During the early days of promotion, very little was revealed about the HUD for the game. The March 2022 gameplay reveal video contained some Playstation button prompts and there were some details in the AutoDesk presentation, but it wasn't until November 11, 2022 when we had an official reveal of the game's GUI during the HUD reveal video. Here is a breakdown of what you'll see on screen during gameplay:
Mini-map
Like all open-world games, Hogwarts Legacy includes a mini-map in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen for player orientation. During the HUD reveal video, the creative director at Avalanche specifically stated that the mini-map could be turned off if users prefer. The map that we saw on that date included a ton of icons. Included among those icons were chest locations, which we know are only visible if a user consumes a liquid luck potion. No further information was provided about the icons or the mini-map functionality.
Ancient Magic Bar
Unlike all the other NPCs in the game, the user has access to "ancient magic". These anicent magic spells come in several varieties. In order to cast an ancient magic spell, a user must build up a charge by striking or defeating enemies in combat with regular spells. Defeated enemies may drop small blue orbs that, when collected, dramatically increase the charge of the ancient magic bar. The bar can hold more than one charge when upgraded. When a user casts an ancient magic spell, the bar depletes by one charge.
Health Bar
A post on January 8th, 2023 included multiple shots of the main character using the spell "Accio". Close inspection of those animations revealed that the health bar in one of the shots was significantly shorter than in the other, meaning that one of the variables that can be upgraded in the game is "MAX Health Points", thereby increasing the physical length of the health bar. As expected, taking damage causes the health bar to go down and healing via potion causes the health bar to go up.
Spell Diamond
The HUD reveal introduced us to the mechanic by which multiple spells can be managed--the "spell diamond". There are actually four spell diamonds in total that can be unlocked during the course of the game. Those spell diamonds hold the various spell icons and each of the four icons within the diamond maps to one of the buttons on a Playstation or XBox controller.
Equipped Tool
There is a tool wheel hidden during regular gameplay that can be accessed in order to select one of the many tools available in the game. Once the tool is selected, its icon is loaded into the "equipped tool" slot--which is mapped to one of the keys on your keyboard or controller. Pressing that mapped key will activate the selected tool (potions, mandrakes, etc.).