Summary
Hades hasone of the finest mashups of Greek mythology ever attempted in a video game. The game’s design choices and gorgeous art style portray Greek mythology as seemingly pretty when, in reality, it was anything but pretty for many of the figures involved.Hades 2only dives deeper into those dark mythologies while continuing to put a whimsical spin on them.
There are many huge differences between Hades and Hades 2, some of those being the new characters and myths that are introduced. If you’re just curious about Greek mythology or want to learn more about some of the mythological characters you encounter in Supergiant’s sequel, count this as your guide and refresher!
Hades 2 is in Early Access so any information is subject to change as its development progresses, and more characters and myths may be added in future updates.
All information was researched and gathered from ‘The Complete World of Greek Mythology’ by Richard Buxton and the Encyclopedia Britannica.
7The Odyssey
The characters and events from The Odyssey form a large part of the underlying narrative in Hades 2, and you even find out that the game’s narrator is indeed Homer, the author of The Iliad and The Odyssey.
This mythological tale recounts Odysseus' riveting journey home from the Trojan War to reunite his wife and son as countless suitors begin courting his spouse.
Odysseus
Odysseus is the main protagonist of The Odyssey. He’s the king of Ithaca and a tactician in the Trojan War credited for the creation of the Trojan Horse, an ingenious invention that helped the Greeks stealthily infiltrate and lay siege to Troy.
Odysseus left behind a wife, Penelope, and a son, Telemachus. Ultimately, he returns to Ithaca under a false identity and passes the test of shooting an arrow through a dozen axe-heads to remain the rightful suitor for his wife.
Polyphemus
One of the most well-known Cyclopes in Greek mythology is Polyphemus, who’s also a son of Poseidon. Odysseus is trapped in Polyphemus' cave in one of his first hurdles. To escape, he tricks the Cyclops into getting drunk on wine and has the remaining men who weren’t eaten stab him in his giant eye.
Their escape plan ends with them wrapping themselves around sheep from underneath when Polyphemus lets them out to graze.
Circe
Following the narrow escape from Polyphemus' cave, Odysseus visits Aiolos, or the Greek god of the winds. He’s gifted a bag of winds to use on his voyage home, but Odysseus' men open it prematurely thinking it holds valuable treasures, and that instead leaves them stranded on the island where Circe resides.
Circe is a sorceress who instantly turns the men Odysseus journeyed with into pigs, as it’s her go-to curse to change humans into animals. Odysseus, however, is giftedthe plant Moly by Hermes (a resource in Hades 2), which prevents him from being manipulated by Circe’s magic. They have a brief romance, which results in a son named Telegonus, who would go on to accidentally slay Odysseus and marry Penelope. Odysseus' son Telemachus would, in turn, marry Circe in a wild twist of fate!
Scylla And Charybdis
One of the most pivotal and suspenseful moments in The Odyssey is Odysseus' feat over Scylla and Charybdis at sea,who both appear as bosses in Hades 2. Scylla is described as a towering 12-foot-tall six-headed aquatic Hydra-like monstrosity, and Charybdis is an enormous whirlpool creature reminiscent of the Kraken.
6Daedalus And Icarus
Another famous and well-known story in Greek mythology is the tragic legend of Daedalus and his son Icarus. Daedalus was an inventor who created the Labyrinth for King Minos of Crete, also where he and Icarus would be held prisoner once Minos found out Daedalus helped Theseus defeat the Minotaur and escape from the Labyrinth. But Minos' wife, Pasiphae (also the mother of the Minotaur), would eventually free them.
Since they’re unable to escape by sea, the ever-so-crafty Daedalus invents the flying machine. You probably know how this one concludes. Icarus flew too close to the sun and his wings melted off, which sent him falling into the sea to his death. In Hades 2, you get Daedalus Hammer upgrades for your weapons and get to meet Icarus in person this time around,whose voice actor happens to be none other than Asa Butterfield.
5Echo And Narcissus
This Greek myth comes from the collection of poems known as Metamorphoses by Ovid and is where the terms narcissist and narcissism (used to describe someone who only loves themselves) originate from. Narcissus was the infamously handsome son of Cephissus the river god and a nymph named Liriope,who was condemned to fall in love with his own reflection for all eternity, turning into a flower once he perished, which came to be the scientific classification for daffodils.
Narcissus wouldn’t be complete without Echo, who also joins him in the Underworld in Hades 2. Echo was an Oread (mountain) nymph who would fall in love with Narcissus, but he would deny her that love and turn her away, as he did to many others. Echo would never let her feelings for Narcissus fade, even when the gods punished his actions by forcing him to be in love with his reflection until his tragic fate, hearing nothing but the remaining echoes of her voice, which is how her dialogue is designed in the game.
