How Hades plays with Greek myths

When Supergiant Games started to make Hades, their Roguelike action-RPG, they had plenty of experience making narrative games. Across Bastion, Transistor and Pyre, they'd plant they were pretty skillful at telling stories. Just in a Roguelike? And what'south that? They intended to put Hades in Early Access? Could they e'er fit with the kind of rich characterisation and storytelling that fabricated Supergiant's name?

"Nosotros were really curious to see if narrative could fit into an Early on Access experience," author and designer Greg Kasavin tells me. "And information technology turns out, it immensely benefits from information technology." I have to agree. Hades' Sisyphean-twitch-activeness, in which you take repeated runs through the Underworld in an attempt to escape your hellish dad, is brought to life by a setting within the rancorous interplays between the gods of Greek mythology, and dynamic story pattern which responds to your progress.

Hades was founded in the embers of Pyre. This sports-cum-strategy game, which was released in 2017, is wrapped inside a choice-driven visual novel about a agglomeration of fantasy jocks who take been banished into purgatory and must travel the land to play other crims in the hope of cleansing their souls. It was well received, but I get the sense that Kasavin is a lilliputian disappointed with some of the creative decisions he and squad made for it.

"Man, we did all that work to create truly branching open-ended storytelling, simply Pyre feels like a game that you'd only play once," he says.

Pyre may besides have been just every bit linear equally Bastion and Transistor. Simply the studio loved the narrative design they created, so they decided their next game would refine and exist in a genre much improve suited to it: the incessantly repeatable Roguelike.

"Whatever course the narrative would take, information technology was meant to make moments of story that'd intersect with the activeness and help contribute to memorable runs," says Kasavin.

Hades' Greek mythology setting came soon afterwards, along with the idea that players would wield powers divers past various gods, who'd too exist characters. At starting time, though, the game was going to be gear up in Minos' labyrinth of the minotaur.

"The labyrinth was going to be a shifting environment, a maze, dissimilar every time, and at the heart of information technology was a minotaur you accept to chase down," explains Kasavin. It sounds so plumbing equipment! But Supergiant soon found they were struggling to fit the narrative design into it and to develop an interesting protagonist. That's when Zagreus came forth.

Cocky-simply-mannerly poshboy-Brit Zagreus is voiced by Supergiant audio director Darren Korb. "We were struggling, trying different actors, and 1 day Darren says he'd try something, and I'm like, 'What! What is this?! I thought it was perfect correct away.'" says Kasavin.

Hades' gods and heroes might speak in modern language and provide a backdrop to a hack and slash game, but y'all can experience it'southward all underscored by Kasavin'southward real passion for Greek mythology, which began when he was a child. As the project kicked off, it saw him reading Siculus, Ovid and Hesiod, writers he'd never read before, forth with several different translations of the Iliad and Odyssey.

"I ran into this particular that at that place'southward this piffling-known god called Zagreus who, according to some, is a prototype of Dionysus, but in that location's also a shred of evidence that he might be the son of Hades. Similar, woah! What'due south that about? Then I researched Hades more, and it turns out there are very few stories told well-nigh him."

Zagreus was a perfect bailiwick: the lack of stories well-nigh him and his father gave Kasavin space to imagine new ones, and the repeating Roguelike structure slotted neatly into the idea of him running away after a accident-out fight with his dad, then failing and finding himself dwelling once again.

"And it seemed really funny! These slapstick failed attempts to get away, and your dad just makes fun of you lot and says I told y'all so. Nosotros were interested in that light-hearted tone because I think that the Roguelike experience has a slapstick quality. One moment in Spelunky or FTL you feel on top of the world, and then you lot make some os-headed mistake and throw it all away. You feel clumsy and stupid and you hopefully express joy at yourself."

From at that place, the dramatic office of the gods became articulate. They'd exist a big dysfunctional family unit unit, fighting and bickering and using their support of Zagreus against each other. "You can think of them as a powerful crime family unit, because there's no one who'southward going end them from doing whatever they want," says Kasavin.

In the mechanics of the game itself, the gods lend Zagreus their powers – boons – for each run through the Underworld. Zeus is about lightning, Poseidon most water. Hermes is well-nigh speed, Artemis virtually ranged attacks. Their iconic nature gives players an intuitive understanding of what they'll broadly do – "we were drawn to having Hades exist more straightforward," says Kasavin – a reaction to Transistor's more opaque powers, which required players to work to understand them.

Dionysus' boozy boons are oft virtually inflicting hangovers on enemies – the ability used to exist called poisonous substance (as shown in this older build here), since that's exactly what a hangover does.

The thought of competition between the gods led to features such as the Trial of the Gods rooms. "We had to observe a way to become the gods to interact with each other and express their displeasure with you," says Kasavin. "They're fickle, right? They love you one moment, they detest you the adjacent."

