I’m often let down by game stories. With rare exceptions — Half-Life, Shadow of the Colossus, games that knew when to shut the hell up — I’ve found them tiresome, forgettable, and frustratingly aping film and television stories.
Bad writing isn’t to blame. There are many smart, well-crafted stories in video games lessened by the need to be stretched out over dozens of hours or clumsily acted by uncanny digital avatars. It’s a Sisyphean task, I gather, trying to balance satisfying gameplay with storytelling needs.
Then there’s Hades, the game that masterfully marries story and gameplay. Four years after its official release, the action roguelike is still the best example we have of video game storytelling adapting to its medium.
Hades accomplishes this through repetition. The game’s structure teaches players the rules of its combat and the depths of its characters by throwing Zagreus, surrogate son of the underworld, against obstructions again and again as he fights his way out of hell. With each run, Zagreus is destroying the denizens of the underworld, meeting new ones, chipping away at the hardened exteriors of family and former lovers, and rebuilding his home in ways that express admiration and appreciation for his allies.
Developer Supergiant Games delivers this progression with extreme efficiency. Dialogue between characters is tightly written and delivered with a clear, speedy cadence — every time I play I happily sit through moody instructional wisdom from Zagreus’ foster mother Nyx and make sure to check in with the charming Dusa. Hades’ repetition greatly benefits the player in this way; where other video games repeat dialogue two to three times in an effort to drive home character motivations or mission objectives, Hades can reinforce its ideas and narrative run after run after run. Any repeated or reinforced dialogue comes in short bursts. You’re never kept waiting for the action, even as characters’ storylines progress, nor are you narratively hand-held.
Hades writes around its randomness, which is inherent to roguelikes. Take Zagreus’ relationship with Megaera, a boss fight that’s somewhat random — sometimes you’re instead fighting one (or more) of her fellow Furies. Through Meg’s appearances and her absences, we learn more about her character, her grudge against Zagreus, and her relationship with her sisters. Characters come and go in the game’s hub world, the House of Hades, where Zagreus is reborn upon death. When characters like Achilles, Thanatos, and daddy Hades himself are present, we can move their story forward. When they’re absent, we miss their presence and wonder what they’re up to. We learn to appreciate their reappearance, relishing in the opportunity to speak with them.
Supergiant encourages investment in these relationships, tying some of their progress to the hard-won in-game resource nectar. We choose which relationships we want to put effort into, showing love to the people we become attached to over dozens of runs. Thankfully, it’s a game full of relationships worth investing in. Our repeated meetings with our friends, family, and former/future lovers endear them to us over time.
Even the game’s most contentious relationship, between Zagreus and Hades, is supported by the roguelike structure. Hades is never not mad at his son, but as repeated defeats mount, he comes to respect Zagreus. The two find peace and harmony, but only after many, many fierce battles to the death.
Hades’ endgame, when Zagreus finally breaks out of hell and finally meets his mother, reinforces just how good Supergiant is at weaving its storytelling into game structure. Zagreus has to claw his way back to his mom, savoring their brief reunions and extracting new details about the relationship between Persephone and Hades bit by bit. Despite all the game’s repetition, and feelings of frustration as Zagreus desperately seeks closure, the game’s conclusion is gratifying. Yet true to Supergiant’s commitment to weaving story and gameplay, it doesn’t close the book on the game’s replayability.
Hades’ very structure makes these kinds of blossoming, evolving, and complex relationships possible. Through repetition and reward, through interwoven stories told in short bursts, we learn everything we need to know — and very little we don’t — about Zagreus and his extended family.
With Hades 2 on the horizon, it’s exciting to see how Supergiant Games will repeat itself once again.
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