Supergiant's 2020 roguelike is the one that solved the genre's oldest problem: dying used to mean losing your progress and your story. Here Zagreus, son of Hades, is trying to escape the underworld, and every failed run drops him back in the House of Hades where the cast has new dialogue about what just happened. There are thousands of lines of it, so the narrative advances through defeat rather than despite it. The runs themselves are tight action combat across four biomes, built from six weapons and boons offered by Olympian gods who are also relatives with opinions about each other. Boons combine into builds - a Zeus and Poseidon pairing plays nothing like Ares and Artemis - and the Mirror of Night spends accumulated currency on permanent upgrades so an unlucky run still buys something. It spent two years in early access, which is visible in how little of it is loose, and it took a pile of awards in 2020 including the first Hugo ever given to a video game.
Metacritic
