Hades 2 released into early access earlier this month—and it’s been doing gangbusters, unsurprisingly. Supergiant has a sterling reputation behind it, with so much industry heft to every step it takes that other indie devs have already leapt out of the way of the game’s early access, considered a quasi-‘shadow drop’.
I’ve apparently already sunk close to 30 hours into this thing (I just checked the stats now, and I’m left wondering when exactly that happened). I’ve beat Chronos up enough to wonder how many lessons I have to teach an old man, and I’m pretty content with what I’ve seen so far. Supergiant, however, seems to feel it can improve the game’s baseline mechanics before it really gets cooking on new content.
“Our first patch should be coming later this month,” reads an announcement on the game’s Steam page, “though note we don’t have a more-specific timeline. With it, we’re looking for improvements we can make in the near term, in a way that makes Hades II better for everyone and come closer to realising our goals.”
The first of two changes Supergiant will take aim at the game’s resource gathering—while I’m already massively thankful for the forget-me-not system, I can see why the studio would want to tweak the economy a touch.
My current playthrough has most everything unlocked, with my last holy grail being my weapon upgrades. The current one I have my eyes set on requires some silver and some bronze, both of which require the pickaxe. On average, I estimate that I get about 8-14 of them per run, and I need somewhere in the ballpark of 30.
The game (in its current state) isn’t exactly stingy with resources—I never felt like I had to grind—but I do feel like there’s a missing cog in the machine. Take the “garden” mechanic, for instance. Whether I have seeds or not seems completely incidental to the rest of my playthrough—and sure, I could do a few runs with the shovel equipped, but then I’m slowing down my weapon upgrades grindset. It’d be nice if there was (pardon the pun) more cross-pollination.
Supergiant is also looking into tweaking how Melinoë books it through the underworld: “It’s important to us that Melinoë has her own distinct style, and for players to be able to navigate her battles and other interactions in a nimble, responsive, expressive way. We have ideas for how to improve her Dash and Sprint.”
This one gives me a little more hesitance. As PC Gamer’s Jody Macgregor pointed out last week, Melinoë’s differing movement—namely, a dash that requires more precision, which leads into a “sprint”—takes a minute to get used to. Once you’re there, however, she feels nice and fluid to control.
I’m sure Supergiant is seasoned enough not to let public sentiment override their own ideas—and I’m sure they’re cooking on some cool changes. But I’d hate for ‘growing pains’ to be the main reason why Melinoë’s moveset got changed. I’ve actually come to appreciate the more deliberate evasion required, and most of the game’s bosses are suitably tuned to work well with it.
Granted, there are a couple problems with how the system works in terms of balance. For example, one of Hermes’ boons that gives you a few instances of damage absorption makes your sprint all the better—as does a Hestia upgrade that makes your sprint eat projectiles for breakfast, which is so effective it trivialises a couple of boss mechanics. Or, in the case of one brawl I shan’t mention to dodge spoilers, 90% of their moveset.
Still, we don’t know how Supergiant’s going to change the game’s movement, so it’s best not to speculate. As for balance tweaks, “we’re still gathering feedback and data that helps inform the kind of changes we like to make, so don’t expect too many such changes just yet.”
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