Hades is a 2020 roguelike action role-playing game developed and published by Supergiant Games. It was released for macOS, Nintendo Switch, and Windows on September 17, 2020, following an early access release in December 2018. It was later released for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S in August 2021, and was released for iOS in March 2024 through Netflix Games.
Players control Zagreus, the son of Hades, in his many attempts to escape from the Underworld and find his mother, Persephone. Aided by boons the Olympians bestow on him, he battles through a random series of rooms populated with enemies and bosses at the end of each section. The game features a hack and slash combat system; the player uses a combination of a main weapon attack, a special attack, a dash ability, and a magic ability to defeat enemies while avoiding damage to progress as far as possible. While Zagreus will often die, he can use the treasure gained during these failed runs to improve certain attributes or unlock new weapons and abilities to increase the chance of escaping on subsequent runs.
Hades was developed following Supergiant's Pyre, in which they wanted to explore procedural narrative storytelling. However, due to the nature of the gameplay, they found that players did not play through it multiple times to explore this. The roguelike structure of Hades allowed them to tell these branching stories to the player over the course of multiple playthroughs.
Hades has been cited among the greatest video games of all time, with critics praising its narrative, gameplay, art style, music, and voice acting. It sold more than one million copies and was named game of the year by several award ceremonies and media publications. A sequel, Hades II, was released in early access in 2024, and had its full release in 2025.
Gameplay
The player controls Zagreus, the prince of the Underworld, who seeks to escape the realm to get away from his unloving father Hades and reach his mother Persephone in the mortal world. Along his quest, the other Olympians support him, granting him gifts called Boons to help him fight the beings that guard the exit to the Underworld. He is also aided by notorious residents of the Underworld, such as Sisyphus, Eurydice, and Patroclus. The game world is divided between four main dungeons; Tartarus, Asphodel, Elysium, and the Temple of Styx, each representing one of the regions of the Underworld, with each new region being unlocked upon clearing the previous.
The game is presented in an isometric view, with the player controlling Zagreus. The player starts a run by fighting through several rooms drawn from a pool of pre-determined layouts, with the order they appear in and the enemies that appear being randomized. The game features a hack and slash combat system.
The player has a primary attack and a secondary "special" attack depending on their pre-determined weapon of choice, a magic "cast" that can be used from a distance, a dash that provides momentary intangibility and mobility, allowing the player to phase through thin enough walls and gaps, and can deal damage when combined with an attack or Boon, and a summon attack that can call upon the power of one of the Gods. Throughout a run, the Olympians will provide Boons, each of which provides a choice of three persistent boosts and effects for that run that the player can select from. The Boons are themed based on the Olympian; for example, Zeus's Boons provide lightning damage effects and Poseidon's provide push-back wave effects.
The player moves through rooms to gradually ascend through the Underworld; after clearing a room, the player is given the room's rewards, allowing them to grow stronger or recover lost health points. However, if Zagreus' health points drop to zero while he has no "death defiance" tokens left, he is defeated and taken by the river Styx back to the House of Hades, which effectively acts as the game's overworld between attempts. Hades features a combination of roguelike and dungeon-crawler elements, where obols and certain types of upgrades are lost upon death and must be collected anew each time, while other types of currency can be used at the House to purchase permanent upgrades that affect future attempts. After clearing a certain number of rooms in a region, the player must fight the bosses of the region to advance to the next; at least one of the three Furies in Tartarus, the Lernaean Hydra in Asphodel, Theseus and Asterius the Minotaur in Elysium, and Hades at the gates of the Underworld.
Between runs, Zagreus can explore the House of Hades before setting out on a new escape attempt. Here, the player can use items recovered from runs to impact the meta-game. The player can unlock and upgrade abilities for Zagreus, order construction of new Underworld features that can appear in future runs, or obtain or upgrade new weapons. They can also have Zagreus interact with the various characters of the Underworld and improve his standing with them, which provide narrative elements to the game and can also provide quests with additional rewards. The player can also romance non-player characters (NPCs) as the plot progresses, including Megaera and Thanatos.
After defeating Hades at least once, the player can manually customize and increase the difficulty of the gameplay by using the Pact of Punishment, allowing them to add extra challenges or modify aspects of the game. For example, the Pact can increase the attack power, health or the number of enemies on runs, and change parts of gameplay by changing boss fights, such as allowing Theseus to use a machine-gun-mounted chariot or adding an extra phase to Hades' boss fight. By continuously increasing difficulty, the player can continue to receive rare rewards after runs, unlock special decorative items at the House, and progress certain NPC subplots.
