The act of gaming is mostly predicated on repetition. Running, jumping, punching — even just passively engaging in conversation — it’s all part of a core loop that players will lock into with muscle memory. With 2020’s roguelike Hades, Supergiant Games mastered the hypnotic allure of the live-die-repeat cycle by making every attempt have meaning. As the son of Hades relentlessly striving to escape from the underworld, failure sends players back to the start; but never empty-handed. Whether it’s gleaning the holes in a particular tactic or opening a new dialogue option with an NPC, there’s always a reward for just trying.
Largely touted as one of the best games ever made, Hades has inspired many imitators, many of which only superficially comprehend the special alchemy of design elements that makes the indie actioner so effective. It’s not just airtight gameplay that encourages experimentation and creative thinking or a richly crafted world filled with vibrant characters, all of which you’ll want to dissect for hours on end. It’s not even the moody visuals, hauntingly folksy score, or the ASMR-inducing voicework from the cast. It’s all those small pieces combined and how they weave together to provide an endlessly rewarding experience.
In many ways, Hades II feels like a reward in itself for audiences who sunk hundreds of hours into the first game, cementing its cult status with art, cosplay, and fanfic. Supergiant’s first-ever sequel is a celebration of its predecessor, a cornucopia of additions, evolutions, and maximalist fan service that still manages to tell its own worthy story — and plenty of it.
Yet compared to the original, there’s almost too much going on in Hades II. Everything from the abilities and systems to learn, the sprawling pantheon of characters and plot threads, and the basic length of the campaign is nearly doubled in scope. While the first game trafficked in elegant neatness, Hades II is practically bursting at the seams with excess. It can be messy, but by the gods, what a beautiful mess it is.
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Just killing time
Set some time after the events of the first game, Hades II picks up with the Greek Underworld once again in disarray. Previously, the story followed Zagreus, the painfully cool son of Hades who spent his days making a break for the surface world to escape the overbearing grip of his father. Aided by his extended family of Olympic gods and the Fates themselves, Zag ultimately escapes, finding his long-lost mother Persephone and reuniting his kin in the process. He even makes an old softy out of Hades.
Following the first game, Hades’ happy family is torn apart.
Supergiant Games
But the revelry is short-lived. The titan Chronos, patriarch to all the gods, returns to get revenge for his imprisonment at the hands of his children, taking control of Tartarus and simultaneously waging war on the mortal world via Mount Olympus. Hades, Persephone, and Zagreus are nowhere to be found. Fortunately, there’s hope in the form of the player character, Melinoë — the daughter of Hades who was born shortly after the events of the first game and was hidden from her grandfather’s reach by titaness and witch Hecate. Now, Melinoë’s tasked with defeating embodiment of time itself.
If that sounds like tons of lore, it is. Despite having a relatively straightforward main plot, the first Hades excelled at grafting deep backstories and layered personalities to each of its many characters that fleshed out Greek mythology. The sequel doesn’t necessarily demand familiarity with that tome-like history, but by ratcheting up the number of characters and threads to pull, it builds heavily on that foundation in ways that often make prior knowledge feel critical.
The story here is broken into two main paths. The first and primary one is the four-region excursion from the protected sanctuary of the Crossroads down to Tartarus (the home of Hades) to defeat Chronos — essentially the inverse of the first game. The secondary route is a battle upward from the city of Ephyra to Mount Olympus to learn who is aiding Chronos in his siege of the mortal realm and quell it.
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Hades II brings players from the depths of Tartarus to the peaks of Olympus.
Supergiant Games
Individually, each of these paths is essentially an entire Hades game. Both are broken into regions roughly the size of the old ones, filled with procedurally generated enemies and random-chance encounters with important NPCs. Players can only choose one at a time, and dying will send them back to the Crossroads to regroup and try again. Back at the hub, players can spend their (many) different acquired resources to concoct different incantations that change the nature of the world in their favor, unlock permanent upgrades and new weapons or tools, and spend lots of time chatting with the various mythological figures to deepen their bonds.
