location, and the Hogwarts Demiguise Statue locations.