[Editor's Note: Hades just landed itself 8 nominations at this year's The Game Awards, including "Game of the Year," so if you haven't played it yet, yeah, maybe it's time!]
When Hollywood makes stories about the Greek gods, they usually focus solely on the inexplicable hatred between Hades and Zeus, who are more often than not mere analogues for the God and Satan. Thankfully, one of the year's best games is also the most successful attempt at bringing us a different side of the Greek myths, Hades.
Supergiant Games is known for roguelikes that break the mold, from the fantasy-focused Bastion, to the cyberpunk Transistor, but Hades may just be their finest work yet. You play as Zagreus, the immortal son of Hades the god of the dead and ruler of the underworld. Your task is to escape your inescapable home and search for your long-lost mother. Along the way, you secure the help of some of your weirdest and most powerful relatives, the gods of Olympus. It is here that Hades escalates from being a great video game to a phenomenal portrayal of Greek mythology.
Rather than focusing on how Hades wants to take over the world, and make Zagreus the hero that wants to stop him and help his Lord Uncle Zeus, the game portrays its titular god of the Underworld more as a bitter and overworked man with a very strained relationship with his family, and a disappointing son he belittles at every turn — kind of like Kratos in God of War. He constantly complains about you never being good enough for him and about the mess you make when trying to escape, but the more he scoffs at your attempts at escaping, the more it seems like there is some kind of affection beneath the mean, murderous exterior. The more you play, and the more you die, the more you discover about your father, and the game actually reveals a heartwarming — albeit emotionally distressing — love story amidst all the family drama. Characters in the underworld constantly talk about how the gods of Olympus are a big, screwed-up family in which the oldest brothers chopped up their parents into pieces and locked them away; imagine their Thanksgiving dinners!
These gods are not omnipotent or omnipresent; they make mistakes, have regrets, and try to make up for them. Zagreus relies on gifts and favors from Zeus and the Olympians in order to escape the underworld, but these come at a cost. Every time you interact with a god, you get anecdotes and remarks about life in Olympus, and taking help from one relative means another one may get offended. The game has several "Trial(s) of the Gods," which involve you having to pick one of two boons, with the spurned god becoming displeased and then trying to kill you out of jealousy. Like any family, these gods have long histories with one another, and they hold severe grudges.
By framing this roguelike around the immortal pantheon of Greek gods, Hades fixes the biggest problem with the genre — repetition. It would be quite easy to get bored of going through the same minions and bosses time after time after time, even if the rooms change or if the visual style and soundtrack are incredible. But Hades builds that repetition into the story itself. You could suspend your disbelief every time you die as Zagreus and come back to life for another run, but by making you play as a god, the game justifies you coming back to life over and over. Even the endgame, which asks you to defeat the final boss about eight times before you unlock the "true" ending, finds a way to fit the story in a satisfying way that justifies itself, while making you excited for your next run rather than frustrated.
A big reason for this success is the game's God Mode. Unlike other games which mock players for not wanting to play in the highest difficulty set — we're looking at you, Wolfenstein — Hades actually encourages you to go the easier route. The God Mode increases your damage resistance every time you die. This makes sense in-game because, as we've already mentioned, you're literally a god. You should absolutely be better, stronger, harder to kill, the longer you go. More than that, playing God Mode doesn't really make the game easy to beat. You still need to play, and die, and play, and die, in order to increase the damage resistance. This is not a cheat, but a way to feel more like the god you're playing as.
And yet, unlike many roguelike games that maintain themselves in a place of endless stasis, Hades actually has an ending. Don't worry, we won't spoil it, but it suffices to say, the story does have a progression, characters have arcs, and they lead you down some exciting new twists on old myths. After many deaths, the story presents a satisfying end to its family drama that will bring a smile to your face.
This game shares a lot of similarities with Schitt's Creek, the comedy about a wealthy and dysfunctional family that loses everything and is forced to grow, and find love and happiness in a new home. Hades doesn't take immortality or power away from its pantheon, but there is some surprising character growth in here the likes of which haven't been seen in Greek mythology since the epic poems of old.
Sure, the action is great, and the fact that this costs only $20 but offers massive play time is already intriguing, but what makes Hades one of the year's best games is the way that the gameplay and genre tropes are naturally baked into one of the best family sagas in quite a while.
Rating: A-