Hades II is the sequel to the 2020 isometric Roguelike Hades by Supergiant Games. It was announced at the 2022 Game Awards with the following trailer. The game is notable for being the first sequel from Supergiant Games.

Set some time after the original game, the game follows Melinoë, the daughter of Hades and Persephone, student of witch-goddess Hecate, and younger sister of previous protagonist Zagreus. Having trained in secret with the witch-goddess, Melinoë sets out to free her father and defeat the Titan of Time, Chronos, who has escaped his underworld prison, captured Hades and the rest of his house, and declared war on Mount Olympus.

Just like the first game, each night you set off as the Princess of the Underworld will involve going from room to room, killing enemies to open the next chamber and finding power-ups along the way. As you fight, die, and sometimes win, you'll gradually unlock more and more resources for your task at night, some of which are accessed with special tools. There's a multitude of Arcana cards for stat boosts, weapons for playstyles, keepsakes for upgrade powers, and various incantations to invoke your will. All of this is done to slowly but surely grow more powerful, and gradually expand the game's content.

Some new gameplay mechanics are present - Melinoë drops a magic circle instead of throwing Bloodstone for Cast like her predecessor Zagreus does, using the circle to ensnare enemies among other Boon effects to compensate for weaker Dash movement compared to the previous game. The Ω Charge Attack is now available on normal, special and Cast attacks. They require a Mana Meter which is automatically refilled at the beginning of each encounter, and they can be modified with Boons, adding another layer of tactics and planning.

The game launched for Early Access on May 6, 2024, with some elements unfinished and a full release date still unspecified. Unless otherwise stated, all information on this page is based on the Early Access version.

Previews: Reveal Trailer, Early Access Showcase, Official Website.

Death to Chronos. May the tropes guide you.

• 11th-Hour Superpower: At the very end of a run, you'll recieve a boon from none other than Hades himself. This boon is powerful and tailor-made to make the next fight easier, whether it's slashing the number of mobs the Final Boss can summon in half to doubling the damage you deal on your next attack from under the Dark buff.
• Action Girl:
  • Melinoë, like her brother before her, can wield a variety of weapons, including a staff or a pair of blades. She also knows magic, using it to empower her attacks or stop foes in their place.
  • Hecate taught Melinoë how to fight and use magic so her protege could someday kill Chronos; she's also the first area's boss, testing whether Melinoë is ready for her task ahead.
• Adaptational Modesty:
  • Zeus is wearing a chestplate. In the first game, he was bare-chested.
  • Aphrodite, while still nearly naked, wears a little bit of armour here (but not over any crucial areas).
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • You're momentarily invincible every time you enter a room, allowing you to orient yourself to the layout without getting hit by an attack that you couldn't possibly have seen coming.
  • The first encounter of any run will always feature a tablet that allows you to endlessly refill your magic so you can get the hang of the controls for a specific weapon before going on a deeper run with it. There's another such tablet near Schelemeus for the same reason.
  • Whenever you get a Hex from Selene, you're allowed one free cast of it immediately so you can learn how it works before you need to use it on enemies.
  • The Final Boss has an Interface Screw that you can eventually turn off if it's too distracting. You can gain an ability to pause the game during the fights against Chronos after facing him at least once; the first time you fight him (and until this invocation is used), Chronos will just mock you for thinking that you're a better Time Master than him and forcibly unpause the game.
  • If you're using the Arcana that slows down time while charging an Omega move, and you try to charge one while you lack the mana to do so, the game will still enter the charging state and slow down time briefly. That way, you won't get killed if you were counting on the slowdown to give you the time to react to something and didn't realize you lacked the mana.
  • An excursion to the surface is Unwinnable by Design, as Melinoë has the same problem that her brother Zagreus has: she's tied to the Underworld, and can't survive in the land of the living. Running out of HP from this curse just instantly kills you no matter how many Death Defiances you have left, so you aren't just sitting around waiting for what you've already figured out is coming. Melinoë can eventually learn an incantation that removes the curse, allowing her to explore the surface without losing HP.
  • The first update in Early Access made it so that all gathering tools could be used, regardless of whether or not they had been selected for the current run; selecting a particular tool just makes that gathering node much more likely to appear.
  • After a few nights, you'll be thrown into a flashback sequence where you'll play as someone other than Melinoë for a moment as Hades sends Melinoë away with Hecate after Chronos invades the House of Hades and takes it over. If you haven't moved for a few moments after the cutscene ends, the game assumes you haven't figured out that you're in control and prompts you with a quick message.
• Alien Blood:
  • The description for the Zodiac Sand states that what what flows through the Titan of Time is "remnants of aeons past".
  • Regular enemies bleed black, contrasting with red blood that spills from Melinoë when she gets hit, as if marking the player's mistakes.
• Arc Words:
  • "Time cannot be stopped" is used whenever Melinoë falls in battle. It's also got a double meaning, since time literally can't be stopped (since it always moves forward), as well as the Titan of Time being the Big Bad.
