Previews
[Early Access Preview] ‘Hades’ is Supergiant Games’ Darkest Title Yet
“Few tales are told of Hades, whose very name inspires fear and penitence, reminding us of the inevitable fate which we all share. I, however, meant to tell you such a tale. Listen carefully.”
Starting out in the wilds of Caelondia with Bastion, running through an erasing city in Transistor and sacrificing everything to escape from an eerie purgatory in Pyre made for unique scenarios and memories. But Hades is yet something else entirely, diving into hell itself in what it feels like the darkest game of the studio to date.
Supergiant Games always enjoy to innovate, boasting isometric hack & slash titles with a mix of turn-based and even sports elements throughout the years. While the stories, characters, and themes had nothing in common, they all share a strong focus on narrative and sticking to their own lore, as weird and esoteric as they might be sometimes.
But now, the studio’s latest is based on Greek mythology, and from the perspective of probably the most feared Gods of all tales: Hades and his underworld. Commanding his son, Zagreus, we are introduced to Supergiant’s take on the roguelike genre, with another particularity that is an Early Access, meaning that unlike previous experiences, we are deprived of the full story just yet.
Though as it stands, we can already grasp some of the mechanics, weapons, and iterations to the genre, all wrapped around a singular element that sets it apart from the studio’s legacy: blood, darkness, curses, and attempting to defy Hades himself to escape from the underworld.
From the moment I first saw Zagreus dying in the reveal trailer of the game, I could feel we were upon a dark and ruthless setting, uncommon for the known legacy of the studio. Once the main character perishes in battle, his lifted to the air, only to fall inside a pool of blood where he drowns, all of this happening while a message reminds us that “there is no escape”.
Again and again, does Hades tell his son that leaving his realm is impossible, but yet the character mocks his words and continues to go and get killed endlessly. Both here and in Greek mythology, it is known that the so-called House of Hades was meant to remain shut for eternity, portrayed as a home for new “guests”. Whoever tried to leave was met by Cerberus, a giant three-headed dog guarding the main gate, who is portrayed as a very good boy in Hades.
There’s a depiction of horror pretty much everywhere we see: the river Styx is presented in darkest red, with waves of hands coming out from its interior, and you can see souls in green robes, floating and sometimes interacting with each other. Hades is always omnipotent, mocking and challenging his son in every opportunity that arises, sometimes delivering striking voice lines: “Family? Death is your only family. Death and I. Better get accustomed to the both of us.”
If I were to think about an evolving state in Hades, that would be violence. Both from the words of his father to his surroundings, Zagreus is always in the line of mental and physical damage, but he’s empowered by this thanks to his personality. Instead of giving up, he’s always encouraging both himself and the player to push forward, to try again and get as far as you can through Tartarus and beyond.
In Hades, there aren’t different weapons to use simultaneously, but rather leans on using only one at the time, which offers a group of primary and secondary attacks. The sword leads a huge amount of damage within a decent range, while the bow can be fierce if timed correctly, but can also shoot in a fast manner covering a short range.
By far, the ones I’ve been using the most are the spear, perfect for quick consecutive attacks, and a shield that can knockback and be used as defense while you charge for a devastating blow. And while they may sound a bit discouraging to be entitled to just one weapon at the time, the Gods from the Olympus are more than willing to lend a hand and add variety in Zagreus’ trips.
Ares can modify your attacks or even your behavior with a revenge skill, securing an attack whenever you suffer damage. Zeus can grant lighting bolts for whenever you dodge or use your primary attack, while Aphrodite offers a unique skill to weaken enemies for a few seconds. These are all offered randomly, and as we’re used from the roguelike, everything else is also procedurally generated.
But the game does something interesting, which is displaying an icon at the door with the reward you’ll be getting in the next room, either help from the Gods or Darkness, the game’s currency (aside from gold) used for unlocking and upgrading passive skills back in Zagreus’ room.
Everything sums up to deliver a fast-paced experience, with a new score from Darren Korb that meshes songs that sound like a Mastodon album with electric guitars and melodies that sound ancient. Boss fights are particularly vibrant and energetic, although it’s a shame to have only a handful available at the moment. Still, coming up with the best combination of skills and your mastery with a weapon takes more than a few hours of preparation, and enemies will do everything on their disposal to keep you in practice mode and train your reflexes.
But the dark tone is always there, in every encounter with Hades after resurrecting from a pool of blood, to all the damage you deal to enemies, also portrayed as splatters of said substance with each hit. While Supergiant is busy forging the mechanics and their own vision of Greek mythology, in particular with chthonic Gods (those who are born from the underworld), they are shaping a very obscure experience that isn’t afraid to shock you with its malevolent attention to detail.
Hades is available now in PC Early Access via the Epic Games Store.
In the past 10 years since the release of DOOM (2016), we’ve seen a surprising amount of evolution on the core concept of the series. DOOM brought the series back with a clever push-forward combat system with a glory kill system that forced you to stay in the fray. DOOM Eternal added wrinkles to the combat by giving you tools that exploited specific enemy weaknesses, while also increasing the focus on precise platforming and narrative.
DOOM: The Dark Ages slowed things down a bit without decreasing the intensity, giving you a shield that added defensive verbs to your arsenal in a way that allowed you to be even more aggressive. It’s very clear throughout all these titles that id Software is very thoughtful about the ways they try to replicate the experience of original games in a modern context.
Recently, id hosted a virtual event to show off the latest iteration of the DOOM series, Revelations, an upcoming DLC for DOOM: The Dark Ages, which they promise will be a celebration of the entire series. Set after the conclusion of Dark Ages, the Doomslayer finds himself trapped in a purgatory, forcing him to rip and tear his way out of a prison of his own mind with the help of a mysterious ally. While they emphasized that this would be a narratively pivotal chapter for the story of the Doomslayer, they were keeping details under wraps, instead focusing on the level structure and combat feel of the DLC.