Alternatively, the player can activate a setting called God Mode, which makes the player character stronger after each failed run through the Underworld. This allows players who struggle with the game to progress more easily and experience the full story of the game.
Plot Zagreus (Darren Korb), the firstborn son of Hades (Logan Cunningham), seeks to escape his father's realm in the Underworld. He is aided in his quest by his adoptive mother Nyx (Jamie Landrum), the Gods of Olympus to whom he has reached out, and other inhabitants of the Underworld. Hades claims that escape is impossible and hinders Zagreus by unleashing the Underworld's monsters on him. Each time Zagreus is slain, he is revived at the House of Hades, a palace where he and other Chthonic gods reside, which he leaves to attempt another escape.
It is eventually revealed that Zagreus wishes to escape the Underworld to find his biological mother Persephone (Laila Berzins) whom he never knew due to being told that he was the child of Nyx. Hades refuses to allow her name to be spoken in his House, and it is said that those who disobey this order will be punished. Nyx decides to help Zagreus find the truth about his birth mother by putting him in contact with his relatives on Mount Olympus, including Zeus (Peter Canavese), Poseidon (Logan Cunningham), Ares (Cyrus Nemati), Aphrodite (Courtney Vineys), Artemis (Jamie Landrum), Athena (Marianne Miller), Demeter (Laila Berzins), Dionysus (Cyrus Nemati), and Hermes (Andrew Marks). After eventually reaching the exit to the Underworld and defeating Hades, Zagreus finds Persephone at a cottage in Greece. After they reunite, Zagreus discovers that since he, like Hades, is bound to the Underworld, he will quickly die after reaching the surface. Despite this, he promises to keep escaping the Underworld to spend time with Persephone and learn the truth about her absence.
Over the course of these visits, it is revealed that Zeus "gave" Persephone to Hades as a reward for ruling over the Underworld with the other Olympians believing that she simply disappeared. The two had a loving marriage until Zagreus was stillborn due to the Fates having decreed that Hades would never have an heir. Persephone ran away in grief, but refused to return to her birthplace on Olympus which she disliked due to the Olympians' constant bickering. Nyx eventually resurrected Zagreus after making a deal with the Fates. Persephone refuses to return to the Underworld because she fears retribution towards Hades if the Olympians discover the truth about her disappearance. Zagreus eventually convinces her to return after reminding her of the bonds of family, and Charon (Logan Cunningham) ferries them to the House of Hades. Persephone resumes her duties as Queen of the Underworld. Now with renewed respect for his son, Hades requests that Zagreus continue his escape attempts to identify further security vulnerabilities in the Underworld.
In an epilogue, Persephone tells Zagreus of her idea of reconciling with the Olympians by inviting them to a feast in the House. At the feast, they claim that Hades and Persephone eloped and had Zagreus, while saying that due to her having eaten Underworld pomegranate seeds, she can only leave the Underworld a few months out of the year. The Olympians accept this explanation, though it is implied they know the truth and wish to move on. With everyone reconciled, Zagreus' duties to escape his home continue.
Development Following the release of their previous game, Pyre, Supergiant Games was interested in opening up their development process, intending to use player feedback to improve both gameplay and narrative elements. The studio thus opted for an early access approach in developing Hades, after establishing the game's foundation.
As Supergiant was still a small team of about 20 employees, they knew they could only support early access across one platform, with the intent to port to other platforms near the completion of the game. Supergiant had spoken to Epic Games and learned of their intent to launch their own Epic Games Store, and felt the experimental platform was an appropriate match with Hades. Supergiant's decision was made in part due to Epic's focus on content creators, as Supergiant had developed Hades in mind to be a game favorable to streamers, which would be benefited through the Epic Games Store. Supergiant anticipated that Hades would take about three years to complete, comparable to the development time of their previous titles.
In terms of the game's narrative and approach, the Supergiant team had discussed what type of game they wanted to make next, and settled on a concept that would be easy to pick up and play, which could be played in very short periods, and had opportunities for expanding on after release, driving them towards a roguelike game, which have generally best utilized the early access approach. The roguelike approach also fit well with their past gameplay design goals, where they aimed to continue to add in new tricks or tools for the player that would make them reconsider how they have been playing the game to that point. Pyre had been an attempt to create a branching open-ended narrative, but once the game was released, Supergiant recognized that most players would only play through the game once and thus lose out on the branching narrative perspective. With Hades established as a roguelike, the team felt the branching narrative approach would be much more appropriate since the genre calls for players to repeatedly play through the game.