Hades: Encouraging Players to Fail

Indie games, or games that were published through smaller companies without the support and backing of larger, more finically backed companies like Nintendo or Sony, have had a rather large rise to stardom in the last ten to fifteen years. We've had services like Steam since 2003 and have always had access to indie games, but, besides a few standouts, there haven't been too many that have really hit mainstream media. That's not to say none have. Some of the biggest standouts are games like Undertale, Celeste, Hollow Knight, Cuphead and Shovel Knight. Even those have come out slowly over the years while AAA companies pump out games nearly two, three, four times a year and even then some of those games are subpar compared to what indie companies can do. While indie games lack the financial backing, they often make up for in pure gameplay and storytelling. Without a big name to stand behind, their games come to fame only on their own merits. Semi-recently, and definitely most notably we have Hades by Supergiant Games.

It's not rare for an indie game to be promoted by AAA companies once they start gaining traction in a community. What is rare, is what happened with Hades. The game itself released in 2019 as a small indie game on Switch that quickly became well known and loved and from there it only grew when the game went out on shelves rather than only being available on the Switch store. Sony and Microsoft jumped in, releasing disc and digital copies of the game not only on last gen, but also next gen consoles.

So what exactly happened? How did an indie game go from general obscurity to being released by the three biggest gaming companies on digital and disc? Like most other indie games, Hades attained its fans mostly on it's own merits - storytelling, character development, and gameplay.

Image Credit: Supergiant Games

The story and characters are the easiest to talk about because, technically, they both already existed. The story of Hades and Persephone already existed long since before video games were a thing and have been codified and retold over and over again in plenty of types of modern media granted in varying degrees of upsetting. Same with the characters. On a much smaller scale Zagreus, Megaera, and Thanatos are also already decently well known. But anyone with an interest in mythology can tell you that there really is no solid version of a myth. Most of them have been told through word of mouth until they were written or already generally understood in a society so there was no need to write them down. That alone gave Supergiant Games a great starting point while giving the writers the freedom to pick and choose which versions of myth they wanted to work with.

Even with a base, the personification of the characters came from Supergiant and their brilliant voice actors. Zagreus is fun and outgoing and has a clear goal in mind. Playing as him and finally reaching the end for the first time, reaching that point and hearing that emotion makes the characters seem all the more real. They all feel real, in a way. Even the bosses are fun to interact with, to hear their witty banter and fight against.

But the most important part the game: the gameplay. Hades does something special as a roguelike that I like to call encouraging you to loose. You're not supposed to win, not right off that bat at least. You're expected to fail and there really isn't any major penalty for that. I'm the type of person who gets irritate when I can't cross a certain checkpoint in a game, when there's something I struggle with or just can't do, but every run in Hades feels like a success. You gain rewards just for trying and when you go back and do it again, you're just a little bi t stronger and you've learned just a little bit more. I remember the first time I reached Theseus and the Minotaur and was almost instantly killed but at that point I was just happy to have gotten their. I'm also the type of person who puts a game down after playing for a few weeks and Hades caters to that in the same way. I can come back months later and not feel any pressure to win. I'm just happy to see myself progress late game without any major penalties while I relearn the mechanics.

Hades was an indie game that came out in 2019 and quickly became a hit across consoles. It did this with great storytelling and characters while giving it's fans a game they didn't have to always win at. Not to mention the beautifully phenomenal are and voice acting. Personally, I can't wait to see what Supergiant Games comes out with next.