Supergiant's new game Hades was a pretty big pickup for the Epic Games Store when it was revealed as a storefront launch exclusive in late 2018. Supergiant is a high-profile indie whose previous games, Bastion, Transistor, and Pyre, have all been very well received, and coming out of nowhere the way it did was a real attention-getter. It was released as an early access game and it's come a long way since then, with six major updates so far that the studio said has more than doubled the amount of content that was available at launch. It also happens to be really good.
On December 10—a year, give or take, from the EGS launch—Hades will also be available on Steam. Despite having a year of development under its belt already, it will remain in Early Access when it comes to Steam. Major updates are planned to be rolled out at eight-week intervals, with small interim patches dropping in-between to smooth things out.
"We designed Hades as an Early Access game from the ground up. Our foremost goal was to see if we could create something great in partnership with our community -- a game that was true to our values about design, worldbuilding, and storytelling, and could naturally evolve based on the feedback we'd get along the way. Every aspect of the game, from its modular structure to its approach to narrative, flow from this idea," Supergiant explained in the Steam Early Access FAQ.
"By the time Hades launches in Early Access here on Steam, the game structure will be mostly complete, so you'll be able to battle all the way from the lowest reaches of the Underworld up to the surface."
The timing of the move to Steam fits with the one-year exclusivity period we've seen in other EGS releases like Shenmue 3, Phoenix Point, Twin Mirror, and Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey. Hades will be one of the first games to branch out from Epic (possibly the first—Hades was one of just three games (along with Annapurna's Ashen and Hello Neighbor: Hide and Seek from TinyBuild) available when the Epic Games Store went live on December 6, 2018) and it will be very interesting to see how the move impacts its sales.
Hades is now available for wishlisting on Steam. Pricing information wasn't listed but it currently goes for $25 on the EGS and Supergiant said it doesn't expect the price to increase when the early access period concludes. Anyone who purchases the game on the Epic store prior to October 15 will receive a digital copy of the Hades Original Soundtrack, which is already shaping up quite nicely, when the game goes into full release.
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