Hades 2 Is 'just More Hades', And You Know What—good, More For Me,...

Hades 2 didn't make it onto our Game of the Year ranking—falling short of being our Best Roguelike in lieu of Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor. Despite my best efforts, mind, so I am once again forced to make it my personal pick for the second year in a row. The main thing that set it apart, for the worse, was its saminess. Generally speaking we try to value novelty here at PC Gamer.

In addition to our main Game of the Year Awards 2025, each member of the PC Gamer team is shining a spotlight on a game they loved this year. We'll post new personal picks each day throughout the rest of the month. You can find them all here.

Well, perhaps novelty's the wrong word. It's maybe even a little judgmental—but in fairness, we live in a gaming ecosystem absolutely flooded with sequels. Call of Duty has had, to date, 22 whole games. Some of them even share a title! Why is there a Modern Warfare 2 and a Modern Warfare II? Shut up, eat your gunslop.

So I can understand the cynicism when Supergiant, an indie studio that was until now known for making indie action RPGs each with a distinct, potent vibe—Bastion, Transistor, Pyre—went ahead, rolled its sleeves up, and decided to do a sequel.

Not just a sequel, but a sequel that took the framework of the first game, which was already very good and complete, and didn't really change up the formula. Consider the following:

There are some differences, mind. Having charged Omega versions of all your spells is new. The Hexes add another layer of upgrade paths to runs. Familiars are a neat addition, even if it becomes clear pretty fast which one's the best (it's Gale). Godly boons are a mixture of the familiar and the new. Dionysus is showing bulge, now. It's twice as big (the game, not the bulge) with two different paths to conquer.

But if you've played Hades 1? Aside from a new story to gnaw on, there's nothing exactly new to be found. It's the most "just more X" videogame I think I've played in recent memory—it certainly builds on the original, but it doesn't reinvent it.

And you know what? Good. If you don't like it, more for me!

Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.

I get sequel fatigue, but it's not like Supergiant's rehashing a Call of Duty game for the nth time—this is literally the studio's first ever proper sequel, and Supergiant chose to make a sequel to, oh, I don't know, only one of the best roguelikes ever made? The Hades? The game that quite literall

Source: PC Gamer