Why Hades is so hellaciously addictive

It’s not just because the characters are … hot.

Joshua Poh
7 min readFeb 19, 2021

It’s 4AM. I’m in bed. I know I have a meeting in six hours. Hades flickers into the darkness from my computer screen, tempting me to play again.

I’m an adult. I know the responsible thing to do.

I rub my eyes and tell myself what I need to hear.

“Just one more run…”

What exactly, is Hades?

Hades puts you behind the eyes of Zagerus, Prince of the Underworld. It reads as a coming-of-age story where Zagerus yearns to escape the confines of his humdrum existence in the Underworld. (I guess gods get bored too)

But Zagerus’s dad, Hades is not having it. Enter, family drama, unclear motives and lots of action keeping you on the edge of your seat.

The developers Supergiant Games used the repetition of the roguelike genre to tell a narrative story

Hades is a roguelike action roleplaying game and possibly introduced thousands to the roguelike genre.

This is what a standard roguelike game looks like.

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