  • "Death to Chronos" is used by the heroes as a rallying cry.
  • Melinoë and Hecate share "So mote it be," whenever the former performs a new incantation. Used by other witches as well.
• Arrange Mode: The Pitch-Black Stone grants access to special missions after Chaos instructs how to perform an incantation to activate it. During these "experiments" many elements are preset, such as what weapons and Arcana the player will use, region to fight through, conditions on the Oath of the Unseen and even pre-picked boons. Difficulty of each of them is indicated by a number of red eyes ranging from one to five, with many of the earlier trials being (obviously) easier, such as the "Trial of Origin" which beefs one up with hugely inflated health, manapool, and free damage on all types of attacks. After successfully beating the Guardian in the region, the player is rewarded with an unique resource and snapped back to reality.
• Art Evolution: The second game adds to the original's already gorgeous art by making the character portraits more detailed, intricate, and sometimes even more grandiose. The in-game models are also much better animated and detailed than the originals. It can be a bit jarring fighting Cerberus's corrupted self, only for him to transition to his lower fidelity model from the first game once he's defeated.
• Artistic License – Geography: Melinoë's path to Mount Olympus on the surface has her emerge from the City of Ephyra and then crossing a vast sea known as the Rift of Thessaly by hijacking Chronos' naval fleet. Both Ephyra and Olympus are real-world places... that aren't separated by sea like in the game and are within mainland Greece. This is all justified however: Homer's narration as well as info from the Book of Shadows indicates that the Rift of Thessaly is the real-world region of Thessaly, having been flooded by Poseidon in an attempt to forestall Chronos' forces from reaching Olympus (as well as giving the developers the excuse to have Melinoë sail through the seas like in The Odyssey and other Greek myths).^note While there were multiple places in ancient Greece that were called Ephyra, the game versions singles it out as the city whose patron deities were Hades and Persephone. This also confirms that the Temple of Styx from the previous game is none other than the Necromanteion of Acheron, as the latter was believed to be the gateway to the Underworld and both are situated near Ephyra.
• Autobots, Rock Out!: While you fight Scylla and the Sirens, they play the rock songs "Coral Crown" or, once you've defeated her enough for a bit of animosity to build up, "I am Gonna Claw (Your Eyes Out and Drown You to Death)". The instrumentation changes through the fight since the guitars, vocals, and drums will all be knocked out of the mix after the respective band member is beaten. Whenever Scylla hides in her shell, the vocals are appropriately muffled as well.
• Bathtub Bonding: One unlockable feature for the Crossroads is a hot spring, and Melinoë can invite another ally to take a bath with her depending how deep their relationship is.
• Beef Gate: Hecate invokes this on Melinoë, acting as an in-universe Warm-Up Boss. The logic is that if Melinoë can't defeat Hecate, then defeating Chronos is out of the question. As such, Hecate deliberately stands in Melinoë's way and challenges her to combat to prove she's capable of winning.
• Bleak Level: Melinoë passes through the Fields of Mourning on her way down to Tartarus, a place where the dead go both to purge themselves of sorrow and drown in it. Standing in pockets of Miasma can even temporarily cripple Melinoë with doubts and fears of her own, though she's quick to shake them off each time.
• Body Armor as Hit Points: Armor appears as a meter over your health, and most sources of damage will hit your armor first.
• Body-Count Competition:
  • Similar to Thanatos in the previous game, Nemesis will occasionally challenge Melinoë to see who can kill the most enemies in a given time limit. The main difference is that there's money on the line; the loser has to pay the winner 100 gold.
  • Heracles, as well, will sometimes challenge Melinoë to a competition on the surface. Though you're competing for who gets the most gold instead, it more or less boils down to "who kills the most enemies" anyway.
• Boss-Altering Consequence: In the final area of the Underworld, you can find an NPC who can give you Boons, some of which affect your battle with Chronos. These effects include making Chronos summon only half the normal amount of Mooks, or making him take twenty percent of his max HP in damage when the fight starts. This NPC is Hades himself, using Melinoë as a measure of revenge against the Titan.
• Bullet Time:
  • The Sorceress Arcana card slows down time for a few seconds while channeling an Omega Attack.
  • The Phase Shift Hex slows down time for a few seconds, while Melinoë keeps moving at normal speed in comparison. This becomes useless against Chronos, since he's the Titan of Time.
• Changing Clothes Is a Free Action: Arachne offers a selection of buff-granting dresses, which Melinoë can put on instantly.
• Charged Attack: Omega Attacks must be held for a second and drain your Mana Meter when used, but have enhanced properties. Each weapon has an Omega version of its basic and special attack, and Melinoë's Cast can also be charged, causing it to deal damage upon expiring.
• Continuity Nod:
  • During her boss fight, Hecate is supported by witch shades who are identical to the witch enemies from the first game.
