"The D-Pad Goes to Hell" - Hades
17Live. Die. Repeat. An eternity in the underworld, scratching and clawing and clambering to escape. Hell.
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Hades is a 2020 roguelike action role-playing game developed and published by Supergiant Games. It was released for macOS, Nintendo Switch, and Windows following an early access release in December 2018. It was later released for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S in August 2021, and was released for iOS in March 2024 through Netflix Games.
Players control Zagreus, the son of Hades, as he attempts to escape from the Underworld to reach Mount Olympus, at times aided by gifts the other Olympians bestow on him. Each run contains a random series of rooms populated with enemies and rewards. The game features a hack and slash combat system; the player uses a combination of a main weapon attack, a special attack, a dash ability, and a magic ability to defeat enemies while avoiding damage to progress as far as possible. While Zagreus will often die, the player can use the treasure gained during runs to improve certain attributes or unlock new weapons and abilities to improve the chance of escaping on subsequent runs.
Hades was developed following Supergiant's Pyre, in which they wanted to explore procedural narrative storytelling. However, due to the nature of the gameplay, they found that players did not play through it multiple times to explore this. The roguelike structure of Hades allowed them to tell these branching stories to the player over the course of multiple playthroughs.
Hades has been cited among the greatest video games of all time, with critics praising its narrative, gameplay, art style, music, and voice acting. It sold more than a million copies and was named game of the year by several award ceremonies and media publications. A sequel, Hades II, was released in early access in 2024.
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