4Arachne
Depending on how she’s depicted in versions of Greek mythology, Arachne can be very grotesque and frightening to look at, considering she’s a woman who morphs into a spider. Luckily, the Hades 2 version of Arachne portrays her as one of the cutest and friendliest spiders to ever grace gaming, like Melinoe’s own Charlotte helping her in the Underworld.
The main precursor to how she became a spider is due to the goddess Athena’s jealousy and wrath and Arachne’s own hubris, which Hecate also alludes to in Hades 2. Arachne was a weaver who believed her skills were better than those of the goddess of wisdom, weaving, and crafting and, therefore, challenged Athena.
While Arachne did indeed prevail, Athena destroyed her tapestry out of rage and frustration, causing Arachne to hang herself. To save her, Athena turned the rope into a web and made Arachne into a silk-weaving spider.
3Medea, Jason, And The Argonauts
Another new character making a debut in Hades 2 is Medea. She appears in the tale of Jason and the Argonauts and their quest for the Golden Fleece, and this one also shows up in the Metamorphoses compilation by the poet Ovid, in the chapter directly after Arachne. Medea was also separately expanded upon in a Greek tragedy play written by Euripides.
Medea is the daughter of King Aeetes, who rules Colchis, and she ultimately helps Jason recover the Golden Fleece due to her knowledge of witchcraft from being a priestess of Hecate, Melinoe’s mentor and a boss in Hades 2. The first part of obtaining the Golden Fleece entailed Jason’s success in attaching a yoke to two bronze-hooved, fire-breathing bulls called the Khalkotauroi. Medea cast a hex that would make him Impervious, and he was able to get the yoke on.
Acquiring the Golden Fleece required another use of Medea’s witchcraft, this time to put the dragon guarding it to sleep. Once it’s collected, Medea sails away with Jason on his ship, the Argo, but their story doesn’t end in a happily ever after. Although they get married, Jason eventually leaves Medea for Creusa (or Glauce), daughter of the King of Corinth. Angered beyond all measure, Medea murders her two sons with Jason, as well as sends Creusa a dress that burns her alive along with her father, King Creon.
The mythological figure Theseus appeared in the first Hades game, and he’s the son of Aegeus, the king of Athens whom Medea marries after her exile from Corinth in the aftermath of the bloody end to her former marriage. She tried to poison and kill Theseus too, which led to the end of her marriage to King Aegeus.
2Heracles
More widely recognized as his Roman form Hercules, Heracles is the demigod son of Zeus, ruler of Olympus, who becomes a fierce warriorbestowed with immense bravery and strength and is “The Mightiest of Men,“as Hades 2 describes him. The gods of the Pantheon were notorious for disguising themselves and siring children with mortals, and that’s how Heracles was conceived by Zeus and Alcemene.
Heracles' powers were first put to the test when he was still in his crib, strangling two snakes Zeus' wife Hera put there out of jealousy. Hera would go a step further in her outrage and make Heracles kill his wife Megara (another daughter of King Creon’s) along with their children.
Then come the 12 Labors of Heracles under Eurystheus, the first being to get the hide of a lion from Nemea, which he would wear (and that’s how his character design is illustrated in Hades 2). The final twelfth labor was to briefly steal away Cerberus from Hades in the Underworld, which is alluded to in the first game.
Heracles was also one of the Argonauts who joined Jason on the voyage to obtain the Golden Fleece, and another fellow Argonaut with them was the musician Orpheus, who appeared as a character in the original Hades.
1Pandora
One of Melinoe’s main companions at the Crossroads in Hades 2 is actually a Shade named Dora, who loves to haunt Melinoe’s tent and keep things disorganized to mess with her. Dora is a peculiar name for a mythological characterthat’s strongly suggested to be a reference to Pandora, and can even be viewed similarly to how Medusa had her name shortened to just ‘Dusa’ in the first game while exhibiting the same friendly personality.
When you hear the name Pandora, you’d typically associate her with the idiom of “opening Pandora’s box,” which is precisely tied to her mythology. Her creation was a direct response to the god Prometheus stealing fire from the gods and demonstrating its power to humans. Zeus ordered Hephaestus (who is one of the gods present in Hades 2) to forge a mortal woman from the Earth, who would be Pandora, also known as “all-gifted” because the other gods helped bestow her traits.
The moral of the story – Pandora was also given a jar that had to remain closed due to the dangers of what was stored inside. Surely enough, curiosity killed the cat, and she opened it to unwittingly unleash evil into the world, keeping only hope (Elpis) sealed inside.
