‘Hades II’: Everything We Know About the Highly Anticipated Sequel
The 2020 video game Hades won several awards shortly after its release: the Game 2020, Golden Joystick, 17th British Academy Games, 21 Game Developer Choice, Nebula, and Hugo awards. This hack-and-slash game has the gamer playing Zagreus, the son of Hades. Zagreus is tired of being stuck in a literal hell. He vows that he will escape every level of Hell, Dante’s Inferno-style, but with a weapon of the player’s choice—Aegis, the Shield of Chaos and Varatha, the Eternal Spear were my favorite weapons.
Thanks to the overwhelming success of the first game, Supergiant is working on a sequel dungeon-crawler. Here’s what we know so far.
Hades II plot
The sequel appears to take place after the first game. From what we saw in the trailer that debuted at the 2022 Game Awards, it looks like Melinoë is training to save her father, Hades, from the Titan of Time, Chronos. It looks like the titan has escaped his prison and has a vendetta against his children. This could lead to interesting gameplay interactions between the gods as you progress through the game.
Characters in Hades II
Players will play as Zagreus’s sister, Melinoë. Her character design and innate powers were revealed in the trailer. She is the daughter of Hades and Persephone and the princess of the underworld. In the trailer, the moon is seen several times, and Melinoë’s character design features the celestial body on her forehead and clothing. There is little mythos about Melinoë, so Supergiant can play around with the character and imagine her interacting with others in a way that hasn’t been done before.
Hecate can be seen training Melinoë in a beautifully animated scene in the reveal trailer. We saw Hecate in the previous game, but it looks like she has a more active role as Melinoë’s mentor in this game. Hecate is still the Goddess of Witchcraft and it looks like she’s teaching Melinoë a thing or two.
Moros appears to be an ally of Melinoë. He’s the son of Nyx and is often depicted in mythology as leading people to their death—a scary grim reaper.
Nemesis looks like another ally for Melinoë. Nemesis is Moro’s sister. In Roman mythology, she is known as the God of Justice, so let’s see what she offers.
Once again, Apollo offers Melinoë boons like he did for her brother in the first game. We’ll see if these boons will be similar or if the sun god has anything new for Melinoë.
A listless shade named Dora is featured with two different animations—one darker and the other lighthearted. Dora seems to be on friendly terms with Melinoë.
Zeus is back again as the king of the Olympians. Seeing how he’ll interact with Chronos will be incredibly interesting.
Hades is also back again! However, daddy dearest is not the big, bad villain of this story. Instead, he’s kidnapped by the Titan Chronos and it’s Melinoë’s mission to save him. Learning about the relationship between father and daughter will be exciting. If the video games gods allow, maybe we’ll even see or get a mention of Zagreus? *fingers crossed*
Chronos seems to be the final boss for Hades II. Will we see more Titans in the long-awaited sequel? Only time will tell.
Hades II gameplay
The gameplay looks incredibly similar to the first game. The hack-and-slash dungeon crawler looks very familiar, but users can now use magic against their attackers because Melinoë is a witch trained by Hecate.
This time, instead of ascending the levels of Hell, players will dive deeper into the darkest levels to save Hades. So we will have new arenas and new villains to combat.
Early access to Hades II
There is no release date for Hades II—yet. This is thanks to the game still being in development. But gamers don’t despair! It looks like Hades II will have an early access period similar to the original Hades release. So keep your eyes open for a work-in-progress beta version of the game before the official launch.
(featured image: Supergiant Games)
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