As players desperately struggle to escape from the Underworld in Hades, they’ll receive the aid of various Olympian Gods in the form of boons. These boons have varied effects, and can do anything from making Zagreus invincible or earning him more gold. Though there’s already plenty of diversity in the abilities offered by the gods currently in the game, fans can’t help but want to see more. New boons could mean new potential strategies and synergies, and seeing those in action would be great. While there are plenty of mythological figures not yet in Hades, some fans would rather see boons given to Zagreus from Hades himself.
The concept of Hades is simple, but it does complicate this idea a bit. Zagreus is trying to escape from the Underworld against his father’s wishes, and to do so he has called upon the help of Olympus. The Gods above provide him with their blessing in hopes that he will someday break free and join them on the mountaintop. Naturally, Hades does all he can to stop Zagreus from escaping, so it wouldn’t make much sense for him to offer a boon of any sort. That said, there are a few ways Supergiant Games could work around this. SPOILERS AHEAD.
The true ending of Hades paves a path for how Hades offering boons could fit in the lore of the world. After players manage to escape ten times, Zagreus’ mother Persephone comes back to the Underworld to be with her family. At this point, Zagreus has no more reason to attempt escape, but must continue to try in order to keep the Olympians in the dark about his deception. To make things more efficient, Hades decides to make his escape attempts an official job, asking that Zagreus continue to try and escape so that he can pinpoint weaknesses in the Underworld and patch them up.
At this point, players can gift nectar and ambrosia to Hades in return for his keepsake. The Sigil of the Dead allows Zagreus to use Hades’ call ability to go invisible, marking the only effect of Hades’ that he is able to use. If the God of the Underworld is willing to help in that capacity, it could make sense for him to help with boons as well. More likely than not these would be very rare and powerful, but they would add another layer to the already deep gameplay.
Though the name “true ending” would lead players to believe that there’s nothing more to the game, there’s actually an epilogue in Hades that comes after it. After completing the necessary steps, the Olympian Gods all join Hades in the Underworld for a feast. It’s here that everything is cleared up and peace is made between the two families. Despite knowing that Zagreus isn’t really trying to escape, the Olympians still offer him their aid while he works. Now that the situation is out in the open, they might be more susceptible to Hades himself offering aid as well.
If Hades were to have his own set of boons, there would probably be powerful duo boons to go along with them. For this to work, all of the Olympians would need to fully understand the situation. It would be interesting to imagine how Hades’ boons would interact with the other Olympian Gods if this were the case. On the other hand, his boons could be handled in the same way Chaos’ are, separate from the other gods. This could work because both Chaos and Hades are Cthonic Gods as opposed to Olympian Gods.
Even with the above explanations, it seems out of character for Hades to help Zagreus escape, so what if there was an entirely new region or story instead? There’s only really one way this could work, requiring Zagreus to do some kind of work on behalf of the gods. It’s already been established by Hades‘ immense amount of dialogue that Zagreus can’t survive outside of the Underworld, so having him go to Olympus or the Overworld is unlikely, but there’s a whole region that players have already been to that could use some elaboration.
At the end of every run, players enter the last level of Hades, the Temple of Styx. This area acts as a sort of in between, as it isn’t fully in the Underworld or the Overworld. Zagreus is able to exist fine here without dying, and the enemies here are unique. Hades frequently refers to the Satyr problem, implying that it’s something that he needs Zagreus to take care of. An expansion could open up more areas of the Temple of Styx and see Hades task Zagreus with fully clearing it out. In this case, it would make perfect sense for Zagreus to receive boons from Hades, and the other Olympian Gods would likely still help too.
When imagining what type of boons Hades might offer, it’s best to look at what he’s capable of doing in the game already. During the final boss battle with Hades, he uses a cast that works identically to Zagreus’ but has different effects. If Zagreus is hit by these flying skulls, he suffers from the Boiling Blood status effect, causing him to take double damage for the duration. As a boon, Zagreus would also be able to fire skulls, and enemies hit by them would take more damage based on how high level the boon was.
There’s already a call in the game for Hades that turns Zagreus invisible, and his other boons could work off of a similar effect that the cast has. As the God of Death, Hades might also be able to give more uses of Death’s Defiance or empower it in some way, and any number of his other abilities could be converted to boons as well. Supergiant Games has a lot to work with if it does ever decide to add Hades boons to the game, but until then fans will just have to wait.
Hades is available now on PC and Switch.
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