GamesRoguelikeHadesHades 2Hades 2 director challenges roguelike convention: “If you don’t finish the run, it doesn’t mean that you failed"When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
GamesRoguelikeHadesHades 2Hades 2 director challenges roguelike convention: “If you don’t finish the run, it doesn’t mean that you failed"When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
(Image credit: Supergiant Games)
TheHades 2team hopes that its roguelike sequel offers “more opportunities to set your own goals” as you play.
Supergiant Games creative director and Hades 2 head Greg Kasavin says that the indie studio looked to how the community played through its original roguelike for inspiration on how to design the more recently released sequel. Speaking toEdge, Kasavin explains that while the first game presented us with a “clear goal,” which is to simply “get to the end,” the team found that most players strayed from that linear path while playing Hades in favour of further exploring stories or resolving character relations. Rather than powering through to the finish line, Supergiant discovered “that players started to create a lot of other goals as they played.”
No matter which way you choose to play, “it doesn’t mean that you failed.” Kasavin describes how regardless of whether or not you “finish the run” and “reach the final boss” in Hades 2, your experience is as valid as any. The lead developer details how you can make “meaningful progress in a different sort of way that is exciting to you personally” rather than only hacking and slashing your way through formidable foes or powering up as you may expect to do in a roguelike game. Whatever your own aspirations may be as you traverse the Underworld and beyond, Kasavin says that the devs “don’t want the game to dictate those goals.”
Whether you opt to battle your way through the dungeon crawler to take the Titan of Time on himself, mingle with ghosts and gods leisurely as you please, or do it all at once, Supergiant wants you to play Hades 2 your way without fear of failure as there isn’t any “right” way. Those of us with a penchant for resolving character relations and engaging in side-story exploration will have even more content to work with in the future too, asHades 2’s first major updatecontaining new gods and regions is in the works.
Read ourHades 2 reviewto learn what we think about the early access roguelike so far.
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