The fable of Arachne.

Sequels are always difficult, I imagine.

How to capture the core brilliance of a thing and build on it?

hades 2 key art of melinoe wielding magic

What to add, what to remove?

But not every game is Civilisation.

Hades 2

Sequels for roguelikes, though?

Cover image for YouTube video

Roguelikes are games that already carry an infinite number of sequels within them.

If Spelunky struggles with this, what hope for everyone else?

Hades 2seems very happy being a sequel, even a sequel to a roguelike.

Hades 2 - Melinoe talks to Arachne in the form of a spider danging from a web. She says: “This is beautiful, thank you…"

That said, there are changes, and big ones.

And yet before I get into them, two interlinked questions and answers.

Not sure, actually.

Hades 2 - A choice of boons from Apollo, with descriptions of each boon

Secondly: in terms of the fun I’m having, does that really matter?

Firstly: that’s a great name for something.

Secondly, it has a standard one-two-three attack where the third beat goes off like a machine gun.

Hades 2 - a boss fight, with the player sending arcing golden arrows at a huge foe.

Nothing standard about it!

Like Zagreus, Melinoe has a sprint dash, and she has a standard, special and cast attack.

But the biggest change to the system is the addition of Omega attacks.

A special attack zings through enemies leaving a trail of flame in Hades 2.

Omega attacks work on a pool of Magick mana that sits above the health bar.

(Or maybe below?

Hades 2 remains sufficiently frantic that my concept of the UI is even more impressionist than normal.)

Attacks go off in a circular movement in Hades 2.

They do feel a bit like that to me.

Pay attention to that: Hades 2 wants you to have easy access to Magick.

This is just one way that Hades 2 shows a deep comfort with the traditional Hades flow.

Hades 2 - hectic combat with arcing arrows emerging from the player

The second is that Hades 2 seems to be very interested in cumulative power from the off.

Well, you’re going to be extravagantly powerful, anyway.

But the enemies build too.

hades 2 official screenshot of combat against multiple enemies

Bosses, meanwhile, are not screwing around.

Hades 2 isn’t screwing around.

That might be its defining feature.

hades 2 key art melinoe in in-game landscape

Some people play this for the slide-and-smash combat.

Some people love the Classical reality show going on as the gods weigh in.

I chose and moved on and was pretty happy about things.

But I thought: Arachne.

Controller remapping available as well as god mode, aim assist and a timer display.

You know: oh gosh, another vivid classic, fine.

And that’s quite a thought.

Hades 2 code was provided for review by Supergiant Games.