It has taken me quite some time to finally play Hades 2, despite my adoration for the first game which easily ranks among my favourites of all time. The sequel has technically been around for two years if you count its Early Access stint, and yet I haven’t touched it. That’s because as much as Hades blew my little mind, I didn’t feel like it needed a sequel or that I needed more Hades. Now, though, with Hades 2 arriving on console, it’s time to see what I’ve been missing. Turns out, I missed a bigger, sometimes messier, game.

Available On: Xbox, PlayStation, Switch, PC
Reviewed On: PS5
Developed By: Supergiant Games
Published By: Supergiant Games

Review key provided by the publisher.

Hades 2 takes place sometime after the events of the first game, following Melinoe, the sister of our last protagonist, Zagreus. Obviously, dear Zag’s parents had another child, but when she was nought but a little baby Godling, the nasty old titan of time, Chronos, came along seeking revenge against the family for his prior treatment. Melinoe was spirited away by the witch Hecate while the rest of the family was left to suffer the wrath of Chronos, who now sits on the throne. As for Melinoe, we pick up with her years later under the tutelage of Hecate, who has raised Melinoe with a singular goal: take down the titan of time, Chronos.

What follows is Hades through and through. Dozens, perhaps even hundreds, of runs against the main boss, all while slowly unpicking the story and Melinoe’s past via interactions with a family of Gods whose family tree is so complicated it might as well be a family mandala. The writing is still sharp, frequently quite funny and filled with enough soap opera drama to make Coronation Street blush.

The actual core gameplay loop is identical, at least in the macro sense: grab a weapon and embark on a murder spree toward Chronos, the time-controlling tit on a throne. Or head to the overworld. Every section you clear grants a reward, frequently a Boon from the Gods themselves, and offers the choice of where to head next. Ideally, by the time you reach the final confrontation, you’ve built an arsenal of Boons and upgrades that suit your weapon of choice and combine into a whirlwind of ass-kicking synergy.

Combat has changed, too. The basics are still the same: attack and dodge. But Melinoe likes to go all-out badass bitch-witch on people, and thus has a few tricks up her sleeves. She can cast a binding circle with a tap of a button, slowing down all enemies within it. Mastering this is key to mastering her fighting style, especially since a lot of Boons boost its effectiveness or make Melinoe more dangerous from within it. She can also launch Omega versions of her attacks and magic by holding down the appropriate buttons, which chews into her mana meter but can unleash cool effects.

And, of course, she has an arsenal of weapons like Zagreus did, each of which can be upgraded and modified in different ways via their Aspects. My personal favourite? A slow, giant two-handed axe that dishes out damage like I dish out mac and cheese. Its special attack is a cool flourish, but when the button is held unleashes a string of explosions. If you manage to get the right boons, the attack speed can be improved dramatically, making it a beast.

On top of that, there are Arcana cards that offer a variety of buffs depending on what you choose. Increasing Grasp means you can equip more Arcana, and some cards can even be used for free if you meet their requirements. These cards can also be upgraded throughout the game using a special resource, another layer on top of the other layers and layers.

Bring it all together, and what you get is super-smooth, super-fun combat. What really shines through, though, is that glorious feeling when you piece together insane builds. It’s something I’ve been missing from other roguelikes I’ve played lately, where the upgrades you gather don’t combine into something greater. But here – the Boons you pick from, the weapons you choose, the Arcana cards you bring – can come together into some truly awesome builds. It has just the right amount of luck, too, so those builds that just click and let you decimate the run feel more satisfying than watching a mime gradually figure out you farted in his invisible box.

Just like before, the genius of Hades 2 is how it makes dying the best part of the game. Visiting home between runs means another chance to talk to characters, hand out gifts, invite them to hang out a little, invoke ancient rituals to make future runs easier, upgrade a few bits and bobs, and a million other little things. Dying isn’t a problem, it just means you’re coming home for a visit, catching up with the fam, maybe taking a quick soak with Artemis in the vague hope it’ll wash away her disdain for you.

Just like the first game, there’s a frankly ungodly amount of dialogue to discover and listen to, all of it fully voiced by an excellent cast. My favourite moments are when the Gods or other characters reference something specific you did – often obscure decisions or combinations that made me stop and think, “damn, they thought about that.”