The resource bit is where many players’ eyes might glaze over — there’s just so damned much to collect and spend. There’s bones, ashes, psyche, fate fabric, and moon dust that can all be spent on improving different gameplay systems with permanent upgrades. Then, there’s easily a dozen or more items like plants, minerals, and literal trash that can be found on runs, mined from beating bosses, or farmed in the Crossroads. Then, there’s exotic goods, which are little gifts which must be selectively (and repeatedly) offered to all the supporting cast individually to forge relationships (and even romance a few).
Versions of these resources existed in the first game but were much simpler. Back then, there were two key expendables and two gifts to offer up; now this system is practically a crafting and management sim all on its own.
Weapons, aspects, trinkets, and more all require tons of resource gathering.
Supergiant Games
Weapons, too, each have their own upgrades requiring resource investment. There are six different armaments that be unlocked, ranging from a staff, axe, and dual blades to explosive skulls and a straight up mini-mech suit. Each of these also has three variants that play differently and can individually be leveled up multiple times. On top of weapons, there are tools which (you guessed it) have upgrades to help gather resources more efficiently. There’s also an entire case of 33 trinkets to find and wear that impact each run, and a full menagerie of animal familiars to befriend who can follow players around and assist in battle.
It’s a lot. The quest to topple Chronos will require a lot of time killing, literally and figuratively. But is it worth the investment? Beyond a shadow of doubt, yes.
God-tier gaming
Despite the sheer amount of shit Hades II throws at the player, almost every bit offers tangible rewards in both gameplay and storytelling. The hook of the action is in using the randomization of each run (or bending it using many of the items) to essentially deck build a superpowered ass-kicker of a heroine on the fly each time.
After clearing out each chamber of enemies, players are met with an offering that often leads to a choice. If it’s a boon from the gods, a small dialogue will play out wherein Melinoë speaks with family and friends like Zeus, Hera, and Artemis, before choosing one of three abilities tied to their powers. Given the right series of chances, players could potentially construct a build that blasts thunder and chains together static strikes that will cripple entire rooms of foes at once. Or they can mix it up, using Demeter’s chill to freeze enemies in place just by running circles around them before executing them with an empowered critical strike bestowed by Hephaestus.
Gods old and new appear to offer boons and endearing conversation.
Supergiant Games
The combinations are seemingly endless. By the end of a run, players could have as many as 15 boons which, on top of temporary weapon upgrades, blessings from Moon, familiars, and more, creates a dizzying amount of customization that’s almost impossible to intentionally recreate verbatim on the regular.
Moment-to-moment, there’s almost no action game of this kind that can compete with either Hades title. Character animations are slick, but reliable in their control and inertia — rarely leading to flubs caused by anything other than player error. By the time you’ve mastered the art of kicking Chronos’ ass, it’ll become second nature to blast through a room of blindly fast explosions of color and light with pixel-perfect accuracy. But to be fair, it can be intimidating to get to that level.
As with everything else, combat adds layers upon layers of new wrinkles to Melinoë’s arsenal. There’re regular attacks, specials, and casts — all of which can be tapped or held to a different effect and are unique to each weapon. Even dashing, then sprinting, can be weaponized with the right boons, meaning that there’s roughly 10 to 12 ways to cause damage at any given moment (or at the same time!).
But while the combat is front and center, it’s often just the icing on the cake. Hades II shines as an action game not only because it feels incredible to play, but because its high-octane moments come in intervals between genuinely delightful storytelling.
The world is beautiful, and interim moments of solace encourage admiration.
Supergiant Games
The first game famously took thirst-trap renditions of the Greek pantheon and imbued each figure with an insane amount of charm. Throughout many revealing conversations, the braggadocious zeal of Poseidon and Zeus, the sexy aloofness of Aphrodite and Dionysus, and the sniveling bitchery of Hermes and Hypnos were endearing, but all gave way to flawed people who grew deeply over time.
