Release Date
September 17, 2020 More Details
Genre
Action, Roguelite, Indie
Platforms	Price (MSRP)
	$24.99
Developer	Publisher
Supergiant Games	Supergiant Games
Number of Players	Age Rating
1	ESRB T
Time to Finish	Cross Platform
90-100 Hours	No
Official Website	Hades Website

Hades Latest News

　⚫︎　 How Supergiant Games made the hack’n’slash accessible with Hades (Rock Paper Shotgun)
　⚫︎　 Hades Originally Featured Theseus As A Protagonist To Escape The Labyrinth (The Gamer)
　⚫︎　 Unresolved Mysteries & Plot Holes Left Hanging In Hades (Game Rant)
　⚫︎　 Comparing Hades to the Tale of Hades and Persephone (Game Rant)

Hades Overview

Hades (also known as Hades 1 or Hades game) is the 4th title from Supergiant Games. Released in early access back in 2018 and eventually reaching version 1.0 in 2020. The title continues the studio’s lineage of story-driven action roguelites, wherein this game bears a Greek Mythology-inspired narrative that stars a lesser-known god, Zagreus.

The game features the titular God of the Dead as he prevents the protagonist, his son Zagreus, from escaping their home to reach the surface world. The two are painted to have a bickering and un-agreeable relationship as continuous conflicts about the Underworld rise between the two. Zagreus, having spent the entirety of his godhood life among the dead, seeks to reach the surface and see the rest of his family, the Olympians. However, Hades forbids this and actively sends his forces to prevent escape, even if it means killing his own son. Zagreus, however, merely wakes back up within the House of Hades whenever he is slain in battle. He uses his constant resurrection as a means to achieve his goal, fighting his way to the surface no matter how many times he has to die.

The game utilizes Zagreus’ constant death and resurrection as a means to implement the roguelite feature. Each time he dies, players must once again start a new attempt to finish or ‘clear’ the game, wherein past rooms, room rewards, and enemies have been renewed and randomized. Hades manages to mix the ‘repetitive’ and random gameplay into the storytelling, where the entire narrative is unraveled after each clear or death.

Steam			Epic
PlayStation		Xbox		Switch
Price		$24.99

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Hades Gameplay

Hades is an action roguelite where players go through randomly-sequenced rooms full of enemies. Defeating them all will grant them that room’s reward and allow them to proceed to the next room to repeat the same process, eventually reaching the end of a region to face its boss. Players are given the choice to choose between a handful of rooms with their rewards shown, giving players a chance to pick and choose their set of skills, currency, and/or resources to make them stronger. The most sought-out room rewards are the Olympic Boons– powers granted to Zagreus by his Olympic family above. They are able to enhance or wholly change how his attacks and actions work, transforming his playstyle from weapon to weapon, and from boon to boon. Players are able to choose between a select set of boons from the acquired rewards, allowing them to experiment with different powers for different scenarios.

Before starting any attempts, Zagreus can choose between a wide variety of six weapons, each with four different ‘Aspects’ that enhance or change their playstyles. Mixing and matching the different weapons, weapon aspects, and numerous God boons make way for countless number of ways players are able to try with combinations. This makes way for a deep and complex gameplay design of constant experimentation that allows players to eventually form their own favorite builds and playstyles.

Hades Reviews

Godlike Reception From All

Hades received critical acclaim upon its full release, praised for its highly-addicting gameplay loop and its substantial amount of gameplay content. IGN gave it an ‘Amazing’ at 9/10, where it highlights how the game brilliantly marries the action-packed gameplay, roguelite elements, and vivid storytelling of their take of the Greek Mythos surrounding the God of the Dead. GameSpot gives it a ‘Superb’ at 9/10, where they attribute how it stands out among other roguelites due to its intertwined story and gameplay. Eurogamer also praises the game’s polish, and points out how Hades is a culmination of Supergiant Games’ learnings from their previous titles. Polygon admits that they themselves are unable to say anything negative about the game, and has calmed them where other games have been unable to.

General fan reception is also highly positive, garnering an aggregated critic rating of 93/100 and a user rating of 8.6/10 on Metacritic. Many users cite the energetically amazing soundtrack the game boasts as well as the seemingly endless time they can sink into the game as strengths. It also holds an Overwhelmingly Positive rating on both Recent and All Time Reviews on Steam, where the majority claim it to be the best roguelite ever made, due to its art, gameplay, soundtrack, story, and amount of content being all exceptional.

Hades Announcement Trailer

Early Access Announcement Trailer

The early access trailer was revealed during the Game Awards 2018. It features work-in-progress gameplay footage of the title as well as the premise of Zagreus defying his father, the God of the Dead, to escape the underworld. The trailer ends with the reveal that it was then available to immediately download and play in early access.

Hades Trivia

　⚫︎　Hades is Supergiant Games’ 4th title for the studio
　⚫︎　It was the first time they studio had decided to go for an early access model of releasing an unfinished game early to be developed over-time with fan feedback.
　⚫︎　Hades’s entire development, from early access release to full release, was filmed in documentary on YouTube by video game documentary channel NoClip.
　⚫︎　The game combines, hints, and references various different versions of Greek Mythology to create its own canon.
　⚫︎　The game features 8 of the 12 major Olympians, where the notable omissions are Hera, Hestia, Apollo, and Hephaestus.
　⚫︎　The developers noted that the protagonist, Zagreus, did not have much lore behind Greek mythology anywhere, and this allowed them to give him their own version of his personality.

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Clark Jason Kong

Growing up playing all sorts of games, they love playing a little bit of everything, all of the time. Favorites include Counter-Strike, Life is Strange, Final Fantasy, Spiritfarer, and Devil May Cry.