  • In the previous game, the Stygian Blade can be imbued with the Aspect of Nemesis, turning it into a single-edged blade with red plates, a bronze skull on the handle, and a blue-bottomed hilt. Nemesis is seen wielding this exact sword.
  • Similarly, the Adamant Rail has the Aspect of Eris, the eponym of which wields the weapon in her likeness. During her boss fight, she even uses her Aspect's special ability to hit herself with the weapon's grenade launcher to buff her damage.
  • In the first game, Zagreus couldn't survive for very long on the surface, because those of the House of Hades are tied to the Underworld and thus can't survive in the land of the living. When Melinoë tries to do the same thing in this game, she gets the same result; it's impossible to progress beyond a few rooms before she suffers an unavoidable death. That is, until she learns an incantation to briefly suppress this problem and ascend to the surface without the curse.
• Costume Evolution: The gods from the first game who return all sport armor and weapons now. Skelly, now "Schelemeus" meanwhile has a Chest of Medals, a cape, and armor skirting. And somehow, a beard.
• Could Say It, But...: Defied. After Moros surreptitiously gives Melinoë a secret incantation to allow her to suppress the Fates' curse and survive on the surface, she can attempt to ask him for advice in a roundabout way, wondering if such an incantation would theoretically cause any problems she ought to avoid. Moros politely-but-firmly refuses to engage, noting that giving her any more information on the matter, even as a hypothetical, would be overstepping his bounds.
• Counter-Attack: With the Aspect of Artemis for the Twin Blades, Melinoë can block one hit every few seconds while charging her Omega Attack. After blocking, your next few attacks will have a high chance to inflict a Critical Hit; considering how by the time you've triggered this buff, you've just charged your Omega Attack, which is a single, high-damage strike with an Area of Effect, this can be very powerful.
• Darker and Edgier: The first game was a largely comic affair mostly focused on the troubled relationships of the House of Hades, with Zagreus being all too used to his current situation to a degree where all he can do is joke about it right from the start. By contrast, this game immediately deals with a much more dramatic premise where Melinoë has lost her entire family - to the point she wasn't even able to be raised among them - and her quest is far more directly to take revenge on Chronos and free them. Even the visual style is far darker, and nearly every new NPC deals with at least some gothic characterization and styling, while many of the encounters one can find in individual runs have an almost surreal and disturbing bent to them. Fittingly, Melinoë is rather serious, if rather cute and endearing, compared to the endlessly sardonic and free-spirited Zagreus.
• Death from Above:
  • The Wolf Howl Hex has Melinoë jump up into the air, then crash back down at a chosen location, dealing damage to all enemies in the area.
  • Icarus' assistance is preceded by the words "Death from above" appearing on the screen. He then proceeds to unleash a bombing run onto the enemies below as he flies by.
• Death Takes a Holiday: Albeit an unwilling one. Both Thanatos, death himself, and Hades, whose responsibility it is to keep the Underworld sealed, have been captured by Chronos, meaning that the surface is is being subjected to a Zombie Apocalypse as Chronos forces the undead to march on Olympus.
• Despair Event Horizon: The Mourning Fields inflict this on anyone who stays there for too long. The monsters there are all enemies who have essentially given up hope, and intend to inflict their pain on anyone who crosses their path. There's also roaming pockets of gaseous Miasma that will cause Melinoë to disparage herself before she shakes it off, temporarily slowing her movement speed if she gets caught in one of them.
• Developer's Foresight:
  • Used during the Final Boss fight against Chronos. He's a Time Master, as is to be expected of the Titan of Time. So your effects that slow down time, including Selene's time-slowing Hex, won't work on him. Even attempting to pause the game will have Chronos mock you for thinking you can control time better than he can in his own domain, and he'll unpause the game to throw you right back into the fray. If you keep doing this over and over, Chronos will gradually get more and more annoyed at you, and his responses will get more curt and insulting. Thankfully, after seeing Chronos do this at least once, you can unlock an invocation at your base camp to stop Chronos from doing it. Chronos is also immune to the Phase Shift Hex, which slows down time.
  • One of Selene's Moon Hexes allows you to resurrect a defeated enemy in a room to temporarily fight for you instead. If you use this during the Sirens boss fight, Scylla will be incredulous that one of her bandmates has suddenly turned against her.
  • All of the guardian and miniboss fights in the game have regular Mooks that show up so that Melinoë can always use the Moon Bloom Hex — which revives and mind controls an enemy she's slain previously to fight for you— after a certain point.
  • Just like its predecessor, there is unique dialogue if you manage to make it to Chronos on your very first try.
• Devious Daggers: Lim and Oros, the Sister Blades, are dual-wielded daggers that are best used with an agile playstyle. They have a short range, but a fast attack speed, and their Omega Attack has you Flash Step behind the target before unleashing a devastating sneak attack. The Aspect of Melinoë, when upgraded, as well as its Skulking Slice hammer upgrade, give it bonus Back Stab damage. The Aspect of Artemis, meanwhile, turns the daggers into a Critical Hit Class, letting you parry an attack every few seconds while charging your Omega Attack, and once you do, you gain a high critical chance for your next several hits.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Like its predecessor, the endgame boss is one of the most powerful beings in Greek Mythology. Although this time, it's not the eponymous God of the Dead but rather his own father, who exceeds Hades in power. However, you are most definitely capable of defeating Chronos all the same.
