Hades 2 review – Hell comes to Nintendo Switch 2

Supergiant Games’ much anticipated sequel comes out of early access, with an even bigger challenge than before, but is it necessarily a better one?

Melinoë, the protagonist of Hades 2, lives in constant shadow. Some of that is down to being a princess of the underworld and a child of Hades but, like the video game she leads, Melinoë also cannot escape the shadow of her family, each night laden with reflections of the past. As a result, Hades 2, which has been in early access on PC for the last year, feels like a curious beast.

Functionally, this does everything Hades did before it, just with a little bit more. The original Hades sent protagonist Zagreus down one road to find his mother, but Melinoë’s path is more complex. She must delve into the same underworld, carving a path through chthonic monsters to find her family, who have been sequestered in a timeless prison by the titan Chronos (developer Supergiant has conflated Chronos and the similarly monikered titan Kronos). But Melinoë can also explore the surface, following a road towards Mount Olympus.

Invariably, she fails and returns home, from where she sets out again, and again, and again, slowly growing stronger with the help of other gods and the travelling merchant Charon. It’s a loop that will be very familiar to players of Hades. But now there are more currencies for more upgrades, combinations of buff-giving tarot cards, and a new magick meter granting access to more attacking options.

Despite Melinoë’s habit of getting stuck on stray rocks, environments are better designed and more varied, while the soundtrack has been given an upgrade. Yet, under the hood, it’s still Hades. What Hades did well, Hades 2 maintains, while Hades’ issues are baggage Hades 2 hasn’t tried to discard. Given the success of Hades and the expectations for a sequel, continuity is a justifiable decision. But as enjoyable as Hades 2 is, it’s hard to ignore how much potential has been lost by simply staying the course.

One of Hades’ biggest selling points was its writing and how it weaved around the repetition of the roguelike genre to keep the action from becoming staid. This returns in Hades 2, including the air of smugness to most characters, but in an expanded game feels spread too thin even with the staggering amount of unique dialogue.

Melinoë is a compelling character but that depends a lot on who she’s talking to. For instance, her futile attempts to convince Narcissus that not everyone finds him attractive are genuinely amusing. More broadly, however, Hades 2’s characters are often less interesting than before. The narrative remains engaging enough, if a little predictable, but given how much attention Supergiant received for its dialogue in Hades, some may find the more tepid narrative offerings of its sequel disappointing.

If the storytelling feels static, the combat – the actual meat of Hades 2’s gameplay – has seen a clear upgrade. Encounters feel smoother, if a little slower, and Melinoë’s witch powers make for more interesting combinations of weapons and abilities.

Environments also feel more suited to the not-always-comfortable zoomed-out isometric perspective. This is never clearer than when you return to Asphodel, a biome from Hades, to be reminded just how frustrating it is to move around a lava-filled room that’s canted at what feels like 45°.

Those environments, however, are far too often the same colour as enemies. They’re beautiful, and care has been taken to contrast the turquoise of Melinoë’s moon-drenched underworld with red attack effects, but this isn’t consistent or always clear, and moving through the game in either direction leads to too many incidents of simply not being able to parse what’s happening onscreen.

Armoured enemies enjoy a slight highlight, but Melinoë has none and as Hades 2 embraces even more of a bullet hell approach, it can make encounters difficult to follow – especially in handheld mode on Switch 2.

Luck is a major factor of roguelike games, as you try to find the right combinations and builds in procedurally-generated routes, but it shouldn’t be about hoping you get enemies you can actually see. You would assume there’d be accessibility to options to help with this, not least for those with colour blindness, but there’s essentially nothing to mitigate the problem.

Similarly, the inability to increase HUD and text size means many elements are lost in handheld mode, not least the already unintuitive spirit-compelling minigame, which becomes all but invisible.
All of which is something that will be felt more keenly by players of the Switch versions of Hades 2.

God mode, however, does return, through which you receive a minor increase in damage resistance per death, up to a limit of 80% – although you can set a lower limit if you desire. We didn’t start experimenting with god mode until after defeating Chronos, but it does provide some mitigation to the game’s rougher edges, even if it might have made more sense as a slider rather than a gameplay consequence. Its marginal gains, though, are unlikely to sway uncertain players, especially if they prefer greater control over their gaming experience.

You do not need to play Hades to enjoy Hades 2 and it’s a fun roguelike on its own merits, which isn’t stiflingly difficult. There’s enjoyable progression and side content that’s fleeting but charming. It is clear, however, that Hades 2 is designed for fans of Hades and the end result almost feels more like a standalone expansion than a true sequel.

Ultimately, Hades 2 is just more Hades. If you were enchanted by the previous game, if you found its rendition of the roguelike formula beguiling, and if you were one of the players who regard its visual novel aspect as the ne plus ultra of video game storytelling, that will be sirenic music to your ears.

But if you were anything less than smitten with the original, Hades 2 can seem an underwhelming follow-up, while the game does little to convince new players that they’ve been missing out on anything quite as exceptional as the hype suggests.

Formats: Nintendo Switch 2 (reviewed), Nintendo Switch, and PC
Price: £24.99
Publisher: Supergiant Games
Developer: Supergiant Games
Release Date: 25th September 2025
Age Rating: 12

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