"Few tales are told of Hades, whose reign as grim lord of the dead came to a sudden end when, all at once, his past caught up with him. But gods do not go quietly, and history repeats. So this tale was only a matter of Time..."
—The Narrator, opening sequence
Hades II is the sequel to the 2020 isometric Roguelike Hades by Supergiant Games. It was announced at the 2022 Game Awards with the following trailer
. The game is notable for being the first sequel from Supergiant Games.
Set some time after the original game, the game follows Melinoë, the daughter of Hades, student of witch-goddess Hecate, and sister of previous protagonist Zagreus. She sets out to free her father and defeat the Titan of Time, Chronos, who has escaped his underworld prison, captured Hades and the rest of her family, and declared war on Olympus.
As you fight, die, and sometimes win, you'll gradually unlock more and more resources for your runs over each night. There's a multitude of Arcana cards for stat boosts, weapons for playstyles, keepsakes for upgrade powers, and various incantations to invoke your will. All of this is done to slowly but surely grow more powerful, and gradually expand the game's content.
The game launched for Early Access on May 6th, 2024, with some elements unfinished and a full release date still unspecified. Unless otherwise stated, all information on this page is based on the Early Access version.
Previews: Reveal Trailer, Early Access Showcase, Official Website.
Death to Chronos. May the tropes guide you.
- 11th-Hour Superpower: At the very end of a run, you'll recieve a boon from none other than Hades himself. This boon is powerful and tailor-made to make the next fight easier, whether it's slashing the number of mobs the Final Boss can summon in half to doubling the damage you deal on your next attack from under the Dark buff.
- Action Girl:
- Melinoë, like her brother before her, can wield a variety of weapons, including a staff or a pair of blades. She also knows magic, using it to empower her attacks or stop foes in their place.
- Hecate taught Melinoë how to fight and use magic so her protege could someday kill Chronos; she's also the first area's boss, testing whether Melinoë is ready for her task ahead.
- Adaptational Modesty:
- Zeus is wearing a chestplate now.
- Aphrodite, while still nearly naked, wears a little bit of armour here.
- Anti-Frustration Features:
- You're momentarily invincible every time you enter a room, allowing you to orient yourself to the layout without getting cheap-shotted by an attack you couldn't possibly have seen coming.
- The first encounter of any run will always feature a tablet that allows you to endlessly refill your magic so you can get the hang of the controls for a specific weapon before going on a deeper run with it. There's another such tablet near Schelemeus for the same reason.
- Whenever you get a Hex from Selene, you're allowed one free cast of it immediately so you can learn how it works before you need to use it on enemies.
- The Final Boss has an Interface Screw that you can eventually turn off if it's too distracting. You can gain an ability to pause the game during the fights against Chronos after facing him at least once; the first time you fight him (and until this invocation is used), Chronos will just mock you for thinking that you're a better Time Master than him and forcibly unpause the game.
- Arc Words:
- In response to the first game's "There is no escape," whenever Zagreus was defeated, this one uses "Time cannot be stopped" whenever Melinoë falls in battle.
- Repeated all over by characters in the game is "Death to Chronos" by the heroes, used as a rallying cry.
- Melinoë and Hecate share "So mote it be," whenever the former performs a new incantation.
- Art Evolution: The second game adds to the original's already gorgeous art by making the character portraits more detailed, intricate, and sometimes even more grandiose. The in-game models are also much better animated and detailed than the originals. It can be a bit jarring fighting Cerberus's corrupted self, only for him to transition to his lower fidelity model from the first game once he's defeated.
- Autobots, Rock Out!: While you fight Scylla and the Sirens, they play the rock songs "Coral Crown" or, once you've defeated her enough for a bit of animosity to build up, "I'm Gonna Claw (Your Eyes Out and Drown You to Death)". The instrumentation changes through the fight since the guitars, vocals, and drums will all be knocked out of the mix after the respective band member is beaten. Whenever Scylla hides in her shell, the vocals are appropriately muffled as well.
- Bathtub Bonding: One unlockable feature for the Crossroads is a hot spring, and Melinoë can invite another ally to take a bath with her depending how deep their relationship is.
- Bleak Level: Melinoë passes through the Fields of Mourning on her way down to Tartarus, a place where the dead go both to purge themselves of sorrow and drown in it. Standing in pockets of gloom can even temporarily cripple Melinoë with doubts and fears of her own, though she's quick to shake them off each time.
- Body-Count Competition: Similar to Thanatos in the previous game, Nemesis will occasionally challenge Melinoë to see who can kill the most enemies in a given time limit. The main difference is that there's money on the line and the loser has to pay the winner 100 gold.
- Continuity Nod:
- In the previous game, the Stygian Blade can be imbued with the Aspect of Nemesis, turning it into a single-edged blade with red plates, a bronze skull on the handle, and a blue-bottomed hilt. Nemesis is seen wielding this exact sword.
- Similarly, the Adamant Rail has the Aspect of Eris, the eponym of which wields the weapon in her likeness. During her boss fight, she even uses her Aspect's special ability to hit herself with the weapon's grenade launcher to buff her damage.