  • This trope is also subverted like the last game as the final boss's "death" is not enough to put them down permanently. For Chronos, being a fundamental concept of the universe itself (ie. the concept of time) makes him essentially immortal. He will proclaim how futile it is to stop him as he will always return, not that it will stop Melinoë (and by extension, the player) from trying anyways. Progression into the game reveals that there is an incantation named "Dissolution of Time" that Meli can use to put down her grandfather for good, though it is not unlockable yet due to the early development of the game.
• Diss Track: "I Am Gonna Claw (Out Your Eyes then Drown You to Death)" is one from Scylla and the Sirens to Melinoë, which shows up after a few runs. Scylla's lyrics accuse Melinoë of being obsessed with the Sirens, says that her dress looks like it's from the garbage, and that Melinoë's hair looks like something died in it.
• Double Entendre: The Tagline, "Go Kill Time", refers to the mission of defeating Chronos, the Titan and embodiment of Time, as well as how it's probably going to take you a lot of tries before that happens. It's also a nice meta-joke for the players to spend time on the game.
• Do Well, But Not Perfect: If Eris thinks a particular run is going "too well" for Melinoë, she'll show up to give Melinoë a "blessing" of making enemies deal more damage to her.
• Down the Drain: Oceanus, the game's second zone - in sharp contrast to the original game's Asphodel. It's home to easily-burst pipes full of scalding-hot steam, as well as a great many hungry sea monsters - including an entire rock band made up of sirens.
• Elemental Powers: Boons from Olympian Gods are associated with one of five Natural Elements: water, fire, earth, air, and aether. While some gods are heavily associated with one element, others such as Hermes or Aphrodite have their boons spread around many different elements. These elements are used for Infusions, a special type of boon that depends on the number of accumulated essences, usually by activating their benefits once the requirement is passed. For instance, Poseidon has an Infusion that increases your max HP by one hundred points, but only if you have at least four Water-elemental Boons; the Infusion does nothing at all until you have at least four.
• Final Boss, New Dimension: For his second phase, Chronos transports Melinoë from Tartarus to a realm resembling a cross between an orrery and the face of a clock, suspended against an ethereal background of broken glass and golden geometry.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing: The area immediately before where you fight the Infernal Beast is filled with huge prints in the grass, hinting at the identity of the area's boss. Since they're large dog paws, you might be able to guess it's Cerberus.
• Forced Transformation:
  • The Twilight Curse Hex launches a homing projectile that turns enemies into harmless sheep. Hecate also opens the last phase of her boss fight with this, and if Melinoë is hit by it, she'll become a sheep that can't attack for a few seconds.
  • The boss of the Mourning Fields is under one of these. It's Cerberus, having been transformed by Chronos into an infernal form. Defeating him in this state will have him turn back to normal.
• The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: Attempting to pause the game during Chronos' boss fight will have him unpause it due to his Time Master status and mock the player for thinking they can control time in his realm.
• Friendship Trinket: As goddesses associated with the moon, Melinoë, Hecate, Artemis, and Selene occasionally refer to themselves as the "Silver Sisters". Each one wears a cord made of four colors somewhere on her person that symbolizes their bond: orange for Melinoë, purple for Hecate, green for Artemis, and black for Selene.
• Gameplay and Story Integration:
  • You might run into another character browsing Charon's wares during a run. This isn't just for atmosphere - they very much can and will buy that boon or Centaur Heart you've been eyeing if you don't hurry and make your purchases before they do.
  • When Nemesis leaves a chamber, she picks one of the routes to go through. Whichever one she goes through will prevent you from going through it, since Nem is already going to claim that reward. Go fast enough and Melinoë will happily claim dibs when she pass through the gate ahead of Nemesis.
  • Chronos is a Time Master as the Titan of Time. So attacks that slow down time for the world around you don't slow him down at all. This even includes pausing the game, as Chronos will mock you for thinking that would work before he just forcibly unpauses the game.
  • Melinoë is bound to the underworld like her brother and father, who could only last so long on the surface before being dragged back to the House of Hades by the Styx itself. Melinoë even mentions this when she's asked about trying to get to Mount Olympus, saying that she's pretty sure she can't. Melinoë can safely exist in Erebus, but that's it. At Hermes' asking, Melinoë may eventually gain access to a surface route to Olympus... one that immediately shreds her health to ribbons and forces her back to the camp. She has to get another incantation from Moros, one specifically noted to feature ingredients that can defy the Fates' curses, before being able to make any meaningful progress towards Olympus.