A More Demanding Challenge
One thing they wanted to make clear about Revelations is that they are going to be pushing the level of difficulty higher than the base game, challenging even the most seasoned series veterans. Game Director Hugo Martin wanted to emphasize that they’ve been listening to fans, so while it will be more challenging, the ramp-up of that difficulty is more gradual than in the DOOM Eternal Ancient Gods DLCs. The difficulty and accessibility sliders from the base game will all be sticking around, so you’ll be able to customize your challenge level however you want, if you find the game too punishing.
In order to prepare you to meet this challenge, they’ve introduced a new weapon, the chain spear. This can be swapped into your left hand, where you also use the shield from the base game, giving you a new suite of options for your tactical arsenal. Not only does it allow you to parry projectiles like the shield, but it also adds a grappling hook and dash to your toolkit, giving you ways to move around the battlefield quicker than before.
If you’re more comfortable with the shield, that will still be available to you, but Martin said by the end of the campaign you’ll need to be integrating the spear into your repertoire, as upgrades make it essential to your survival.
While id still wants to retain the slower, more brutal feeling of Dark Ages, they’re hoping that the spear will feel like strapping a jet engine to a monster truck, combining the best of the last two games into one violent package. It’s hard to say how this will feel without getting my hands on it, but a lot of the new skills appeared to add a dynamism to the encounters, particularly the clever-looking orbit ability that allows you to attach yourself to a monster and revolve around them, almost like an aerial version of the z-targeting lock-on from Metroid Prime.
The modern DOOM series has always been about finding just the right balance of giving you enough tools to make combat both tactical and reflex-based without making too much complexity as to overwhelm you. It looks to me like the chain spear will be a solid addition that adds exciting ways to close the distance or get around an arena, rather than forcing you to remember the utility of each weapon like DOOM Eternal did.
Six Levels and an Endgame Built for Experts
Revelations will feature six levels, including the hub, and will provide about 10 to 12 hours of content, roughly the same size as the two-part Ancient Gods DLC from Eternal. As Martin explained it, this will be divided between the main campaign and the endgame content, with the main campaign taking up about 60% of the overall runtime. After completing the main campaign missions, you’ll be given access to a wide variety of challenges that will continue to increase in difficulty until you unlock what Martin called the Uberboss. I’m curious to see how substantial this endgame content feels, as it sounds like it will take you on new paths through the previous levels rather than providing completely new content, but id seems confident that the challenge and spectacle of these encounters are going to be worth it.
The team said that exploration is going to be one of the highlights of the DLC, which is a fun prospect for me. The best DOOM levels are the ones that are littered with satisfying secrets, and they’ve promised Revelations will be full of them, including hidden recreations of classic levels. After hearing fan feedback for DOOM: The Dark Ages, they decided not to mark these secrets on the map, allowing you the satisfaction of finding them yourself. Every level is designed to be fairly maze-like, requiring you to retrace your steps as the campaign goes on.
There’s even the promise of Metroidvania-like exploration in the hub level, opening up more and more of the space as you gain abilities. The dragon and the mech will not be showing up in the DLC, but leaving them behind feels like a good decision to me, as they exhausted those gimmicks in the base game.
Smarter Enemies, Tougher Fights
Over the course of the presentation, they showed off a few more enemy options that are being added into the mix. In addition to an all-new Wizard enemy type, there are variants of enemies seen in the base game featuring new behaviors that change up the encounters in meaningful ways. Importantly, they said that there would be a focus on giving more enemies evasive AI, pulling you around the arena space to keep you from hunkering down in one place. DOOM has always been a fast-paced game of tactical chess, requiring you to scan the battlefield and prioritize the various targets, so hopefully adding more enemy behaviors to the mix will make for a fun way to add challenge to their already challenging combat.
In addition to the difficult endgame, id is releasing a 3.0 version of the Ripatorium, the customizable endless mode that was seen in the Dark Ages. This will add new maps, new levels, and deeper customization to the fan-favorite mode, allowing you to run through some particularly diabolical encounters. While I personally would prefer more focus on the main campaign of the game, it seems they are trying to cater to people who want more ways to push the challenge of the series as far as they can, and Ripatorium 3.0 looks like the culmination of that effort.
Final Verdict
The DOOM series is so much about how it feels in the hands, and while I didn’t get to experience that, they closed the presentation with a combat sizzle reel that looked like an exciting evolution of Dark Ages, a game that I thought felt great to play. The new grapple function of the spear allowed the arenas to have a bit more verticality than those found in the base game, and the visual design of the enemies remained consistently readable, allowing you to understand the encounter at a glance. The orbit ability in particular looked fun as hell, allowing you to dynamically move around the environment while still staying focused on offense. It’s looking extremely promising, but it’s impossible to judge until I get to play it myself.
After experimenting with the formula for over the last decade, id is hoping that Revelations is the culmination of the series from both a mechanical and narrative standpoint. They closed by saying that Revelations is to The Dark Ages what DOOM Eternal was to DOOM (2016), which is both exciting and worrying for me. In my mind, there’s a dial they’ve been tuning over the course of this reboot series. The dial felt perfect in DOOM, then turned too far up for me with Eternal, before reaching a great point with The Dark Ages, though not quite as perfect as where it started.
Time will tell where it lands on this spectrum, but the new chain spear seems like it’s going to be just as welcome an addition as the shield was in The Dark Ages. Fortunately, we don’t have to wait too long to find out.
DOOM: The Dark Ages | Revelations will be available for the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series and the PC via Steam on July 7.
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