Christopher Nolan could never.
2025 is coming to an end. The awards season has come to a climax with The Game Awards, and now most are moving onto a new year filled with fresh prospects and exciting new games. For my part, however, I’m ending 2025 the same way I started it; thinking, as always, about Hades 2.
I opted out of Hades 2’s early access cycle, in order to preserve its surprises for the game's full release. This means that I boarded the game's hype train a little later than most diehard fans. Still, even I had a hard time avoiding what quickly became one of the sequel’s main draws: its glittering array of memorable character designs.
And by that, I am referring to the hot people, of course. This is a game filled with a great variety of hot people, and while its roguelike dungeon-crawling gameplay has been polished to nigh perfection, I find myself returning to it time upon time again just to see more of these unreasonably hot gods and monsters.
Remember when Hades 2 was in early access? Good times
In the world of Hades 2, everyone is spectacularly attractive; though not always portrayed through the prism of conventional beauty. Greek mythology paints an extremely diverse tapestry of gods, humans, and monsters from all walks of life, after all. The game takes iconic stories and characters, like Heracles’ 12 labours or Icarus and his fragile wax wings, and puts them in our world, thus giving more races, disabilities, and personalities broader representation. The Greek gods are not here to reflect Greece, but the colourful world in which they operate.
When Hades 2 was released in early access on 5 May, 2024, it didn’t take long for the game’s all-new character portraits to flood online forums and social media posts. Hades (2020) was a much-beloved video game, and fans wanted to see what their favourite gods and monsters looked like in the sequel. Most of the entire cast had been given redesigns to match the sequel’s new premise: the monsters are taking over, and the gods are going to war.
The Olympians’ glorious new fits did not disappoint. Not only did returning gods like Artemis, Poseidon, and Demeter appear resplendent in new attire, but we finally got to see a few gods missing from the first game; namely Hephaestus, Hestia, Apollo, and Hera. Not all at once, of course–several gods were missing from the game’s initial early access period, only to be added in slowly, as Supergiant released further content updates.
Again, these new godly additions add diversity to the main cast. Hera is dark-skinned, Hestia ostensibly has vitiligo, and Hephaestus uses a mechanical wheelchair. They have human traits, much like the other gods, but make no mistake; they are gods all the same. Hera speaks with a level of curtness that betrays her status as the gods' queen and matriarchal figure, and Apollo very quickly swings from being a friendly face to a wrathful god the second Melinoë falls on his bad side.
They’re complex, they’re beautiful, and they’re a touch rude–so of course, it took no time at all for early access players to become obsessed. It’s not just the new gods, but the new villains like Scylla and the Sirens, Polyphemus, and Eris, which quickly grabbed players’ attention. The game hadn’t even come out yet, but fanart could be found aplenty online of its new gods and monsters. People had fallen hard for these new designs, myself included–and I wasn’t even playing the game yet.
It’s not just that the new characters were hot, but that they also felt wholly unique to Supergiant aesthetically. Unwilling to relegate its characters to the classic historical fantasy elements of Greek mythology that we have seen in older media, like Clash of the Titans and Jason and the Argonauts for example, Supergiant has instead taken an anachronistic approach. The primordial being known as Chaos appears to players as an androgynous god in a dapper white-and-gold suit. Sure, why not? I can certainly appreciate the developer making that leap over turning out Generic Smoke Monster #6.
How Hades 2's characters actually make the game more addictive to play
Fanart and beauty standards aside, these excellent character designs also factor into Hades 2’s core gameplay loop. Some players who already harboured a fondness for Greek mythology will enter the story with preconceived notions of how certain characters should look and act, making it all the more important that their designs hit the mark.
It’s as simple as this: if you don’t like talking to people in Hades 2, you’re going to have a bad time. The game is split into two halves; one has players fight their way through a random assortment of levels with escalating difficulty, while the other has them bond with various friends, and friendly foes, in the Underworld. The player can also talk to and deepen their relationship with the gods, who offer Melinoë various boons (combat abilities) throughout her quest.
Fortunately, it’s an absolute joy talking to Hades 2’s gods. They never feel static, but are always dynamic in responding to Melinoë’s actions in the story. As she nears her ultimate goal of obliterating Chronos and saving her family, so do the gods begin to cheer her on, and the people of the Underworld remark on her increasingly difficult achievements. Supergiant has assembled a talented cast to lend their voices to the various deities Melinoë spends time with. What is, on a very basic level, simply great artwork comes alive with personality, history, and memories made over the course of the main story.
Before you know it, you’ve bonded with these characters deeply. More than that, you’re playing the game just to see more of them. Another run to see what Hecate says about you meeting Chronos for the first time. Another run to meet a new god; perhaps Ares, now that you’ve finally conquered the great threat atop of Olympus. Another run to further Melinoë’s romantic entanglements with Nemesis, Moros, Icarus, and… dare I say it? Eris.
I love Hades 2’s combat system. In many ways, it’s much more complex and richer than the first game, armed with a staggering number of builds and upgrades for players to toy around with. However, it’s the game’s rich characters, and indeed, their gorgeous designs, that kept me coming back long after the credits rolled.
Conclusion
Hades 2’s visual identity has bewitched me like no other game this year. Even now, I find myself being able to bring forth images of its colourful cast so vividly in my mind, as if I had only started playing the game yesterday. That comes down to the gods of Greek mythology being rendered with pixel perfection here, offering a new and almost unfamiliar spin on the classic stories we grew up reading and watching.
This is a game that could have played things safe, dressing its gods up in simple tunics and linen garb, in order to better reflect their ancient origins. However, Supergiant’s commitment to staying weird has instead produced a distinctive cast of characters with timeless appeal. There isn’t a single character in this game who won’t be hot to someone, even including Scylla.
Scratch that; especially Scylla.