• Geometric Magic:
  • Melinoë's Cast causes a magical circle to appear on the ground around her, full of intricate shapes and runes. Enemies that step into it are slowed to a crawl, and its Omega version damages enemies upon expiry.
  • During her boss fight, Hecate can use Casts of her own, which similarly take the form of intricate runic circles. Some appear on the ground, following Melinoë's path before exploding; another, more common attack has an expanding circle of runes as a shockwave.
• Ghost Ship: In the Rift of Thessaly, a fleet of Chronos' ships, which give off a Sickly Green Glow and are manned by undead monsters, sails towards Olympus. Melinoë progresses through this area by commandeering a ship after taking out its ghostly crew.
• Go-Karting with Bowser: Eris, Strife Incarnate, just can't stop herself from impeding Melinoë's efforts to oppose Chronos and/or save Olympus. And thanks to a pact made by Hecate that all of Nyx's children would be safe within the Crossroads, Eris is able to return there whenever she wants, even after it's made clear she's causing trouble and being a pest basically for the sake of being a jerk. She even leaves her trash laying around. What's more, you can continue to give her gifts of Nectar and even bathe with her as if she never tried to fill you with bullets.
• Gothic Horror: This game has a lot of common imageries and themes of the classic Gothic Horror literary genre. First and foremost, our main protagonist Melinoë is a princess of the fallen royal Chthonic family who was trained as a witch under Hecate, the titaness of witchcraft with wizard hat on top, and brew with a large cauldron. She is destined to overthrow her tyrannical titan grandfather who took over the underworld. Her friend is a shade who likes to act like Vengeful Ghost. Her boon has lunacy-theme with Selene. And the enemies she faces along the way are werewolves, banshees, sirens, ghosts, living plants, or any monsters you would expect from classic Hammer Horror.
• Happy Ending Override: At some point between games, Chronos takes over the Underworld, resulting in Hades imprisoned, Zagreus, Nyx, Persephone and their closest allies frozen in time, and the souls of the dead now scattered across the world. To make matters worse, this happened shortly after Melinoë's birth, resulting in her growing up separated from her family.
• The Hecate Sisters: The Silver Sisters, sans Melinoë, play this straight of course. Artemis is the Maiden, being a peer to Mel and running into her in the midst of her hunts to give her generalist, but still regularly powered boons. Selene is the Mother, acting kind and graceful to all she communes with, giving Mel LimitBreaks. Hecate is the Crone, as a tough but still caring mother figure and the oldest sounding, acting as the first boss who merely tests if Melinoë is strong enough to pass and isn't using her full strength against her.
• Instant Runes:
  • The Staff and Melinoë's Cast generate fancy patterns with every strike.
  • Finished incantations emit a faint red magic circle.
• "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: The "Infernal Beast" boss is truly Cerberus, having been warped into a monstrous abomination by the despair and Miasma of the Fields of Mourning, after being chased off by Chronos. Defeating him does thankfully revert him back to his usual form, if only temporarily.
• Kamehame Hadoken: The Lunar Ray Hex has Melinoë fire a powerful beam of energy that does a large amount of damage. However, she's immobile and vulnerable during this time, so it's quite risky to use.
• Keystone Army: After defeating Chronos for the first time, when encountering Icarus he mentions that the other night Chronos's fleet suddenly sank, Melinoë replies that it was because she temporarily killed Chronos.
• Kick Them While They Are Down: After besting him in a fight, Melinoë can give a couple stress-relieving whacks to the orbicular remnant of Chronos' existence left inside the main hall of House of Hades. It's invulnerable but it prompts her to express her satisfaction of success.
• Kill Enemies to Open: Much as in the first game, the most common objective is to defeat every enemy in a chamber in order to advance to the next one. The game also won't let you leave a chamber without collecting the room's reward. That being said, this can be averted in a few specific cases.
  • After a while, you can invoke an invocation to find fountains, which restore some of your hit points. These rooms feature no enemies or combat.
  • If Nemesis shows up, she'll occasionally challenge Melinoë to deal one thousand points of damage to her in five seconds. If Nemesis does this, the room will already have been cleared of opponents besides her. Failing to deal enough damage will have Nemesis give you a Red Onion instead of the room's normal reward, which only heals a single hit point.
• La Résistance: "The Hidden" is the broad name given to the Cthonic gods, friendly shades, and other entities fighting on the Underworld front of the war against Chronos. They're hidden within the Crossroads, a forest within Erebus that brushes against the border of the Underworld and the Surface (taking the form of a forested valley where the moonlight can be seen). The Crossroads cannot be entered unless you are specifically welcomed there, making a perfect hiding spot.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: Hades II makes no attempt to hide the fact that Zagreus and Hades reconciled in the first game, or that Persephone and Hades were reunited. It also refers to Skelly by his true name, Schelemeus.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: As of this edit with the game still in Early Access, if you reach the end of either of the game's two routes, particularly getting past Eris on the surface, the conversation held with Hecate afterward heavily lampshades the fact that the follow up to either end doesn't actually exist yet, and that their (and the players', by extension) only recourse is to wait until they do.