- Costume Evolution: The gods from the first game who return all sport armor and weapons now. Skelly, now "Schelemeus" meanwhile has a Chest of Medals, a cape, and armor skirting. And somehow, a beard.
- Changing Clothes Is a Free Action: Arachne offers a selection of buff-granting dresses, which Melinoë can put on instantly.
- Darker and Edgier: The first game was a largely comic affair mostly focused on the troubled relationships of the House of Hades, with Zagreus being all too used to his current situation to a degree where all he can do is joke about it right from the start. By contrast, this game immediately deals with a much more dramatic premise where Melinoe has lost her entire family - to the point she wasn't even able to be raised among them - and her quest is far more directly to take revenge on Chronos and free them. Even the visual style is far darker, and nearly every new NPC deals with at least some gothic characterization and styling, while many of the encounters one can find in individual runs have an almost surreal and disturbing bent to them. Fittingly, Melinoe is rather serious, if rather cute and endearing, compared to the endlessly sardonic and free-spirited Zagreus.
- Developer's Foresight:
- Used during the Final Boss fight against Chronos. He's a Time Master, as is to be expected of the Titan of Time. Attempting to pause the game will have Chronos mock you for thinking you can control time better than he can in his own domain, and he'll unpause the game to throw you right back into the fray. If you keep doing this over and over, Chronos will gradually get more and more annoyed at you, and his responses will get more curt and insulting. Thankfully, after seeing Chronos do this at least once, you can unlock an invocation at your base camp to stop Chronos from doing it.
- One of Selene's Moon Hexes allows you to resurrect a defeated enemy in a room to temporarily fight for you instead. If you use this during the Sirens boss fight, Scylla will be incredulous that one of her bandmates has suddenly turned against her.
- Double Entendre: The Tagline, "Go Kill Time", refers to the mission of defeating Chronos, the Titan and embodiment of Time, as well as how it's probably going to take you a lot of tries before that happens.
- Down the Drain: Oceanus, the game's 2nd zone - in sharp contrast to the original game's Asphodel. It's home to easily-burst pipes full of scalding-hot steam, as well as a great many hungry sea monsters - including an entire rock band made up of sirens.
- Easy-Mode Mockery: Eris can invoke this. If Eris thinks a particular run is going "too well" for Melinoë, Eris will show up to give Melinoë a "blessing" of making enemies deal more damage to her.
- The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: Attempting to pause the game during Chronos' boss fight will have him unpause it due to his Time Master status and mock the player for thinking they can control time in his realm.
- Friendship Trinket: As goddesses associated with the moon, Melinoe, Hecate, Artemis, and Selene occasionally refer to themselves as the Silver Sisters. Each one wears a cord made of four colors somewhere on her person that symbolizes their bond: orange for Melinoe, purple for Hecate, green for Artemis, and black for Selene.
- Gameplay and Story Integration:
- You might run into another character browsing Charon's wares during a run. This isn't just for atmosphere - they very much can and will buy that boon or Centaur Heart you've been eyeing if you don't hurry and make your purchases before they do.
- When Nemesis leaves a chamber, she picks one of the routes to go through. Whichever one she goes through will prevent you from going through it, since Nem is already going to claim that reward. Go fast enough and Melinoe will happily claim dibs when she pass through the gate ahead of Nemesis.
- Chronos is a Time Master as the Titan of Time. So attacks that slow down time for the world around you don't slow him down at all. This even includes pausing the game, as Chronos will mock you for thinking that would work before he just forcibly unpauses the game.
- Geometric Magic: In the reveal trailer, Melinoë attacks her witchy mentor Hecate, who then activates an intricate magic circle beneath Melinoë's feet that blasts her backwards.
- Happy Ending Override: At some point between games, Chronos takes over the Underworld, resulting in Hades imprisoned, Zagreus, Nyx, Persephone and their closest allies frozen in time, and the souls of the dead now scattered across the world. To make matters worse, this happened shortly after Melinoë's birth, resulting in her growing up separated from her family.
- "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: The "Infernal Beast" boss is truly Cerberus, having been warped into a monstrous abomination by Chronos. Defeating him does thankfully revert him back to his usual form, if only temporarily.
- Late-Arrival Spoiler: Hades II makes no attempt to hide the fact that Zagreus and Hades reconciled in the first game, or that Persephone and Hades were reunited.
- Lunacy: The moon's association with witchcraft in Greek myth is shown in full, with spells being themed around the phases of the moon, Melinoe and Hecate incorporating moon imagery into their outfits and weapons, and a Limit Break ability that can only be granted by Selene, Titan of the moon.
- Mythology Gag:
- In a very literal sense; the mythological Melinoë is described as being "saffron-clad". As seen in her character art, her dress is a saffron-orange.
- Hephaestus was described as lame in some myths. Here, his leg is fully missing and he uses a prosthetic replacement.
