Hades 2 is finally out of Early Access and Supergiant Games has rolled out the red carpet with patch notes showing every major change as the game enters version 1.0 on PC and comes to Switch 1 and Switch 2. The true ending to Princess Melinoë’s adventure is now live, along with fresh secrets and a bevy of balancing tweaks.
Supergiant Games put Hades 2 out in Early Access back in May 2024 and it was already pretty decent. The studio’s been adding more content and fine-tuning its more ambitious scope ever since. In addition to the True Ending and Epilogue, there are also new story events, gift events, keepsakes to discover and fresh artwork and music for players to enjoy. Most of the balance changes are buffs or bug fixes. Appearance rates for resources have undergone some changes as well—all Prestige are now Kudos—and Tablet of Peace and Rod of Fishing sequences have been sped up.
“While Hades 2 spent more than four-and-a-half years in development, including about a year and a half in Early Access, it’s also the culmination of all the experience we’ve gained together as a team since Supergiant Games started back in 2009,” director Greg Kasavin wrote in the game’s Discord. “Early Access development was foundational to the entire idea of the original Hades, and proved instrumental to this latest game as well. So, from all of us, thank you for inspiring us to do our best, and we hope you enjoy your time with Hades 2.”
Opinions may vary on how well this sequel builds on the foundations of the original, but Hades 2 is an impressive achievement for a studio that’s retained all seven of its founding members and continues releasing popular indie hits without a CEO or conventional business structure. “I don’t have some kind of magical explanation for why we’ve been able to stick around for this long while some others haven’t been as fortunate,” Kasavin told SFChronicle in a new interview. “I do attribute it to the value that we place on sticking together as a team, on keeping our ambitions relatively modest. We don’t have an ambition to grow big for its own sake.”