• Limit Break: A boon of Selene grants you a Hex, a powerful ability that must first be charged by using enough Magick during the encounter. These include Dark Side (an invulnerable Super Mode), Total Eclipse (which causes a huge meteor to crash and cause massive damage after a few seconds), and Night Bloom (which summons a defeated enemy to fight for you). Further Selene boons let you progress down the Path of Stars, a skill tree that upgrades your Hex.
• Locked Out of the Loop: With the exception of Artemis and Hermes, the gods of Olympus were completely unaware of Melinoë's existence as well as the state of the underworld until just before the events of the game started to unfold. This is largely the result of Hecate deliberately keeping Mel secret until she was strong enough to take on Chronos, and the fact that Hades refusing to contact Olympus for long periods of time is nothing out of the ordinary.
• Lunacy: The moon's association with witchcraft in Greek myth is shown in full, with spells being themed around the phases of the moon, Melinoë and Hecate incorporating moon imagery into their outfits and weapons, and a Limit Break ability that can only be granted by Selene, Titan of the moon.
• Mana Meter: New to this game is a magick meter. It can be spent to unleash Charged Attacks, some boons require a small amount to activate, and others require a portion of the meter to be primed, reducing your maximum magick, in exchange.
• Meteor-Summoning Attack: The Total Eclipse Hex causes a huge meteor to crash into the ground after a few seconds, dealing huge damage to anyone in the area. This leaves a crater on the ground where it landed.
• Mighty Glacier: Zorephet, the Moonstone Axe, gives Melinoë a slow attacking speed, but makes up for it with its huge damage. A single Omega Special could instantly wipe out an entire room's worth of enemies if aimed right, but its slow charging time and animation mean that you risk taking a ton of damage if you time it wrong. Its Omega Attack is a powerful Spin Attack that can hit multiple times depending on how long you charge it for, but getting to the maximum charge level is the slowest-charging Omega move in the game and you can't dash without cancelling the spin, limiting your mobility (though one hammer boon increases both the attack's charge speed and movement speed).
• Mutually Exclusive Power Ups: A few of the Arcana cards can't be activated manually and have certain conditions that need to be fulfilled to 'Awaken' them, and some come with conditions that ensure that all of the Arcana can't be active at the same time.
  • The Queen, which increases the chance of Duo boons, requires no more than two cards of the same Grasp cost to be activated, but The Messenger, which gives an innate Dodge chance, requires at least three cards of the same Grasp to be activated.
  • The Centaur, which requires at least five cards with different Grasp costs to be active and buffs Melionë's health and mana every few rooms, can't be active at the same time as Judgement, which requires you activate no more than three Arcana at a time but gives you random inactive Arcana every time you beat a guardian. Though Judgement (and a few other abilities that can activate random Arcana during a run) can subvert this, as they have a chance to activate The Centaur or to give you both The Queen and the Messenger.
• Mythology Gag:
  • In a very literal sense; the mythological Melinoë is described as being "saffron-clad". As seen in her character art, her dress is a saffron-orange.
  • Hephaestus was described as lame in some myths. Here, his left leg is fully missing and he uses a prosthetic replacement.
  • Chronos, primordial god of time, is portrayed here as a member of the Titans despite typically being regarded as one of the Protogenoi and thus an existence closer to Nyx and Chaos. This is a nod to his historical conflation/sycretism with the separate being Kronos, who was the leader of the Titans and enemy of the Olympian gods. Their similar names and Kronos' specialty as the god of the harvest has led to some interpretations even in ancient times of him as a time god and an aspect of Chronos.
  • Like in the original game, one of the gods who you receive a Boon from only appears after you've reached the final area; in the first game, it was Demeter, who appeared once Zagreus reached the surface. In this game, Hera will only grant boons to Melinoë after she's fought Chronos at least once.
• Named in the Sequel: While the Narrator's identity is hinted at in an interaction during the first game, Zagreus only ever addresses him as "old man". Come Hades II, and Melinoë finally addresses him by given name. During a flashback, Melinoë specifically addresses the narrator as Homer, the famous Greek poet.
  Narrator: Uhhh erm-erm-erm, I, I, I've no idea to whom you refer... to whom the Princess of the Dead refers!
• Nazi Gold: All of the gold coins in this game have the hourglass-stamp of Chronos on it rather than the coin of Hades. Melinoë refers to it as "tainted" gold that she gives to Charon "to dispose of," so him relieving you of it when you die isn't just because he wants it all. Hephaestus says he then receives the gold, melts it all down and dumps it back into the earth.
• No Ending: Like in the previous game's Early Access, Hades II doesn't have its story completed yet. This time though, the surface route doesn't even have a final boss yet, cutting off after the second area and the fight with Eris, whereas the underworld route at least ends with Chronos. Hecate and Eris both lampshade how there isn't an ending yet, but Hecate alludes that it'll simply be a matter of patience until they can reach their goal.
