Hades – Things You Didn’t Know You Could Do

Most players still don’t know about these helpful tips.

Helpful Tips for All Players

All credit goes to MUD!

Introduction

There are a lot of little hidden secrets still left to be found in the game. Even those who have spent a ton of time with Hades might not have figured out these neat little prizes the devs included, with the sheer wealth of easter eggs, secrets, and everything else along the same lines showing just how much love Supergiant Games poured into their magnum opus.

Reunite Achilles and Patroclus

Most people won’t even know who Patroclus is until a bunch of runs go by, following which his true identity will be revealed. Both he and Achilles share a history in their mythology as well, so it’s easy to see why Hades features their reunion as a pretty major event.

It’s also pretty hidden, and players will have to make a ton of headway in their relationship with both characters before this event comes to pass. Watching these lost lovers reunite makes for a great time and is one of the highlights of the game, which most people don’t even know about since it takes a lot of time for this event to even happen.

Fight Charon to Take His Gold

Charon is a merchant who travels the river Styx and aids Zagreus by letting him purchase helpful items and buffs to reach the surface with every run he makes. However, what most people don’t realize is that Charon is also a hidden optional boss they can tackle while traversing the depths of Tartarus.

To trigger this event, players need to find a special gold bag that can spawn behind Charon’s shop at times. Stealing Charon’s gold causes him to throw a fit and engage in an all-out battle with Zagreus. Winning this conflict leads to the player getting 300 Obol along with a Loyalty Card that gives a 20% discount on all his items for that particular run.

Checking Out New Dialogue by Enabling and Disabling Extreme Measures

Extreme Measures is a great way to freshen up the boss fights of this game after players have blown through the regular versions of these battles. That being said, there are times when players might want to turn up the Heat Level through other means and disable Extreme Measures after enabling it early on.

What most players don’t know is that doing this actually leads to unique dialogue between Zagreus and the boss, who has reverted to its regular encounter. It’s a simple yet great addition that shows just how much time was put into making the dialogue in Hades all the more reactive and engaging.

Add Mods to It

Few people are aware of the fact that Hades has a pretty decent modding scene. That said, a lot of the mods just have to do with giving players the ability to mess around with the game’s variables on their own or decrease the RNG of certain activities (like making the fishing easier), but there are still quite a few of them.

Some of them even completely rebalance the game’s difficulty, which can add 30+ more hours of replayability for some people.

Turn on Hell Mode or God Mode

With Hades releasing on so many different platforms over time (Steam, Nintendo Switch, Xbox Game Pass, and so on), there are all kinds of players giving it a shot. There are veteran players who had already 100%’ed Hades on the Epic Game Store before rebuying it on Steam, newer players who have tried roguelike games or Supergiant Games before, and just straight-up new players to the game, the company, and the genre. Thankfully, Hades has options for both the Veterans and the newbies who might be struggling in the form of God Mode and Hell Mode.

• God Mode: This is a mode that players can enable in their save file that has Zagreus take 20% less damage from enemies in general, with that damage reduction increasing by 2%, up to a whopping 80%, every single time the player dies in a run.
• Hell Mode: This is the exact opposite of God Mode and is usually utilized by players who want to get their save file back to where it was on the other platform they played the game on. In a file with Hell Mode enabled, the Pact of Punishment is available and enabled from the start. And, every run requires at least the first level of Hard Labor, Lasting Consequences, Jury Summons, Calisthenics Program, and Personal Liability is enabled.

Take a Look at the House of Hades from Above

After a certain point in the game, Zagreus gets access to the House Contractor, a Shade employed by Hades himself that can add a ton of new features, visual improvements, and even new characters to the hall in exchange for gemstones.

The neat thing is, the most expensive contracts Zagreus can employ the House Contractor to build also tend to be interactive in some way, shape, or form. For example, there’s the Bat Cage in the lounge that Zag can interact with and share his vision with one of the bats, giving him a view of the House of Hades from above.

