Hogwarts Legacy Update Fixed the Wendelin the Weird Painting

This article was first published in May 2023 and was rewritten in October 2026 from Warner Bros. Games’ official patch notes, with the game’s latest developments added at the end.

Most Hogwarts Legacy players would never have noticed that one painting in the castle was not working properly. The fix arrived quietly in the game’s May 2023 update, listed in a single line of Warner Bros. Games’ patch notes:

“Resolved Wendelin the Weird Painting missing VFX”

Hogwarts Legacy patch notes, May 4, 2023

VFX means visual effects. The painting had been missing the effects that bring Hogwarts’ portraits to life, and the update restored them on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC.

Who is Wendelin the Weird?

Wendelin the Weird comes from the Harry Potter books rather than from the game. She appears in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, in a passage from Bathilda Bagshot’s A History of Magic about medieval witch burnings.

Witches and wizards in that era could use a Flame-Freezing Charm to make the fire harmless. As the official Harry Potter website puts it, Wendelin “enjoyed being burnt so much that she allowed herself to be caught no fewer than forty-seven times in various disguises.” Her portrait is one of many small nods to the books that Avalanche Software placed around the castle.

The rest of the May 2023 patch

The painting fix was a small part of a much larger update. The notes listed “more than 500 additional fixes,” and a few changes stood out:

• Arachnophobia Mode: a new accessibility option that changes how spider enemies look and removes many of their sounds.
• Cleaner robes: in the notes’ words, the team “did some laundry after students pointed out that robes looked dirty.” This was a general fix, not one limited to PS5.
• Quest and save fixes: the update resolved a quest lock in “Lodgok’s Helm of Urtkot” and fixed several save-game problems.
• PC upgrades: DLSS was updated to version 3.1.2, and PC players gained DualSense controller support.
• Twitch Drops: support for the Professor Ronen cosmetic set.

The timing mattered. The update landed on May 4, 2023, one day before the delayed PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions launched on May 5. The Nintendo Switch version was later pushed back to November 14, 2023.

Hogwarts Legacy in 2026

Three years after that patch, the game is still selling and is getting a sequel.

• Switch 2 edition: an enhanced version for Nintendo Switch 2 launched on June 5, 2025, with Joy-Con 2 mouse controls and improved graphics, audio, load times and controls, according to Nintendo’s store page.
• Sales: Warner Bros. Games announced in December 2025 that the game had sold more than 40 million copies worldwide.
• A sequel is coming: in its second-quarter 2026 shareholder letter, Warner Bros. Discovery said its games pipeline includes “the second installment of Hogwarts Legacy.” No title, release date or platforms have been announced.

Not every plan survived. In March 2025, Bloomberg reported that an expansion and a Definitive Edition planned for the original game had been cancelled. Neither project had ever been officially announced. Hogwarts Legacy is also among the 26 games named in a Denuvo lawsuit against an unidentified cracker over alleged DRM circumvention.

In a castle full of moving pictures, Wendelin’s portrait was one of the few that sat still. It took one line in a long list of patch notes to bring it back to life, a small example of how much attention the game kept getting after launch.

Featured image: Hogwarts castle’s grand staircase in Hogwarts Legacy. Illustrative image; not the Wendelin the Weird painting. Image: Warner Bros. Games