• Nostalgia Level:
  • Occasionally, Chronos will catch Melinoë and send her into the Underworld, using a room from the original Hades game (such as a lava-filled room in Asphodel). In these rooms, Melinoë must stay inside a golden circle to fill a meter in order to escape, while leaving this circle will cause the meter to drop. All the while, she'll be under assault from enemies from the original Hades game.
  • The Very Definitely Final Dungeon when heading down into the Underworld plays with this. It's Tartarus from the first game, but it's also been revamped in the image of Chronos. In addition, the enemies from the first game's opening are also there, but they've all taken a level in badass and are much more difficult than the original game's versions.
• Obvious Rule Patch: In the original game, Athena's Deflect buff was the Game-Breaker, allowing Zagreus to get through the game basically unscathed while dealing massive damage to Mooks and guardians alike. Athena is preoccupied fighting the war with Chronos, and as such, isn't able to offer her Boons to Melinoë, meaning Deflect isn't in the game.invoked
• Pint Sized Power House: The King Vermin from the previous game returns as a mini-boss in Oceanus, newly christened "Uh-Oh", which is precisely how Melinoë speaks when she hears the thing roar the first time.
• Poor Communication Kills: According to Poseidon, the fact that Hades almost never contacts Olympus in the first place resulted in them being completely unaware that he and his family were captured by Chronos until fairly recently, with them initially brushing things off of Hades simply being in another one of his usual moods.
• The Problem with Fighting Death: Not just death itself, the whole process of what comes before, during, and after death is disrupted thanks to all the senior staff of the Underworld being incapacitated. Souls can't find their proper home in the Underworld and aren't escorted properly from their bodies on the surface. The shades are warped and ghastly even compared to the wretches of before, and the surface world fares no better, with dead bodies becoming zombies and other undead abominations.
• Prolonged Video Game Sequel: Hades II's Early Access launch already featured more levels, characters, boons, and overall content than the entire final version of the first game. A major contributor to this is the fact that there are two separate paths this time, one for the underworld and one for the surface, each with their own different areas and bosses.
• Royal Blood: One of the reasons Melinoë was chosen for the task is her authority over House of Hades, permitting her access to special routes only available to rulers of the Underworld. The Service Entrance unseals and the chambers rearrange into the Express Route by her command. Only the main doors to the House proper do not respond to her anymore, forcing her to take an alternate route through the sand-polluted River Styx
• Record Needle Scratch: During the Hide-and-Seek flashback, the sound of a record needle stopping is played when Melinoë breaks the fourth wall to shush the narrator.
• Regional Redecoration: The Rift of Thessaly was flooded by Poseidon to slow the approach of Chronos' forces. Assuming this refers to the real life region of Thessaly, that would take a large chunk out of the greek mainland.
• Relationship Values: Similar to the first game, Melinoë can deepen her relationship with some of her allies at the Crossroads by gifting Nectar as well as fishing or bathing with them.
• Resources Management Gameplay:
  • Your MP functions this way. Your MP completely refills when you enter a new chamber, an Arcana card causes a small MP regeneration effect, and there's Boons to make MP slowly recover as well. However, without these Boons or Arcana, you're limited by what you have available. Magic can also be Primed, which functions as reducing your max MP in exchange for a passive buff. For instance, Aphrodite has a Boon which Primes twenty MP in exchange for increasing your attack power.
  • There's multiple different tools for gathering resources you find in the world — a spade for seeds, a pickax for minerals, a tablet for purging souls (which gives you Essence), and a fishing rod for fish. In the original Early Access release, you could only gather one type of resource each night. However, the first major patch changed this so that you can gather any type of resource, but whichever tool you choose will have its respective resource show up far more often. These resources are used for unlocking Arcana cards, powering up said cards, delivering various witch incantations, deepening your relationships with people, and generally making you more powerful.
• The Sacred Darkness: Night and the moon are both presented as forces of good throughout the game. The good guys use the power of the moon in various different ways, the Titan of the Moon Selene is presented as the Big Good, Selene's boons are treated as Limit Breaks, the heroes say "moonlight guide you" as a rallying cry to one another, and Melinoë always sets out on her tasks at night.
• The Siege: How Chronos is waging his war against Olympus. In control of the Underworld and its gates wide open, any defeated troops will simply walk out again and try to climb Mount Olympus, creating a long-lasting stalemate between the two forces.
• Shoulders-Up Nudity: During the Bathtub Bonding sequences at the Crossroads, Melinoë and whoever she invited to the bath will naturally be nude, but their portraits will only show them from above their shoulders.
• Shout-Out:
  • The Mourning Fields have a giant head split in half, in the middle of a pool of what is possibly blood, bringing to mind The End of Evangelion.
  • When leaving the last ship in the Rift of Thessaly, one line Melinoë could say is "time to abandon ship".
