Hades II

Each attempt is a run through shifting regions of the Underworld and beyond. You pick one of the legendary weapons of Night, fight through chambers of enemies, and choose a reward at every exit. The headline rewards are Boons, powers granted by more than a dozen Olympian gods from Apollo to Zeus, and stacking the right ones turns a basic attack into a screen-clearing combo. With so many gods, weapons and magick infusions in the mix, the number of viable builds is enormous.

Dying sends you home, and that is where the long game happens. Resources gathered with the Tools of the Unseen feed permanent upgrades, the Altar of Ashes opens up new options, and you can tame witchy familiars to help along the way. Every return also moves the story forward, so a failed run still pays off in dialogue, relationships and unlocks.

Mastery is about reading enemy patterns, dodging cleanly and drafting Boons that combine rather than compete. For players who want the story without the struggle, God Mode returns to take the edge off the difficulty. For experts, escalating challenge settings raise the difficulty in exchange for bigger rewards. It is a single-player game with full controller support and Steam Cloud saves.

The Titan of Time has risen, and the immortal Princess of the Underworld has trained her whole life to stop him. Hades II follows her campaign out of the shadows of the Underworld and into a bigger, stranger version of Greek myth, where the gods of Olympus lend their power and the ancient roots of witchcraft shape her own.

Supergiant's trick is that the story never waits for you to win. It unfolds through every death and every victory, carried by a cast of dozens of fully voiced gods, ghosts and monsters, plenty of them new and a few old friends. Spending time with them back at base unlocks new conversations and story events, and how your journey goes decides which ones you see. Hand-painted environments, smoothly animated 3D characters and a fresh original score give the whole thing the studio's signature look and sound.

Hades II is out now on Windows and macOS through Steam at US$29.99. Steam's local prices are RM72 in Malaysia, S$26 in Singapore, ₱910 in the Philippines, ฿590 in Thailand, Rp 245,999 in Indonesia and 385,000₫ in Vietnam. It supports 15 languages, including Greek, Japanese, Korean and both Chinese scripts, but no Thai, Indonesian or Vietnamese. Minimum spec is gentle: a GTX 950, Radeon R7 360 or Intel HD 630 with 8 GB of RAM and 11 GB of storage. It is single-player and offline, with full controller support and cloud saves.