Hades II Early Access Preview

Like many others, I’ve been digging into Hades II’s Early Access debut. Even at such an early stage, I am stunned by its depth and the level of content that is currently available. Even at its earliest point in Early Access, Hades II has more polish than fully released games I’ve seen in a long time. Unsurprisingly, Supergiant Games has begun crafting a game more impressive than the first, which is a feat for their first sequel.

I will break this preview into 3 pieces: The story, the mechanics, and speculation on what the finished game could look like. The story picks up at an undisclosed amount of time after the first game’s ending. Though considering Zagreus now has an adult sister you can at least hazard a guess as to the time frame. Chronos has (somehow) managed to reform after being dismembered and scattered through the underworld prior to the first game.

Chronos takes this opportunity to imprison most of the inhabitants of the House of Hades, but not before Hecate escapes with the young Melinoe and another familiar face. Of course, we fast forward some time later, with an adult Melinoe having trained most of her life to free her family, focusing solely on the mission of “Death to Chronos.”

The interesting part about this though, is that much like Zagreus’ problems with Hades in the original game, this conflict with Chronos is a multifaceted problem. Chronos is Melinoe’s grandfather, and yet he does have a legitimate grievance with his family, even if some of their actions of killing and imprisoning his remains were justified.

I won’t go into detail on just how deep the rabbit hole goes with Hades II’s plot so far, but I can tell you that it is rather meaty. I’ve played for over 30 hours and I’m still catching new bits of the story. There are a lot of new characters, and I’m sure that returning characters will show up (beyond the ones already included) as development progresses.

This integrates well with discussing the art style. Supergiant Games took careful steps to make sure that every returning character’s design reflects the time that has passed since the first game. The familiar faces are still familiar, but their design reflects the new circumstances they find themselves in.

Mechanically speaking, Supergiant Games has taken everything from the original game and tuned it even further. Because Melinoe is a practitioner of witchcraft, everything about her gameplay is rooted in witchcraft lore and practice. From the tarot used to develop her permanent progression to the focus on witchcraft tools as weaponry, there is a distinctive difference between her and Zagreus.

Admittedly when Hades II was announced I was curious as to how they’d differentiate the two protagonists, but Hades II feels simultaneously like a completely different experience, and a familiar, evolved one at the same time. Prior to the first patch, I would have said that the difficulty needed tuning, and I’m sure as development continues it will need to be tuned further, but right now it has struck a decent balance.

Finding crafting materials for rituals is slightly tedious, but since Supergiant Games has tuned drop rates in recent patches, I can’t complain too much on that either. Essentially, as long as Supergiant Games continues to take player feedback into account, I think Hades II will shape up to not only be as great as its predecessor but surpass it in spades.

My biggest curiosity is how Hades II’s plot will unfold. There are a lot of interweaving characters here and a lot of stories to tell. There are also plenty of characters from the original Hades that haven’t surfaced yet. Granted, some of them are less necessary, though I would love to see them anyway (like Orpheus and Eurydice).

Others however seem a bit more vital, such as Zagreus himself. What has happened to our brother? Chronos makes several comments, but I feel as though a tale about Melinoe reclaiming her family would be incomplete without a sibling bond.

In its current state, I can easily see Hades II shaping up to be a Game of the Year contender for 2025. We know (according to Supergiant) that it will be in Early Access until next year some time, but I’m eager to see how it changes and grows between now and then. Hades II is already more polished than most finished games, so the finished product is likely to be yet another Supergiant masterpiece.