  • Developers again take inspiration from Dota 2: Hera's damage spreading "Hitch" debuff is Warlock's "Fatal Bonds" and the expanding and contracting ring of fire used by Hecate and Dark Side empowered Melinoë is Razor's "Plasma Field". One of the Path of Stars upgrades even grants bonus damage against enemies hit with the ring expanded near max size, in a rough similarity to "Plasma Field" mechanics.
• Sirens Are Mermaids: Scylla and her Sirens are a band of merfolk whose crooning tunes lead Melinoë Down the Drain through Oceanus, although Scylla herself has a somewhat different design to the more typical mermaids that accompany her, which is likely a nod to her origins as an entirely distinct sea monster.
• Snakes Are Sinister: The Lamia encountered throughout the Fields of Mourning are as violent as any other baddie, to Melinoë's, an animal lover fond of snakes otherwise, great chagrin.
• Strong Family Resemblance:
  • Nemesis's face looks almost identical to that of her mother Nyx.
  • Dialogue with Demeter has her claim this about Melinoë and Persephone.
  • Moros - another child of Nyx - bears a strong resemblance to his brothers, Thanatos and Hypnos.
• Super Mode: The Dark Side Hex transforms Melinoë into a form that's impervious to damage, rapidly shoots fireballs with each attack, and can create an expanding ring of energy to attack. This form only lasts for a few seconds.
• Tech Tree: After getting a Hex, subsequent encounters with Selene let you upgrade it via the Path of Stars. The upgrades include reducing the amount of magic needed to charge the Hex, increasing its effectiveness, and more.
• Tell Me About My Father: Melinoë, having never known her family as a result of Chronos' invasion, has a natural curiosity about her parents and brother, and often asks about them when she encounters deities who knew them.
• Time-Passage Beard: Bouldy shows up again, keeping Hades company, with a short "beard" made of moss.
• Time Stands Still: This is shown to be the fate of Zagreus, Megaera, Thanatos, Nyx, Persephone, Achilles, and Dusa. All of whom were frozen in time by Chronos during his takeover.
• Titanomachy, Round Two: The Inciting Incident of the plot is the titan Chronos escaping from Tartarus and capturing Hades, his former captor. Hades' daughter Melinoë is trying to kill Chronos and save her father and the rest of her family.
• Title-Only Chorus: "I am Gonna Claw (Out Your Eyes and then Drown You to Death)" is a diss track against Melinoë, but the chorus is a few lines of the title threat and nothing else.
• Uncommon Time: The game's soundtrack features unusual time signatures in spades. For instance, the title theme remixes the original Hades title theme in 7/4, and the final boss theme alternates between a large number of time signatures. This serves to emphasize the effect Chronos—and by extension, the manipulation of time—has on the game's narrative.
• Unseen No More:
  • In the first game, Apollo is only briefly mentioned in some of Artemis's quotes, while the trailer shows he's a fully seen god.
  • Initially only hinted at through one of the previous wielders of Stygius, Nemesis has been elevated to one of the Gods that aids Melinoë in her quest. Appropriately, her art depicts her with Stygius as it appears when using her aspect in the previous game.
  • Hestia is now a proper boon-granting deity, whereas she was only hinted at in the first game as an aspect of the Adamant Rail.
  • Eris, the Goddess of Strife, appears wielding Exagryph and giving blessings of dubious help in Melinoë's incursions.
  • Hera was mentioned as one of the previous wielders of Coronacht in the first game. Here, she'll start granting her boons after your first proper run in the surface.
• Unwinnable by Design: Melinoë trying to survive on the surface is doomed to fail, as she suffers an unavoidable, rapidly-scaling source of damage that no amount of healing can stop from killing her within the first few rooms. Only after that initial death does Moros give her an incantation that allows her a fighting chance up there.
• Variable Mix:
  • Much as in the previous game, the background music changes as the player moves in and out of battle.
  • Throughout Oceanus, the song Song of the Sirens can be heard; since it's sung by Scylla and her Sirens, the boss of the area, the closer you get to the boss, the louder the vocals become.
  • During the actual boss fight, as Scylla and her Sirens are playing their own boss music, taking out different members of the band results in the track changing to reflect the loss of vocals or instruments. In addition, Scylla sometimes retreats into her shell, which causes the vocals to be muffled.
• Whatever Happened to the Mouse?: While the game adds four new Olympians to get Boons from— Apollo, Hephaestus, Hera, and Hestia— three of the Gods from the original game are conspicuously absent. Dialog from Apollo confirms that Athena is engaged in the defense of Olympus, and Zeus confirms Dionysus is getting drunk cause he doesn't like war, there's no word yet on what's happened to Ares (though given that he's the god of war, one can presume he's similarly occupied fighting).
• Zombie Apocalypse: Chronos revives legions of the undead to fight for him on the surface, as both Thanatos and Hades are imprisoned.

Return to shadow, now!
TIME CANNOT BE STOPPED