Five Years On, The Hades Fanbase Built Its Own Greek Mythology

Hades is celebrating its 10-year anniversary in the present day, September 17, 2025. Beneath, we look at ho the fan neighborhood has made the sport and Greek mythology its personal with a vibrant fiction and mod neighborhood.

For many individuals, Greek mythology begins and ends with a couple of acquainted faces. The musclebound hero–known as Hercules or Heracles–has had tales of his exploits retold for hundreds of years by books, and extra not too long ago by films, TV exhibits, and Michael Bolton’s stellar singing.

Past him, most fashionable audiences acknowledge the broadest strokes: Zeus because the thunder-wielding king of the gods, Hades because the grim lord of the lifeless, and different recognizable figures like Poseidon, Athena, Icarus, and Apollo. This pop-culture shorthand distills an enormous and complex physique of fable right into a handful of archetypes. The pantheon of Olympus, and the sprawling tales round it, comprise hundreds of figures whose affect by no means reached the identical cultural highlight.

That hole in in style creativeness is a part of what made Hades, Supergiant Video games’ 2020 roguelike, so refreshing. Moderately than centering Zeus, Poseidon, or Hercules, the sport places Zagreus–an obscure son of Hades–front and middle. As an alternative of repeating myths we have heard numerous occasions, Hades introduces gamers to a narrative about household, rise up, and perseverance, instructed by the eyes of a personality with little or no mythological baggage. It is a narrative resolution that re-energized Greek mythology for a brand new viewers whereas giving followers the inspiration to proceed exploring these margins.

Hades thrives on nuance. Its tackle the Greek pantheon is playful, argumentative, and deeply human. Gods bicker like siblings and present flashes of pettiness and pleasure. The sport reimagines acquainted figures whereas elevating lesser-known ones, weaving a brand new canon of fable by the very construction of a roguelike. Dying time and again is not failure–it’s the purpose, mirroring the limitless cycles and reincarnations so frequent in historical tales.

That near-endless cycle of demise pushed gamers to spend increasingly time within the Home of Hades, Tartarus, and the opposite areas beneath the floor and a small portion of these gamers have added their very own tackle the prolonged roster of Mount Olympus.

“Hey ZagZag,” Apollo tells Zagreus in an encounter made doable by the OlympusExtra mod. “You do not thoughts me calling you ZagZag, proper? As a result of in case you do, you higher come inform me head to head.”

OlympusExtra provides Apollo, Hestia, Hephaestus, and Hera–a few of the gods absent from the principle Hades experience–in the type of new boons, voice strains, and artwork. The mod imagines tales for every and the place they could be throughout the occasions of Hades as Zagreus tries to uncover the secrets and techniques about his household by forcibly escaping from hell.

“We have truly made OlympusExtra such that you would be able to play it from the get-go,” stated mod co-creator physiXPlays in a Reddit comment. “There’s some story dialogue and whatnot that integrates into the remainder of the occasions. [Our additional gods] even touch upon some issues while you progress the story.”

A whole lot of different followers have tried their arms at recreating Supergiant Video games’ artwork type with their depictions of Hera, Hercules, and different characters from Greek mythology, like Lype and Keres. Lots of these depictions have taken liberties in how historical texts and tales describe them.

The surroundings in Hades, regardless of torturers like Megaera roaming the halls, feels welcoming and vigorous. That sort of dwelling has pushed gamers to place their very own authentic creations–often extensions of themselves with fantastical art–within the Home of Hades. Many view Supergiant’s tackle Dionysus, Aphrodite, and Ares as pals of their very own.

Hades turned one of the vital profitable indie video games of all time. By early 2021, it had bought over one million copies, finally reaching thousands and thousands extra because of ports throughout practically each main platform–including Netflix’s cellular app. Vital acclaim was quick, and in 2021, the sport turned the primary online game ever to win a Hugo Award, one in every of literature’s highest honors. That recognition wasn’t only for its gameplay however for its writing, which turned an underworld escape story right into a meditation on grief, resilience, and sophisticated household ties.

Five years later and followers are nonetheless preventing by the fields of Elysium, aiming to achieve the surface–even if Persophene hasn’t been there, ready for them, in a while. Conversations had with gods and different figures all through Hades–including the likes of Sisyphus and Achilles–feel actual.

A part of the explanation Supergiant Video games has returned to Greek mythology with Hades 2 is that there are such a lot of extra tales to inform. The workforce introduced in Apollo and Hestia, fulfilling the longheld desires of the creators of OlympusExtra, amongst dozens of different new characters like Melinoë.

“Like her brother Zagreus from the unique sport, Melinoë will not be a personality of our personal invention, and relies on an historical Underworld deity regarded as associated to Hades,” learn an official improvement blog from Supergiant video games. “What little historical mythology exists about her was greater than sufficient to make us wish to discover her story and connection to her household, and in so doing, develop on our imaginative and prescient of the Underworld.”

In a approach, the tales across the gods of Mount Olympus are among the many oldest and best-known variations of a household cleaning soap opera. There’s drama, generally unnecessarily, round each nook, however the stakes are a lot larger than something we would see on Days of Our Lives. Kidnappings, secret members of the family, and even cannibalism fill the chapters of the Greek pantheon.

Hades gave us one of the vital approachable and interactive variations of a few of these tales that we have ever seen. We’re nonetheless seeing it unfold now in each Hades 2 and the various fan additions including gods and mortals, each outdated and new, to the household.