Overall, Hades II is an excellent game, blasting far past the already high bar set by its predecessor with astounding art direction and entertaining gameplay.
Hades II (2025), the successor to the wildly popular Hades (2020), has taken the gaming community by storm. Developed and produced by indie studio Supergiant Games, Hades has won dozens of awards, including the first-ever Hugo Award for Best Video Game, and Hades II is set to follow in its tracks.
For those not familiar with the roguelite genre that both games are part of, roguelites are characterized by gameplay and story that develop by repeating the same actions over and over, slowly growing your personal skills and upgrading your abilities to experience more of the game.
Set in a world where gods and myths are very real, Hades II offers a fresh and accessible perspective on classic Greek myths. Playing as Hades’s daughter, Melinoe, you are tasked with killing Chronos, the primordial god of time. Alongside
The game’s art direction is simply amazing. With detailed, hand-drawn portraits of characters, a beautifully rendered isometric world, hours of fully voiced dialogue, and excellent music, it’s a joy to experience.
As Hades is a continuation of the story and therefore intended to be played prior to Hades II, Hades II is somewhat mechanically complex and difficult, especially compared to the original. With new crafting mechanics, more complicated abilities, far more difficult fights, and double the amount of unique enemies and bosses, it is a much less friendly experience, especially for a new player.
Even for an experienced Hades player, it can prove overwhelming and hard to understand. Some features, such as gathering specific rare resources, seem to be added solely to make the game more complicated.
Offering over twice as much content as Hades, it takes twenty to forty hours (depending on your skill level) to beat just the main story, and potentially over a hundred hours to exhaust everything the game has to offer. The upgrades, locations you see, and characters you talk to are all randomly generated, making every run feel unique.
However, it becomes difficult and time-consuming to progress as you get further into the game, with increasingly long and difficult tasks required to make any sort of progress. The overall fun and engaging gameplay compensates for this tedium, but it can prove frustrating.
If you’re a fan of Greek mythology, looking for a new game with tons of content to explore, or an enjoyer of Hades, Hades II is absolutely worth playing.