Hades II does all that and more, although there’s some spirit that feels lost in the grandiosity of its ambitious story. Most of the existing gods return, albeit scarred by the trauma they’ve endured. Previously, during a time of peace, the gods were content to cause mischief and aid Zagreus in his plan to fuck with his father — it was all in good fun for a bunch of bored immortals. Here, the situation has changed, leaving many of the gods either hardened or embittered by the conflict. Some are sidelined, serving their role in the distant conflict on Olympus, while others are missing in action. It’s here where the game’s lengthy runtime is a benefit; dozens of hours in there are still new and returning characters to find tucked away in a chamber waiting to be unearthed.
There’s an argument to made that Hades II is missing some of the whimsy of the original. As storytellers, Supergiant have defined their own personal tone that pervades their body work, stretching from games like Bastion to Pyre. Visually, their style is patented, punctuated by lush character illustrations and hybridized 2D and 3D worldbuilding that others try to imitate (and mostly fail). But it’s the tone of each game that blends fantasy folklore with melancholy characters and events that is a throughline between games.
Hades‘ worldbuilding is first class, imbuing each mythic figure with rich personality.
Supergiant Games
Hades became their magnum opus by adding just a dash of playfulness that borders on being twee. Their identity has become distinct, vaguely comparable to the work of film directors Wes Anderson or Noah Baumbach in how they deftly balance outsized characters and situations with a saccharine veneer. If you played just one of their games, you’d easily be able to point out another just on sight alone.
Early access excess
It’s almost strange to think of Hades II as a new release given that, technically, it’s been playable in some form for well over a year. Like its predecessor, Hades II initially launched as a paid early access title, meaning that a work-in-progress version with incomplete features and designs has been available to audiences for some time. That pre-release access allowed the developers to perpetually update and fine tune the game, all the while spooling out new content that would ultimately constitute this final 1.0 launch version.
It’s hard to say if that almost 18-month runway actually informed the game’s excessive scope. Certainly, the endless stream of player feedback allowed Supergiant to hone in on razor-sharp gameplay that satisfied existing players. But in some ways, it almost feels like it’s a game that was designed specifically for that doled-out model. As a package, it absolutely feels complete, but there’s so much here that it’d easily be more digestible to someone who spent their weeks tracking the additions and revisions in real time, the way fans of live-service games like Fortnite do seasonally.
The action is tough but encourages experimentation and rewards that keep it endlessly fresh.
Supergiant Games
To put it into perspective, the structure of Hades II necessitates that players conquer both routes of its story, and multiple times at that to reach the true ending. It practically feels like two full sequels merged into one, with a cast of characters so large it practically encompasses all of those introduced throughout the entirety of the similarly Greek mythology-themed God of War trilogy.
The primary path feels like a straightforward sequel to the first game, while the surface world is different in ways that feel like it might as well have been Hades III. While the enemies and level design, as well as the progression of the descending route is a clear inversion and iteration of the original, the second half of the game feels downright experimental. Its music is both jazzier and more operatic; the flow and technical blueprint of each stage completely deviate from what’s been seen before. It’s like the bulk of Supergiant’s new ideas went into this portion, and much of what’s on display is totally different from even the start of the early access period — whereas the other route feels like it arrived nearly complete back in May 2024.
That’s not necessarily a criticism, but more of an observation that with the plethora of things Hades II does across its many different parts and systems, it feels fairly definitive. By going for broke this time, Supergiant has delivered a sequel so all-encompassing that it’d be hard to even imagine where the series could go from here — if it goes anywhere at all.
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But that’s a good problem to have. Despite being less tightly curated and neatly packaged as the first game, Hades II is an absolute masterstroke. While other long-brewing indie sequels like the recent Hollow Knight: Silksong suffer by being compared to their predecessor, Hades II relishes it. It’s everything you’d want from Hades, and then some (and some more!). Best to just give in, dandily living in the game’s excesses; we’re being treated like gods here, left to want for nothing more.
Hades II is out now for Nintendo Switch, Switch 2, and PC.
