Rising studio Supergiant Games’ next epic arrives in Hades. Following Greek mythology, you play as the son of Underworld God Hades who’s attempting to escape his eternal home to live a life free from his father’s rules. And he’s willing to die over, and over, and over again to accomplish this goal.

Hades is a 2020 action-RPG it is developed & published by Supergiant Games and is available on PC and Nintendo Switch.

Editor’s Note: Near complete to complete spoilers for Hades may be present within this review. This game was reviewed on Nintendo Switch.

Zagreus son of Hades wants to escape from his father’s clutches.

In surprise to no one Supergiant Games has another hit on their hands with Hades. Hades has you crawling across chambers and creating a near infinite number of builds for Zagreus to battle his way across the Underworld for his attempted escape. The level of creativity and freedom given to players is so vast that it’s almost 100% limited to their own imaginations. And it’s well worth exploring every weapon, buff, and special effect to find the best build that works for you to reach the end game.

Hades provides Zagreus with near unlimited power to escape his home.

THE GOOD: Hades is roguelike action-RPG taking place within one of my favorite mythologies Ancient Greece. Full of Gods, Goddesses, and a plethora of supernatural beings there’s always plenty to work with creatively from this lore. Even with the limited amount of the source used by Supergiant they still somehow manage to make Hades’ world seem like a massive one full of a large array of creatures and characters to flesh it out. This story follows son of Hades; Zagreus who is attempting to escape. Though those trapped in Hades have long been proved to be permanently stuck there, God of the Underworld Hades himself doesn’t need it as an excuse to ensure that his son remains there. Hades doesn’t do this out of spite, even with his down talking and judgmental tone towards his son. This is actually due to a number of crucial factors involving Hades, Zagreus, and his mother. With Hades’ brother Zeus and the other Gods coming off as the main antagonist more so than Hades who really only wants to protect Zagreus at the end of the day. I really don’t want to spoil the story like I normally do in my reviews because it’s something that should be experienced by everyone. And Hades isn’t a particularly long game outside of the countless number of deaths you’ll undoubtedly experience. To make a long story short without going too much into detail as is typical with Greek Mythology there’s a conspiracy with Hades, Zagreus’ mother, and the other Gods & it’s the core reason as to why Hades doesn’t want Zagreus to escape.

Hades (now talking about the game) is comparable to Dead Cells whereas both are learning titles and you grow with experience. However, I always felt that Hades was much more literal with it’s “growth from experience” approach than Dead Cells. Hades legit wants you to experience each and every type of build offered from within the game. From close range to long range weaponry and effects such as health regen with dashing, deflecting enemy attacks, damage reduction and way more. You’re gonna want to experiment a ton to create your ultimate ideal build of Zagreus. You can buff just about everything from Zagreus himself, to the enemy filled chambers with benefits such as health regeneration and currency gain, and you can also give your weapons benefits such as enemy seeking missiles for long ranged attacks to quickly dispel them. Something I love about Hades is the fact that basically every character introduced feels important. They each have their own storylines and relationships with Zagreus. They also have their own personal feelings towards his dream of escaping Hades. Half of them want him to make it, while the other half feel betrayed by his efforts. Each character can also be romanced because this is Greek mythology where everyone was literally fucking everyone so it’s true to form.

Feel the power and influence of the Gods in Hades.

As you progress through the game you also unlock side quests related to the many characters you encountered. This is usually linked to your relationship status with them. As Zagreus continues his efforts everyone eventually begins to respect him for continuing to try his escape. You can buy permanent upgrades in your room with darkness, but most of these are acquired by gaining the favor of the Gods and Goddesses. There’s even neat moments where you can kind of pit the other Gods against you as you choose one over another. This usually leads to them attempting to kill you in a gauntlet style event, but if you win you get the God’s power you chose in addition to the one you betrayed.

Relationship building is an extremely important part of Hades.

THE BAD: The worst part of Hades is the fact that it’s short, incredibly so. You can beat it in a matter of hours depending on how overpowered your build for Zagreus is.

Experience death over and over again all while getting stronger because of it.

OVERALL THOUGHTS: As expected Supergiant Games’ next epic Hades hits the quality we’ve come to know with the studio. Hades is not only exploration into Greek mythology, but exploration into all the game has to offer. Full of characters to bond & form relationships with, weapon builds, buffs, and several other aspects to get the absolute most out of the action-RPG title. It’s a real shame that Hades’ greatest caveat is the fact that it has an extremely limited playthrough time. However, at it’s current price point of the main negative is a five or so plus hour run time which you won’t even get remotely close until having suffered a countless number of deaths then there’s really no reason not to pick this one up, especially on the Nintendo Switch.