So in the Trial of the Gods rooms, you lot go to choose between two gods' powers, and the god you didn't choose and then punishes you by turning monsters on you lot. "It'due south a fun little change of step, where you lot become to meet another side of their personality and choice up an extra reward if yous take the heat."

The most contempo divine addition to Hades is the god Demeter, and by gosh, Kasavin is glad she'due south in, even though she's not exactly ane of the star gods. "Demeter is the goddess of agriculture," he says. "Y'all have a guy who tin can strike people downwards with lightning, and you have someone who grows wheat. So that sounds atrocious."

Simply Demeter has added a rich new dimension to Hades' storytelling, since she's at the centre of the most vital myth around the Underworld. She'southward the mother of Persephone, who was abducted by Hades. Demeter, enraged, finds out where she is and gets Zeus to force Hades to let her leave the Underworld. But on the way out, Persephone eats vi pomegranate seeds and every bit a result has to spend one-half the yr in hell.

"That, for us, is woah. She's a mother who's lost her daughter and she's mad. She'southward past the initial stages of grief and now there'due south this bitterness. So she's like, alright, fine, you took something from me, so you'll have winter. It felt so clean."

Every character is fatigued past (peerless) Supergiant art manager Jen Zee. "I beloved the process of defining their characterisations, how they speak, their relationships more than just virtually anything, and working with Jen Zee to figure out what they look like, casting the voices," says Kasavin.

Only even then, she nearly didn't make it into the game. "From a writing standpoint, I'd love for Demeter not to be in the flick, because the story's complicated enough as it is. But then, months into development, I felt very cowardly well-nigh that. Wait a minute. Demeter is important, this is a story about family. And furthermore, it feels shameful that this graphic symbol hasn't been rendered in an interesting way, to my knowledge."

And besides, the bringer of winter presented an opportunity to finally add ice powers. "Nosotros're making a fantasy game and still love Diablo and all that, and we hadn't institute an excuse for freezing powers."

Aside from the theming, though, the real magic in Hades' narrative lies in the way it responds to your actions and progressing storylines, despite existence set inside an endless bike of dungeon runs.

"Reactivity has always been a goal of our narrative pattern, to have those moments where y'all feel the game is paying attention," says Kasavin. And Breastwork and Transistor are well-known for the manner your graphic symbol comments on what's happening. "Those moments in games are so good, so we endeavor to create as many as possible in the hope players can feel them."

Just Bastion and Transistor are linear games which gave Kasavin lots of command over how they did it. "Hades is completely different. We have no idea, apart from a couple of moments, how things are going to exist sequenced and how they unfold for a player."

Then Hades uses a system which looks at what's happening and sees whether it matches a huge listing of events that Kasavin has written – enough that it'll take tens of hours of play until they repeat. "So, hey, you just institute Zeus while you were nigh to die. We have an result where Zeus is like, 'Man, yous're in terrible shape, permit me run across if I tin help you.'"

Some events are one-off reactions to situations, some are function of storylines, and the game figures out which to bear witness, only Kasavin has some influence over them considering he can weight conversations in importance.

For example, yous might run across Eurydice during a run. And so, dorsum at the House of Hades after the run'due south over, you might find her husband, Orpheus, who's trying to rescue her from the Underworld. When y'all talk to him, the game will play a conversation in which Zagreus says he saw Eurydice and Orpheus asks yous to give her a message if you see her again. Then, when you see Eurydice, the side by side conversation in the chain will play.

If y'all buy the Yarn of Ariadne and encounter Thesesus, you tin can bet he'll take something to say well-nigh information technology.

The story between Orpheus and Eurydice also illustrates the way Hades ties storylines between a run and the reanimation afterward it; the chance to see what's new back at base of operations and to progress storylines eases the frustration in dying. Will Achilles be back? What happens when I requite Megaera this nectar? How's bad-dad going to mock me now?

"Information technology was an explicit goal of our early evolution, to take the pain out of dying and having to restart. If the whole game is structured around dying and restarting, and then we had to make sure the moment of death isn't near rage-quitting. You have to exist compelled to explore further and feel the time you spent wasn't a waste of your time."

Information technology'due south exciting to play a game that marries authored storytelling, a strong theme and dynamic interactivity then seamlessly. Just Hades' real success is that when you're playing, it'southward easy to forget just how progressive and clever its narrative design is.

But it seems it's inevitable that Kasavin would shift from the linear stories that built Supergiant to non-linear ones that brand the thespian the driver. "There are much more efficient and probably better means to tell linear stories than through games. I'd try to write a volume or something," he says. "Just nosotros're making games, and we have to take advantage of what's unique well-nigh the medium, which is its interactivity."