Rescripting of the Genre Through Greek Mythology in Hades

Abstract

Hades is a 2018 video game by Supergiant Games that sees the player take control of Zagreus, an obscure son of Hades. Hades offers the player freedom to shape, order, and alter its narrative through their choices of pursuit. This article attempts to highlight aspects of this game's design by contrasting it with two prominent rogue-likes. It uses The Binding of Isaac and Dead Cells for this purpose, and to further establish similarities and differences from the rest of the genre in the narrative and the ludic. It introduces the reader to the conventional elements of a rogue-like and how Hades is equipped to work around their limitations. Through this article, I also attempt to comment on whether and how the conventional idea of the genre is evolving in videogames today and highlight how games like Hades, Dead Cells, and The Binding of Isaac are contributing to this evolution.