‘Hades II’ is double the ‘Hades,’ for better and worse

The first Hades was Mashable’s choice for the best game of 2020. It blended entrancing roguelike gameplay with gorgeous character art, sharp writing, and a unique form of storytelling that inched forward bit by bit every time you died. It was a huge hit and everyone loved it, so naturally, the prospect of a sequel was incredibly tantalizing.

After spending a few dozen hours or so with the final launch version of Hades II on Nintendo Switch 2, I’m pleased to report that developer Supergiant Games hasn’t lost its touch. This is every bit the sequel you wanted, with a larger scope than the original, more variety, and a whole new set of 2D illustrated Greek gods to thirst over.

However, even as I feverishly enjoyed basically every second I played of Hades II, I couldn’t help but notice that I was never as enthusiastic about it as I was about the 2020 original. While Hades II might technically be better than the first in some key ways, it’s hard to match the sheer novelty of a new, wholly original creation from Supergiant, one of my favorite developers.

Hades II builds on the original in smart ways

As with the first Hades, the sequel spent a good amount of time in Early Access on PC. That means most of its new tricks were gradually revealed over the course of the last year and a half or so, which certainly dampened the surprises to some degree as I played it. Still, if you haven’t followed along with the pre-release build of the game, there’s a lot of new stuff to chew on here.

Most of the first game’s mainstays, including the protagonist Zagreus, are nowhere to be found, as the titan Chronos has somehow resurrected himself and put them all in time prison. This time, you step into the boots of Melinoë, a previously unknown daughter of Hades and Zag’s little sister, as she fights through both the underworld and the surface above to save her family and restore order.

On a moment-to-moment basis, this is still Hades, through and through. You’ll spend most of your time dying at some point in a randomly generated journey to defeat Chronos, but there will almost always be something new to unlock or some new dialogue to experience with one of the many excellent characters back at your home base before the next attempt to take down the titan. There’s an expansive suite of new weapons, new forms for said weapons, keepsakes with passive effects, and other upgrades for Melinoë to gradually collect throughout her quest, and unlocking all of them is still just as addictive as it was last time.

Melinoë also plays fairly differently from Zagreus, which is one of the better things about Hades II. She was trained in the ways of ancient Greek witchcraft, so combat is now reliant on managing a magic meter that can do a lot of different things.

By default, Melinoë can set down a binding circle that traps enemies within it for a few seconds, making her adept at crowd control in a way Zagreus wasn’t until he got a few upgrades under his belt. Combat encounters are often built with this in mind, and it’s just a tremendously fun thing to do to a group of unsuspecting satyrs. Naturally, boons from various gods can modify her magic spells in dozens of different ways. Adding an extra layer of meter management onto the gameplay of Hades was a smart move that definitely pays off here.

By far the biggest structural change to Hades II is that there are now two separate routes for Melinoë to take, each with its own set of levels, boss fights, and hidden areas to discover. One goes down to the house of Hades, while the other goes up to the surface world, ending at the summit of Mount Olympus. That means there’s effectively twice as much game here as there was last time, and the added variety is hugely important to keeping Hades II fun for long stretches of time.

Credit: Supergiant

Several of the new zones in Hades II also have much more interesting things going on than the simple “enter room, defeat enemies, collect prize, go onto next room” routine of the first game. I’ll let you discover those for yourself, but to put it simply, it makes each run feel substantially more distinct from the last.

Hades II‘s narrative is also something that’s best seen for yourself, but if you liked the character work and writing from the first game, you’ll feel right at home here. Melinoë is a great protagonist who is a little less brash and impulsive than her older brother, and her relationships with figures from Greek mythology like Hecate, Nemesis, and Eris evolve over the course of the game in compelling ways. I also still really like the unique workplace atmosphere of the world in Hades, in which existential matters of life, death, and the fabric of time itself are treated with about as much gravity as a jammed office printer.

It’s a really smart way to write characters who don’t have to worry about the limits of mortality the way we do.

But novelty is hard to beat

The art is gorgeous all around.
Credit: Supergiant Games/Nintendo

I don’t really have any substantive criticisms of what Hades II is, but I want to talk a little bit about what it is not.

Every Supergiant game up to this point was wholly unique and original, with no ties to anything else. The progression from the twitchy action RPG Bastion to the melancholy tactics of Transistor and into the distinctive choose-your-own-adventure sports drama of Pyre was fun to follow as a fan of the studio from the very beginning. Every new Supergiant game promised something you hadn’t really seen before, or at least a mix of familiar ingredients you hadn’t seen put together in that way before.

As the studio’s first direct sequel, it was always going to be next-to-impossible for Hades II to have as much inherent novelty to it as its predecessors. I wholeheartedly recommend Hades II to anyone who has even a passing interest in it, but I just can’t do so with quite as much verve as I might for something that was truly new instead. I absolutely respect and appreciate that Supergiant felt compelled to make the first sequel in its portfolio, but I hope its next game is something original.

It’s really a small gripe, though, in the grand scheme of things. This is still Hades, complete with a kick-ass soundtrack courtesy of composer Darren Korb and others, excellent voice acting, and a cast of characters who are sure to fill the pages of various fanfiction websites for years to come. I’m not going to complain about that.

Hades 2 will be officially released on Switch 2 on November 20. You can pre-order it now for $49.99.