REVOLUTION AWARD HADES

The magic of Supergiant’s greatest game is that, despite dying over and over again as you attempt to fight your way out of Hell, you never feel stuck in a loop. Make no mistake: a good videogame loop is a brilliant thing, a carousel designed to keep you engaged and entertained. It’s precisely what Roguelikes are built on. The very best disguise it. Yet Hades goes one step further – it makes the loop mean something.

Zagreus, prince of the Underworld, sets about his quest of self-discovery with a frequently comedic stubbornness. He’s compelled to defy his father and reach the surface by any means necessary: pummelled by club-carrying louts and lasered by angry crystals, turned to stone by Medusa heads and poisoned by gigantic vermin, bullied by bosses and inevitably developing a fear of butterflies. Fortunately, you have a choice of varied and vicious weapons – and a suite of endlessly combinable powers, bestowed upon you by a memorable cast of Olympians who want to see their distant relative succeed.

The genius of it all is that characters constantly comment on every choice you make and twist of fate you face: the fact that you’ve picked up a gun instead of a sword this run, which enemy you succumbed to on the last. There’s a back-and-forth to relationships that pushes you in certain directions, and reacts when you push back. And so no two runs feel alike: rather, the sense is of a journey with an ever-present feeling of progress, roadblocks be damned. And, eventually, Supergiant reveals its ace: a narrative hook that is so universal as to be irresistible. Suddenly, the prospect of several more goes around makes a beautiful kind of sense. And so we drag ourselves out of the Styx once more, hearts full to bursting, knowing that Hades is revolutionary in the most extreme sense of the word. Yes, things come around – but on rare occasions, we see old ways transform, and what once seemed a closed loop opening out into something else altogether.