Hades II

In September 2024, US indie studio Supergiant Games celebrated its 15th anniversary. It all began in 2011 with their action RPG Bastion, which set new standards in style, storytelling and gameplay. This was followed in 2014 by Transistor, a sci-fi action RPG with a choice of real-time or turn-based combat. Pyre (2017), also an action RPG, introduced sports elements to the game, but fell short of Bastion and Transistor. Hades, which entered Early Access at the end of December 2018 and was released as a full version in September 2020, was the studio's biggest success to date, as both its interpretation of Greek mythology and its superbly playable combat made it one of the best roguelike action RPGs of all time - accompanied by amazing music by Darren Korb and excellent voice acting. At The Game Awards 2022, the studio announced Hades II. It's their first sequel ever, because they saw a lot of potential in their interpretation of Greek mythology: new stories, more characters. Their aim was to deliver a meaningful expansion, not just a new coat of paint for Hades I, especially as the second game has been in development since early 2021.

In September 2024, US indie studio Supergiant Games celebrated its 15th anniversary. It all began in 2011 with their action RPG Bastion, which set new standards in style, storytelling and gameplay. This was followed in 2014 by Transistor, a sci-fi action RPG with a choice of real-time or turn-based combat. Pyre (2017), also an action RPG, introduced sports elements to the game, but fell short of Bastion and Transistor. Hades, which entered Early Access at the end of December 2018 and was released as a full version in September 2020, was the studio's biggest success to date, as both its interpretation of Greek mythology and its superbly playable combat made it one of the best roguelike action RPGs of all time - accompanied by amazing music by Darren Korb and excellent voice acting. At The Game Awards 2022, the studio announced Hades II. It's their first sequel ever, because they saw a lot of potential in their interpretation of Greek mythology: new stories, more characters. Their aim was to deliver a meaningful expansion, not just a new coat of paint for Hades I, especially as the second game has been in development since early 2021.

Needless to say, Hades II is a rogue-like dungeon crawler, or fast-paced action role-playing game, played from an isometric perspective. In the first game, players controlled Zagreus, the son of Hades, as he attempted to escape the underworld and reach Mount Olympus. This time, players take control of Melinoë, Princess of the Underworld and sister of Zagreus. With the help of other Olympian gods, she must defeat Chronos, the Titan of Time. Chronos, the Titan of Time and the evil father of Hades and his brothers, has escaped his imprisonment in the depths of the Underworld to wage war on Olympus. So the game is once again rooted in the underworld of Greek mythology, but this time with links to the dawn of witchcraft.

The game is rogue-like, with constant failure and growth in strength, and the story unfolds as in the prequel, carried by distinctive characters, often with strong voice-overs and gripping dialogue. There are many familiar characters such as Hades, Zeus, Hermes, Artemis and Dionysus, but also newcomers such as Hecate, Nemesis, Odysseus, Prometheus, Arachne and Narcissus, with whom Melinoë can interact, deepening the story. And Melinoë gets stronger during and after each run, thanks to a variety of permanent upgrades and the return of God Mode (increasing damage reduction after each defeat), which makes the game much more accessible.

Once again, Mel(inoë) fights her way through rooms full of enemies in gripping real-time battles and can choose one of several exits at the end. What's new, however, is that players can choose between two paths right from the start - from Erebus to Tartarus (Underworld Path) or from Ephyra to Mount Olympus (Surface Path), each with different environments, enemies and surprises. Also new from the first game is the ability to upgrade weapons with ancient magick, while various boons (blessings) from the gods can completely change combat options over and over again. Speaking of combat, it doesn't get much better than this. The combat is to the point, precise, powerful and excellently paced, even if Melinoë initially seems a little more fragile than Zagreus. She is agile and has magic at her disposal, including a magic bar for charged attacks and a banishing spell to immobilise enemies. There are six different weapons to master, each with a different play style. And as the underworld changes again and again, Hades II has a high replay value.

The Crossroads, a place between the Underworld and the surface, is the main hub of the game, similar to the House of Hades. Here you can interact with other characters, upgrade and decorate this location in a variety of ways, tame witchy familiars, cultivate a garden with resources gathered on the run, and much more. The Crossroads is a tranquil counterpoint to the challenging, fast-paced combat. And yes, stylistically and musically, Hades II is great too.

Hades II was released in Early Access on Steam and the Epic Games Store on 6 May 2024 with little fanfare or notice. It just happened. On Steam alone, the game broke the 100,000 concurrent player mark at launch. Supergiant Games had only conducted a technical test in mid to late April, and then the release followed surprisingly quickly. It was so prompt, in fact, that Evil Empire moved the planned release of The Rogue Prince of Persia from mid-May to the end of May to avoid Hades II - something the French team communicated unusually openly.

Even in its Early Access release, Hades II was in incredible shape. The game was already bigger than its predecessor (more environments, characters, enemies), came with fully voiced characters, and was surprisingly bug-free and polished compared to other Early Access releases, although there were still visible placeholders here and there - but you won't see the story ending until version 1.0. It also played very well on the Steam Deck. With the first updates, the team addressed players' biggest criticisms. Sprinting (instead of the double dash of Zagreus) and turning have become more responsive and faster, dashing out of many attack recovery animations has become more reliable, and it is possible to mine any resource in any location, provided you have unlocked the appropriate gathering tool. Before this patch, you could only mine a resource if you had the right tool for it. This was too restrictive.Players can now also control which resources appear more frequently.Other patches followed, bringing weapon balance, Olympian Boons, more Cauldron incantations, and new UI icons.

Since the fourth patch was released in July, the team has been focusing on the first major content update, which was released in October. It introduced a third region and a guardian to the Surface Route, the game's sixth and final main weapon, and iterated on a number of key systems (new characters, crossroads decorations, animal familiars, etc.). Logan Cunningham, actor and VO at Supergiant Games (Hades, Pyre, Transistor, Bastion), has once again dramatically read the patch notes in a nearly 26-minute video.

The next major update is due in early 2025, and will expand on various parts of the game, including the story. But this won't be the last update on the way to version 1.0 and the conclusion of the story. The developers have not yet announced a date for the final update and console release. "As we move forward, we intend to keep making additions, changes, and improvements in an effort to create the biggest, most replayable, most feature-rich game we've made yet, and — most importantly - a worthy successor to the original Hades," the developers said.

Conclusion

Supergiant Games has delivered again. And how! Hades II is a fantastically playable action-RPG or rogue-like dungeon crawler with memorable characters, engaging combat, high replay value, fantastic artwork and a great soundtrack. And it's hard to believe, but the game is getting even better thanks to Early Access!

Features

• Exceptionally smooth and precise gameplay
• Beautifully designed audio-visual experience
• Very high replay value