While Supergiant Games have always made quality titles in the indie space, with a particular favorite of mine Bastion at the front of the line at the time, with Hades they really exploded onto the scene with an indie game that was suddenly more than capable of taking on triple-A titles when it came to Game of the Year honors. While roguelike action games had been around and modestly popular already, the mix of smooth play, loads of customization options, an insane amount of lore, and production values that were next level significantly raised that bar for expectations of what was possible. Now, with Hades II, they’ve surpassed their own high water mark with yet another masterpiece that stands tall even among other giants in the indie space.

Now, if you were hoping that you’d see an evolution of what the original title was, daring to break out with something new and fresh, you will be disappointed most likely. Rather than staking out significantly new ground, this is absolutely a matter of taking what worked in the original and “turning it up to 11”. Not so different from how Silksong merely took what made the original Hollow Knight great and made it more refined, varied, and challenging, Hades II is made for people who loved the original and have been thirsting for even more. So now you'll have more build customizations, monsters to face, sub-bosses, bosses, the pantheon of gods, demigods, and mythic heroes than the original, and it all looks, sounds, and plays amazingly well, especially on the Switch 2.

The real lesson for other developers to learn here is at the heart of the gameplay though, which can look almost chaotic when you’re watching footage, but in the moment it all simply clicks. If you know your weapons, and have carefully chosen between your upgrade perks, you may not always get the total build you were looking for, but most of the time you can still cobble together something that’s formidable if you’re willing to be flexible and patient. What’s insane is that as you’re able to make it further into the underworld (or, this time, the surface world as well), a solid build can continue to get more and more powerful, giving you just what you need sometimes right before facing off against one of the game’s intimidating bosses. The thing is, if you work your build it’s amazing how you can pull off victories practically holding on by your fingernails, and also incredibly rewarding.

Of course, what really takes the game to the next level is that you don’t need to be an absolute roguelike action fiend to have a good time with it and find success. If you find it all a bit too much there are also a variety of accessibility options that will help you tune the game down a bit in a variety of ways, ranging from small tweaks to simply turning on God Mode and wrecking everything in your path if you’d like. Of course, not taking the time to grind will deprive you of loads of conversations you’ll have with legendary characters as you struggle and persevere, which for fans of mythology like me are absolutely a treat. If you’re wondering what games will be contenders for Game of the Year this year, you’re absolutely looking at one of them right now.