Video Game Review: Hades 2

Hades keeps Homer’s storytelling tradition alive for the modern age

Five years ago, Hades quite literally changed my life. 

Not my usual type of game, not my usual style of gameplay, but bored in lockdown and wondering what all the fuss was about, I gave it a shot. 

Five years ago, I discovered Classics, and that fire has burned as constant as Hestia’s hearth ever since. 

I found Working Classicists. I found new friends for life. I found a passion. 

While playing Hades, I wanted to know where all these characters came from and fell down many Wikipedia rabbit holes. Since then, it’s become one of my greatest interests, so much so that I now have an ambition to study Classical Studies in some form. 

Hades has given me a gift that has continued to give and give. My dad was old enough that he studied Classics and Latin in school, even while living in poverty. Upon regaling him with all that I had learned, I was surprised that he’d had that education, and the stories he was able to dredge up from over 70-year-old memories that we were now able to share.

Three years ago, they announced the Hades 2 trailer on the day that my dad died, and it is a singular bright spot in a maelstrom of grief. It helped me to look forward to something in the future with excitement, something that seemed impossible in my present. 

I have been counting down the days, avoiding all early access to immerse myself fully in its final form. Despite an entire ancient history to play with, the question was: what could they do next? Witches, of course, was the answer. And my first thought was: I’m going to see my girl Medea. 

Now I’m playing and, instead of furiously googling each character as I meet them to learn their basis in mythology, I’m eagerly anticipating who might be revealed and how they’re connected. 

The best thing about Hades is that it feels as though there is as much to discover as the subject of Classics itself, and it is as changeable as the very myths it is built upon. 

I’m 31 hours of gameplay in with 52 runs and have only managed to defeat Chronos once and reach the tip of Olympus once (listen I never said I was good at the game), but in terms of storytelling I feel as though I’ve barely scratched the surface. I haven’t resolved anything with Nemesis, I’m still flirting with Moros, there’s more to discover with Dora, the list goes on…

I have, however, encountered Medea and I yelled as though my team had just scored a goal while my baby slept upstairs. Trust me, not easily done. 

I’m equally as excited to fail a run and return to fresh dialogue and peel back more layers of the characters, as I am to try my next run and see how much further I can go and who I might meet this time. 

Supergiant Games have an uncanny knack of enriching the world within the game to exist as a living, breathing thing. A Prometheus who has given their creation a fire like no other. The characters are a tangled tapestry woven by The Fates, and you are destined to unravel them. 

By taking relatively unknown and minimally sourced deities to centre upon (Zagreus, Melinoë) they have a wealth of gaps to fill with their own stories and creation, whilst also surrounding them with the famous names and myths filled with easter-egg dialogue and references. 

They nail the balance of myth: retelling, fiction and flourish with an utmost respect for the material that came before.

Let the record show Melinoë flirted with Moros in a hot tub, so mote it be…

And the thing is, no one cares that they’re completely ‘changing the myths’ or taking creative liberty with mythological figures, like we see argued so often in modern reception, because they do it lovingly and with care. 

A series like Hades will bring a huge host of people now inspired by Classics into the field who otherwise would not have been, and that brings a game-changing array of perspectives, lived experiences and backgrounds that could unearth a treasure trove of knowledge and discovery.  

If Hades is how I fell in love with the classical world, Hades 2 is a renewal of my vows that the flames will forever continue to burn.