The first major update in Hades 2's early access journey is here: Supergiant shadow-dropped the Olympic Update today, adding a whole mess of content and characters to its in-progress roguelike.
The full Olympic Update patch notes are unsurprisingly massive. The headliner is a new region which you may have guessed from the title. We're going to Olympus, baby, and we can bring a new weapon called Xinth, the Black Coat – a pair of jetpack gauntlets and the last of Melinoë's Nocturnal Arms.
With the release of Olympus, we can now run into two gods returning from the original Hades: Athena, whose boons were always some of my favorites, and Dionysus, who's turned up wearing nothing but a leopard-print speedo. Other new characters include the apparent area boss Prometheus, a Titan known in Greek myth for stealing fire from the gods and giving it to humanity.
This gives the surface route its third boss, "bringing it closer to the Underworld route's level of completion." These and other characters will tie into fresh story events that push the game's narrative further, with Supergiant promising "close to 2,500 new voice lines" total.
Existing weapons, boons, and other upgrades have received a laundry list of changes ranging from added bonuses to total overhauls. On a core level, Supergiant says "your Dash is innately faster and more responsive" and "you now can more reliably Dash out of hit-stun effects from certain foes' strikes." Native Mac support is here, too, plus improved gamepad precision. Perhaps most importantly, there are two new animal companions to befriend.
I'm especially intrigued by some of the new special encounters. Moon Monuments and Unseen Sigils may appear after the Eyes of Night and Darkness incantation, respectively challenging you to beat one strong enemy or, without taking damage, a group of enemies. Likewise, there are additional and redesigned Vows for the Oath of the Unseen available to players seeking greater difficulty after beating the base game a zillion times.
With the first big update out, Supergiant says it's going to focus on stability for a bit and then resume work on future milestones. Those include the rest of the surface route, yet more boons, and improved enemy variety. "We are planning our next Major Update to launch sometime in early 2025, in a little less development time overall than The Olympic Update," the studio says.
"Early Access has already been an invaluable and eye-opening experience for our team as we continue working to complete this game," Supergiant adds. "As we move forward, we intend to keep making additions, changes, and improvements in an effort to create the biggest, most replayable, most feature-rich game we've made yet, and — most importantly — a worthy successor to the original Hades."
Hades wears the crown on our list of the best roguelike games for a reason.