Earn a Buff from Bouldy

Every biome of Hades has a nice little break area after a certain amount of Encounters where a Shade dwells that can help Zagreus out in some way. In Elysium it’s Patroclus, Asphodel has Eurydice, and Tartarus has Sisyphus. Now, Sisyphus has a best friend, one he grew pretty attached to from spending so much time together. This friend (cutely named “Boudly”) is a (sentient?) boulder that Zag can actually interact with as well, though it never talks back.

Players can even give this literal rock Nectar as a gift! Many might think that maybe Bouldy has a secret Bond ranking or something since little hearts pop up above it when given Nectar as they do for all the other Bonds. But, what’s actually happening here is that Bouldy is granting Zagreus a Boon of his very own. Don’t believe it? Just check Zag’s currently equipped Boons whenever this happens. Now, all these randomized Bouldy Boons are incredibly minor buffs (such as a 3% attack buff or an 8% movement speed buff), but still, every little bit helps.

Stumble Upon Secret NPC Dialog

There is a staggering amount of dialog in Hades, yet so much of it is hidden behind specific conditions, which is a large part of why this game feels so incredibly fresh each run despite its intentionally repetitive design. Usually, a game developer would try and push players towards finding these secret conversations as much as possible, but Supergiant Games seems to prefer that their audience stumbles upon it naturally.

And now that Hades has become such a worldwide phenomenon, a lot of new interactions are being discovered! For example, how many players knew that bringing the Yarn of Ariadne into the fight with Theseus (and Asterius) really annoys the Hero of Athens? Makes sense since it’s the same yarn the Greek Hero used to mark his path through the Labyrinth when he was alive. And, if Zag keeps bringing the Yarn into this boss battle, Theseus gets more and more annoyed each time! It’s this dedication to minute details like this that makes Hades such a charming game.

Interact with Your Biggest Fan

While the topic of conversation is on the fight against Asterius and Theseus, let’s talk about the crowd as well. There are quite a few Shades watching the battle, and while they all share the same model, there’s one that sort of stands out. This single red Shade is actually the only spirit cheering for Zagreus to win out of the entire crowd, and it even brought its own little banner with Zag’s face on it.

Sadly, this banner is being partially covered all the Asterius ones, yet he still shows up every single time! And, to make things even cuter, if Zag runs around that area after beating the warrior duo, he even acknowledges the Shade. Again, a very tiny detail that has nothing to do with gameplay, but it adds depth to the setting of Hades.There are a ton of other rogue-likes and rogue-lites that are similar to Hades, but none of them beat it in terms of storytelling.

Figure Out Exactly When the Next Boss Chamber Will Appear

Hades might be a roguelike, but there are actually quite a few things that aren’t randomized in it. Picking and choosing what’s randomized is actually one of the ways it has innovated on the genre itself. For example, players can actually count and keep track of how many chambers are left until the boss battle in every biome, as the amount is always predetermined. Excluding Chaos and Trove rooms, it’s 14 rooms to the Fury Sisters battle in Tartarus, 24 chambers until the fight against the Bone Hydra in Asphodel, and 36 chambers until Zag is pitted against Asterius and Theseus.

It might seem like this fact doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, but it actually makes a big difference. For example, a player isn’t going to grab a Chaos Boon that hurts them every time they dash if the Boss Room is only an encounter away, now will they?

Fail to Summon a Companion

This next secret is a bit like the one mentioned about hidden dialogue, but this has an impact on the gameplay as well. Basically, after maxing out certain Bonds, Zagreus unlocks Legendary Keepsakes, AKA Chthonic Companions, that allow him to summon different characters during battle. Some of the summons include Dusa, Megara, Thanatos, Achilles (and Patroclus), Bouldy, and even Skelly. Basically, think of them like Aid Boons, but for non-Olympic God characters. But Hades has an incredibly complex narrative, and sometimes these characters might not want to fight against who Zag is currently up against, or they might not even be around at the moment.

For example, there’s a brief period of time when Dusa is away from the House of Hades, and when Zag tries to summon her during this period, nothing happens, and Zag becomes depressed. Some other examples of this happening include; trying to summon Thanatos during a Thanatos competition (obviously), summoning Meg to fight against herself or one of her sisters, or trying to summon Dusa against the Gorgon Head mini-boss in Asphodel.

