Hades: Greek Mythology in a Roguelike

Released in full in September 2020 after two years in early access, Hades by Supergiant Games won the Hugo Award for Best Video Game, multiple Game of the Year awards, and near-universal critical acclaim, making it one of the most celebrated independent games ever made. It is also, by some measures, the most mythologically careful Greek mythology game produced to date.

The game casts players as Zagreus, the son of Hades, repeatedly attempting to escape the Underworld while receiving "boons" (divine gifts) from the Olympian gods. Between escape attempts, Zagreus converses with the inhabitants of the Underworld, shades, monsters, and minor deities, gradually uncovering a family drama involving his father Hades, his mother Persephone, and the tensions between the Underworld and Olympus.

The game's achievement is not merely mechanical but narrative: it treats Greek mythology with genuine affection and scholarship, finding fresh characterizations that feel consistent with the ancient sources while building something new.

The geography and population of the Underworld in Hades are drawn with considerable fidelity to ancient sources. The game is set across four regions of the Underworld, Tartarus, Asphodel, Elysium, and the Temple of Styx, corresponding to regions described in ancient Greek literature, particularly the accounts of Homer, Hesiod, and Virgil.

Tartarus, as in mythology, is the deepest and most primordial region. Asphodel is the gray plain of ordinary shades who led unremarkable lives, the fields where most of the dead wander without strong identity. Elysium is the paradise reserved for heroes and the blessed, depicted in the game with golden light and heroic shades. These correspond accurately to the ancient sources.

The Underworld's major figures are similarly well-handled. Charon, the ferryman, appears as his ancient self, silent, imposing, accepting payment for passage. Hypnos (Sleep), Thanatos (Death), and Nyx (Night) are given rich characterizations that remain consistent with their ancient roles. The three Judges of the Dead, Minos, Rhadamanthus, and Aeacus, appear as described by Plato and other ancient sources.

The choice of Zagreus as protagonist is both clever and somewhat mythologically adventurous. Zagreus is a real figure in ancient Greek religion, specifically in Orphic mythology, a set of religious traditions centered on the poet Orpheus and emphasizing mystery and the afterlife. In the Orphic tradition, Zagreus was a child of Zeus and Persephone who was lured by the Titans, torn apart, and whose heart was saved by Athena; he was subsequently reborn as Dionysus.

This myth made Zagreus a central figure in Orphic theology but left him barely known outside specialist scholarship. Supergiant's decision to build a game around him was, in mythological terms, genuinely obscure, and it gave the developers unusual creative freedom, since almost no players would arrive with strong preconceptions about who Zagreus was.

In the game, Zagreus is reframed as the son of Hades (not Zeus), raised in the Underworld without knowledge of his true origins. This is an invention, but one that the game handles self-consciously: the Orphic tradition is acknowledged within the narrative, and the game's version of events is presented as one interpretation among possible others.

The central emotional arc of Hades concerns the estrangement of Hades and Persephone, and Zagreus's quest to find his mother who has fled to the surface. This is the game's most significant departure from ancient myth and its most successful reinvention.

In the ancient sources, the story of Persephone is one of abduction: Hades seizes her from the surface world, her mother Demeter searches in grief, and a compromise is eventually reached where Persephone spends part of the year in the Underworld and part on the surface. This myth was used to explain the seasons, and while Persephone eventually becomes a powerful queen of the dead in her own right, the abduction narrative is foundational.

The game transforms this into a story of a difficult marriage, a wife who ultimately chose to leave rather than was taken, and a husband whose cold exterior conceals genuine love and grief. This is a more modern, emotionally literate reading of the myth that will resonate with contemporary audiences, but it is a significant departure from the ancient sources, which do not present Hades and Persephone's relationship in these terms.

The game acknowledges this tension by keeping the mythological history present: characters reference the abduction, and the game's version is presented as a retelling rather than a replacement. This self-awareness is part of what makes Hades more sophisticated than most mythological adaptations.

Each Olympian god who provides boons to Zagreus is given a distinct characterization that, while modernized in voice and manner, remains consistent with ancient attributes. This is one of the game's most praised achievements.

Zeus is thunderous, self-assured, and generously paternal, he bestows lightning boons with a confidence that reflects his ancient role as king. Poseidon is loud, enthusiastic, and slightly overwhelming, the ancient sea god's association with storms and raw power rendered as cheerful aggressiveness. Athena is measured, strategic, and genuinely supportive, consistent with her ancient character as the goddess of wisdom and just warfare.

Dionysus as a jovial, wine-offering figure who refers to Zagreus as "cousin" is both characteristically accurate and a clever nod to the Orphic tradition in which Zagreus is Dionysus's predecessor. Artemis is focused, precise, and slightly aloof, her boons center on hunting and critical hits, consistent with her domain. Ares is aggressive and terse, his boons focused on raw damage, reflecting his ancient character as the most brutal of the Olympians.

The gods' dialogue with Zagreus across repeated run attempts creates a sense of ongoing relationships that gives the ancient figures unusual emotional depth without contradicting their mythological essences.

Hades is notably strong on the minor figures and specific mythological details that most adaptations overlook. The game includes Sisyphus rolling his boulder in Tartarus, Tantalus reaching for food and water that retreats from him, Ixion bound to his wheel, the classic figures of eternal punishment, all rendered accurately with dialogue that reflects their ancient crimes and punishments.

The game also accurately includes the Erinyes (Furies) as the principal antagonists of the early game, their role as agents of divine punishment and justice is consistent with ancient sources. Megaera, Alecto, and Tisiphone are named correctly and distinguished by their personalities in ways that reflect ancient attributions.

Where the game takes its largest liberties is in characterization and relationship dynamics. The Olympians interact with each other and with Zagreus in ways that feel contemporary, they tease each other, nurse grudges, and have complex interpersonal dramas that read more as a modern family drama than an ancient theological hierarchy. This is a choice, and a successful one for a contemporary audience, but it diverges from the ancient sources' more formal and hierarchical treatment of divine relationships.

Hades has been widely praised not only as a game but as a work of mythological storytelling. Game critics have noted that its treatment of Greek mythology is unusually thoughtful for the medium, that the characters feel like interpretations of the ancient figures rather than simply names attached to gameplay archetypes.

The game's success has prompted significant player interest in the actual mythology. Online discussions routinely compare the game's versions of Zagreus, Persephone, and the Underworld to ancient sources, and the game's deliberately scholarly leanings have driven players to read Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns, and Orphic texts. This is a rare and genuinely valuable effect.

A sequel, Hades II, entered early access in 2024, focusing on Melinoe (another obscure figure from Orphic mythology) and adding Titan and witch mythology to the mix. The sequel's continued engagement with lesser-known mythological traditions suggests that Supergiant's commitment to mythological depth is ongoing.

What distinguishes Hades from most mythological video games is a combination of genuine research, clear creative intentions, and emotional intelligence about why ancient myths continue to matter. The game understands that the power of the Persephone myth is not its literal narrative but its emotional core, the tension between freedom and belonging, between the upper world and the lower, between a daughter's desire and a mother's grief.

By reorganizing this material around a son searching for his mother rather than a god abducting a maiden, the game finds an angle on the myth that is both more palatable to modern audiences and, in its own way, consistent with what the myth was always about: the relationship between the living and the dead, and what it means to belong to both worlds.

The roguelike structure, in which Zagreus dies repeatedly, each death teaching him something new, before he eventually succeeds, is itself a mythological structure. It mirrors the trials of heroes like Heracles and Odysseus, whose greatness was defined precisely by their persistence in the face of repeated failure and death. The game's mechanics and its mythology are, in this sense, genuinely unified.