- Chronos, primordial god of time, is portrayed here as a member of the Titans despite typically being regarded as one of the Protogenoi and thus an existence closer to Nyx and Chaos. This is a nod to his historical conflation/sycretism with the separate being Kronos, who was the leader of the Titans and enemy of the Olympian gods. Their similar names and Kronos' specialty as the god of the harvest has led to some interpretations even in ancient times of him as a time god and an aspect of Chronos.
- Named in the Sequel: While the Narrator's identity is hinted at in an interaction during the first game, Zagreus only ever addresses him as "old man". Come Hades II, and Melinoë finally addresses him by given name. During a flashback, Melinoë specifically addresses the narrator as Homer, the famous Greek poet.Narrator: Uhhh erm-erm-erm, I, I, I've no idea to whom you refer... to whom the Princess of the Dead refers!
- Nazi Gold: All of the gold coins in this game have the hourglass-stamp of Chronos on it rather than the coin of Hades. Melinoe refers to it as "tainted" gold that she gives to Charon "to dispose of," so him relieving you of it when you die isn't just because he wants it all. Hephestus says he then receives the gold, melts it all down and dumps it back into the earth.
- Nostalgia Level:
- Occasionally, Chronos will catch Melinoë and send her into the Underworld, using a room from the original Hades game (such as a lava-filled room in Asphodel). In these rooms, Melinoë must stay inside a golden circle to fill a meter in order to escape, while leaving this circle will cause the meter to drop. All the while, she'll be under assault from enemies from the original Hades game.
- The Very Definitely Final Dungeon when heading down into the Underworld plays with this. It's Tartarus from the first game, but it's also been revamped in the image of Chronos. In addition, the enemies from the first game's opening are also there, but they've all taken a level in badass and are much more difficult than the original game's versions.
- Poor Communication Kills: According to Poseidon, the fact that Hades almost never contacts Olympus in the first place resulted in them being completely unaware that he and his family were captured by Chronos until fairly recently, with them initially brushing things off of Hades simply being in another one of his usual moods.
- Record Needle Scratch: During the Hide-and-Seek flashback, the sound of a record needle stopping is played when Melinoë breaks the fourth wall to shush the narrator.
- Relationship Values: Similar to the first game, Melinoë can deepen her relationship with some of her allies at the Crossroads by gifting Nectar as well as fishing with them.
- Sequel Escalation: Hades II had an Early Access at launch which featured more biomes, characters, boons, and overall content than the entire final version of the first game. A major contributor to this is the fact that there are two separate paths this time, one for the underworld and one for the surface, each with their own different areas and bosses.
- Shoulders-Up Nudity: During the Bathtub Bonding sequences at the Crossroads, Melinoë and whoever she invited to the bath will naturally be nude, but their portraits will only show them from above their shoulders.
- Sirens Are Mermaids: Scylla and her Sirens are a band of merfolk whose crooning tunes lead Melinoë Down the Drain through Oceanus, although Scylla herself has a somewhat different design to the more typical mermaids that accompany her, which is likely a nod to her origins as an entirely distinct sea monster.
- Strong Family Resemblance:
- Nemesis's face looks almost identical to that of her mother Nyx.
- Dialogue with Demeter has her claim this about Melinoë and Persephone.
- Moros - another child of Nyx - bears a strong resemblance to his brothers, Thanatos and Hypnos.
- Time Stands Still: This is shown to be the fate of Zagreus, Megaera, Thanatos, Nyx, Persephone, Achilles, and Dusa. All of whom were frozen in time by Chronos during his takeover.
- Titanomachy, Round Two: The Inciting Incident of the plot is the titan Chronos escaping from Tartarus and capturing Hades, his former captor. Hades' daughter Melinoë is trying to kill Chronos and save her father and the rest of her family.
- Title-Only Chorus: "I'm Gonna Claw (Out Your Eyes and then Drown You to Death)" is a diss track against Melinoë, but the chorus is a few lines of the title threat and nothing else.
- Unseen No More:
- In the first game, Apollo is only briefly mentioned in some of Artemis's quotes, while the trailer shows he's a fully seen god.
- Initially only hinted at through one of the previous wielders of Stygius, Nemesis has been elevated to one of the Gods that aids Melinoë in her quest. Appropriately, her art depicts her with Stygius as it appears when using her aspect in the previous game.
- Hestia is now a proper boon-granting deity, whereas she was only hinted at in the first game as an aspect of the Adamant Rail.
- Eris the Goddess of Strife appears wielding Exagryph and giving blessings of dubious help in Melinoe's incursions.
- Unwinnable by Design: Melinoë's first excursion to the surface is doomed to fail, as she suffers an unavoidable, rapidly-scaling source of damage that no amount of healing can stop from killing her within the first few rooms. Only after that initial death does Moros give her an incantation that allows her a fighting chance up there.
- Variable Mix:
- Much as in the previous game, the background music changes as the player moves in and out of battle.
- As Scylla and her Sirens are playing their own boss music, taking out different members of the band results in the track changing to reflect the loss of vocals or instruments. In addition, Scylla sometimes retreats into her shell, which causes the vocals to be muffled.