Reel Up Legendary Fish

So many of the Hades player base thought that getting a Legendary Fish was based on RNG. And it partially is. It makes sense that this is confusing, considering nothing about the fishing mini-game in Hades tells the player that their catch is dependant on reaction time. But it is, and now that people know, they should have a much easier time pulling up fish like the Flameater, a Seamare, or even a Voidskate.

There’s one Legendary Fish in every biome, such as the River Styx in Tartarus, the Lava of Asphodel, the Mists of Elysium, and the… waters of the Chaos realm? So, get focused, watch closely, and try to press the input as soon as that popper goes under!

Re-Roll Rooms Into Exactly What You Want

Way deep in the Mirror of Night unlocks, there are two abilities that share the name of “Fated.” One is Fated Authority, and the other is Fated Persuasion. Persuasion lets players re-roll the list of Boons and Well of Charon choices, but Authority lets them re-roll the next Encounter reward. But, what players might not know is that there are actually two different “types” of rooms.

Gems, Darkness, Nectar, and Keys are all in one category, while Boons, Hammers, Hearts, Poms of Power, and Bags of Obol are in the other. So, by memorizing that piece of info and maxing out Fated Authority, players can easily turn a Centaur Heart room into a Boon one almost 100% of the time.

Use Companion Summons Against Hades

Usually, people save the Chthonic Companion summons for Boss encounters since they usually inflict a bunch of damage as their main ability. But who knew that they all had specific characters/bosses they couldn’t be used against. For example, most of them can’t be used against Hades since that would sort of be like attacking their boss. Weirdly enough, both Bouldy and Skelly can be summoned against Hades from the get-go, which is great to know, and might be why they’re worth saving some Nectar for in the early game.

Although, after progressing through the mainline story enough times, eventually Zagreus unlocks the ability to summon anyone while fighting Hades thanks to the boss man himself “authorizing it.”

Build Up a Winning Streak

This is another progression-related dialog secret. How many Hades players knew that there’s actually a “clear spree” that gets counted when Zagresus beat Hades multiple times in a row? Alternatively, who knew that Megara keeps count of all the times Zag has beaten her without losing? What about the fact that Hermes actually acknowledges the successful bouts’ with Charon and even bets Zag that he can’t beat him twice in a row? And, depending on how broken Zag’s overall build is, getting these winning streaks to 10+ is actually relatively easy as well.

There are just so many situations like this in Hades, it’s a wonder the dev team ever figured out how to make it work. In fact, this interaction with one of the developers after a tweet on Megara’s conditional dialogue perfectly explains their workflow in relation to NPC dialog.

Guarantee the Same Start Over & Over

The “Give Up” option in Hades is confusing, considering it doesn’t quite work how most would assume. Basically, selecting this sends players back to the Main Menu, and then when they re-load their save the game acts as if they had just walked out onto the courtyard before the run even started. But why does it do this? Well, “Give Up” is actually Supergiant’s way of letting Zag test out Weapons, Weapon Aspects, Companion Summons, Keepsakes, and more without resetting a run.

For example, if a player unlocked a specific Aspect with Titan Blood, got decently far into a run, and decided they didn’t like it, they can “Give Up” and it’ll send them back to the courtyard and give the Titan Blood back while also saving that specific run’s “seed”. Nowadays, this feature is mostly just used as a speedrunning tool, but it’s still a nifty function to know about.

Fight an Even Harder Version of Hades

For those new to Hades, don’t expect to go for this next secret anytime soon. But yes, there’s an ending to Hades, an unlockable True Ending, and a Post-Game extra ending depending on how many times players feel like escaping the Underworld with Zag again and again. But, after the True Ending, a new Pact of Punishment option appears in the Contractor list, Extreme Measures Rank 4.

Turns out purchasing this from the Contractor with Gemstones unlocks a new variation for Hades himself, and it makes his encounter way, way tougher. It’s a bit surprising that harder difficulty options haven’t been modded into the game yet, considering how flush these modding communities for rogue-likes tend to be.