When you take all of this and put it together, you get a roguelike with an immense and rewarding sense of progression. This is a genre where repetition is at the core, so the gameplay needs to be strong, and feeling like you’re making progress is vital. Hades 2 kills it on both fronts, but progression is where it delivers a godly experience. Whether you succeed or fail in a run, you’re almost always taking a step forward somewhere, whether it’s gathering up resources for a new upgrade, improving a relationship, fulfilling a prophecy or something else. Occasionally that falters and you might find yourself banging your head off the wall for a few runs, but it’s rare.

Then there are about a million new gameplay mechanics and systems to mess around, too. There are heaps of permanent upgrades and homebase improvements to craft by hunting down resources as you play, familiars you can find and take along on runs, a new decorating system, a randomised region mode, a challenge system, a whole new Fear mechanic that adds difficulty for rare resources and a heap more I’m probably forgetting. Supergiant have thrown everything at this game, kind of like Melinoe throwing everything at Chronos. It’s impressive, even more so when it costs just £25, and it all feels well designed and built.

A good example of just how much MORE the developers have packed into Hades 2 are the two routes you can take. The Underworld is about as long as the first game’s runs, but now there’s the Overworld, too, which unlocks after a little while. Trekking up to Olympus is about the same length again, and throws in a couple of new ideas like bigger open areas, a fun little city section and ships. These two routes alone double what the first game offered, but, more importantly, add some variety to your runs.

It’s also a little all over the place. I’m conflicted because the sheer wealth of stuff is deeply impressive, but it also makes this a less streamlined game. I can’t say Hades 2 is better or worse, just moooooooooore. Considering Hades is a phenomenal game, that’s not a bad thing.

Fundamentally, Hades 2’s biggest problem isn’t even its fault, which is deeply unfair of me to use as a criticism, but the world isn’t fair, so here we are. You see, Hades was a revelation, a game that solved almost every problem I had with the genre and quite a few I didn’t even realise I had. It was, to put it simply, fucking glorious. With Hades 2, it doesn’t have the benefit of surprise because going into it, I knew what I was getting, and that detracts a little from the experience.

As a main character, I generally found Melinoe to be less charismatic than her older brother. While Zagreus tackled everything from a place of love and optimism, Melinoe is essentially a weapon, raised from an early age to fight and with the pressure of multiple worlds on her shoulders. The game establishes her burden clearly enough, but rarely pushes beyond that single-note sense of duty to reveal much beneath it. She’s likeable enough, but I never had a deeper connection with her in the same way I had with Zag and his quest to see him mum again.

While I knew very little about how the story was going to play out going into Hades 2, I had heard that the game’s true ending was divisive, to say the least. Having now experienced it, I can see why. Hades 2 starts throwing some timeline shenanigans into the mix, already a potentially dangerous alley to go down. Unfortunately, I can’t talk about why the ending drops the ball without going into spoilers, so I’ll just have to keep it vague and say that characters lose agency, interesting plot threads are dropped and too much of the emotional work happens off camera.

The ending is really a prime example of everything both good and bad in Hades 2. By expanding the scope and sheer size over that of the first game, Hades 2 has improved in many ways, but has also become a messier, scruffier game. It’s lost some of that streamlined perfection, and has ended up worse in some areas such as its narrative.

And in comparison to the first game, Hades 2 doesn’t do as good a job of justifying how you can keep going on runs after the ending, either. That might be too much of a nitpick, but I appreciated how the first game managed to find a way to make it all work. It took the genre trope and found a way to blend it neatly into the story.

Supergiant has done it again. Seriously, can they do no wrong? They keep delivering banger after banger, as if they’re on the greatest roguelike run in history.

But is it better than the first game? Does Melinoe usurp her brother as the new princess of roguelike? No. She stands alongside him as an equal. Because ultimately, Hades 2 ramps up the scope all the way to Olympus, but also sacrifices some of its polish and focus on the altar to get there. Its brilliance is tarnished by weaker storytelling and an ending that didn’t land, yet in other areas like combat, builds and even presentation, it shines brighter than ever.

It may not match the first game’s near-perfect focus, but even a slightly scruffier Hades is still divine.