Supergiant has begun testing the highly anticipated sequel Hades 2, which will be accessible to everyone in early access later this year.
The latter half of 2024 currently has few major game releases, and one of the most anticipated titles will only be available in early access, and initially only on PC.
Hades 2 will also be available on consoles at the final launch, but for now, only PC footage has been shown, with developer Supergiant streaming three hours of gameplay and commentary, providing a first look at new protagonist Melinoë.
Unlike the first game’s Zagreus, his sister (actually, we’re not clear if they’re directly related but she is described as Underworld Princess) has more of an emphasis on magical powers and the technical test in the footage below shows her using just two weapons: the Witch’s Staff and the Sister Blades.
The story in Hades 2 is not yet clear, but apparently Melinoë is after Chronos, described by Supergiant as the Titan of Time. Chronos is the more usual spelling for the personification of time, and it’s Cronus which is the father of Zeus, but the two are often conflated – especially in games like this, that stray pretty far from the original Greek myths.
In terms of gameplay, you can see that Melinoë has a ‘magick’ meter which is used to power new omega attacks, which is something Zagreus never had.
Only the Erebus area is included in the test but there is also the new Crossroads hub, that you return to when you die, where you can chat with various characters including Hectate – who is sometimes thought of as the same entity as Melinoë, so we guess Supergiant isn’t going that route with the character.
As expected, Hades 2 doesn’t look much different from the first game, but this is only one area and hopefully the new magic elements will help to shake things up a bit.
It’s not surprising that there are more Hades games, but the original was so successful that there are now numerous imitators, even as the number of similar action role-playing games has grown.
There’s no indication of when Hades 2 will be fully released, but it won’t be this year. There’s also no confirmation of the platforms it’ll be on, but the original was on every possible platform, including mobile, so that will likely be the case this time as well.
If you want to participate in the technical test yourself, you can sign up for the chance here. There’s no indication of when it will start, but the implication is soon. It’ll run for ‘longer than a week but shorter than a month’ before early access proper starts later this year.
