In addition to our main Game of the Year Awards 2024, each member of the PC Gamer team is shining a spotlight on a game they loved this year. We'll post new personal picks, alongside our main awards, throughout the rest of the month.
Supergiant is known for pushing the boat out with its games—Bastion, Pyre, Transistor, and Hades all do something slightly different, making it a point to experiment and tinker, provide something new. Which is why, when Hades 2 was announced in 2022, my first reaction was: Huh?
This isn't a studio known for sequels, or even lingering much in its fresh IPs. If anything, Supergiant's willingness to move on is one of its strengths. I felt a quiver of fear in my indie-loving heart that I was beginning to see a franchise take over one of my favourite studios, where the same roguelike drum would be struck forevermore. And, look, if we get a Hades 3 before Supergiant does something new, I might start fretting again. As it stands, though? Hades 2 justifies its existence in spades.
There's the fact that, in terms of raw content, it came out the gate swinging with more to do than the first game had in its final form. A less complete story, sure, but Hades 2's launch state still gave us not one, but two routes to brawl through: The underworld, and two layers of the surface. Plus a nearly full roster of weapons, boons, and oodles of characters to meet, fawn over, and have a nice platonic dip in the bath with.
Supergiant clearly had a story it wanted to tell, too. You can sort of smell the stank of a sequel that's just there to be a safe bet, but the core concept for Hades 2 is interesting as all, well, hell. The idyllic getalong t-shirt Zagreus spends so long building in the last game is under threat, your father's in chains, your mother's nowhere to be seen, and you're now getting to plunder the depths of Greek mythology even further.
Chronos' inclusion, in particular, is pretty inspired. While Hades the first hinted at the generational trauma of its titular god at the mercy of his father, much of which fell on Zagreus' shoulders, Chronos being here shines a spotlight on it. I'm about to get into stuff that could be considered spoilers for patches yet-to-come, but I'm just talking Greek mythology that's already in existence, and Supergiant might put its own spin on things.
Basically, as the story goes, Chronos' papa, Uranus, wasn't the greatest of chaps. He threw a couple of his kids in Tartarus for reasons like 'having too many hands' and 'only having one eye' (you just can't please some people). This irked their mum enough that she handed Chronos a scythe and said hey, bud, why don't you slice off your old man's bits. Chronos did this, accidentally creating Aphrodite in the process. Greek mythology is just like this sometimes, but don't worry, it gets weirder.
When it came time for him to reckon with having his own children, Chronos realised—oi, I screwed over my own pops, maybe my kids will do the same to me. So he decided to do the normal thing and eat them. Poseidon, Hera, and—crucially—Hades were among those to go down the chute, until Zeus came along, avoiding the same fate by being swapped out with a rock at the last minute, raised in secret until he could strike Chronos down.
Point being, generational trauma is a theme with Greek mythology. And while Zagreus manages to build bridges that weren't there before, the family legacy isn't really something that's fully delved into with the detail it warrants. Chronos showing up again, whether Supergiant's keeping his hankering for babies or not, is a perfect way to loop those themes back in and develop them. Let alone Melinoe's relationship with her adoptive mum, Hecate. Sometimes family are the witches who raised you along the way.
Mechanically-speaking, Hades 2 does enough new stuff that I don't mind its existence, either. The introduction of Omega attacks adds a whole 'nother layer to the tasty roguelike dish, and the combat's just as tight and well-conceived as ever, pushing the boat out even further with its bosses—Chronos himself is a riot. I especially like how you have to unlock an upgrade just to pause the game while fighting him because, no duh, the titan of time isn't just gonna let you freeze it.
And the music, oh man. Darren Korb is on something else this go around. The saxophone solo in Sightless Shepard, courtesy of guest artist Sam Gendel, still shoots dopamine through my system even now. The diegetic siren band in the underworld is also a treat, with not one, but two songs to beat your butt to (they also have dialogue if you fight them with your music turned off, which is nuts).
This is, without a doubt, Supergiant flexing the hardest it's ever flexed in terms of scale, ambition, and production quality—and it's not even done making the thing yet. I was worried about Hades 2, but it's thoroughly and utterly earned its spot among the roguelike pantheon, even in an unfinished state, and it's been one of my favourite ways to kill time in 2024.
