Hades almost played his worst character

In Hades, the legendary Greek hero who killed the Minotaur, Theseus, is a pain in the ass. He is a boss fight, a blow hard that treats every encounter like an overproduction wrestling match. Zagreus, the cool, collected prince of the Underworld, may have good reason to want to leave, but in Theseus’ eyes he will never be more than a helspawn. These dynamics helped to highlight exactly what Zagreus did, Hades‘protagonist, a fan favorite. But in the early versions of the game, Theseus’ role was reversed.

Theseus is only heroic material in the legend, a sentiment that the developer Supergiant Games finally came to share. During a recent speech on Clubhouse, Supergiant co-founder Amir Rao said that early concepts for Hades Theseus interpreted. It was the creative director Greg Kasavin who turned the page on the Hades play in the award-winning game it is today. “He had some kind of idea that we could probably keep everything in the game, but rewrite it as Zagreus,” Rao said. ‘These different ideas, all these different characters, all came together. I think within a day or two he convinced everyone that it was a better idea. ‘

In the early days of development, Hades – then called ‘Minos’ – followed Theseus as he explored the labyrinth of Crete. The roguelike would have used the winding nature of the labyrinth to fetch his unlimited dungeons. Tell Kasavin The edge that Supergiant wanted to play with the many variations of the Theseus myth as part of the game. “The idea would be like every time you play, it’s like a different narrative of the Theseus myth,” he says. Despite going through several repetitions, the team felt they could not get a good grip on who Theseus was as a hero. “So cerebral, he was interesting,” Kasavin says. ‘But when we tried to bring him to life as a protagonist, he ran the risk of being very generic. But once we start adding specific details to him, he just doesn’t really feel like Theseus anymore. ”

Not only that, but the game just felt too grim, Kasavin says. When the team interrupted their holiday, Kasavin investigated further. Eventually he came across myths about Zagreus, the son of Hades. Something click. “It turns out that there are not many myths about Hades, apparently because the Greeks were just afraid of him,” Kasavin says. “So they did not talk about him … It’s like, wait a minute. Hades is one of those super-iconic, like household name level, Greek gods. And yet there are so few stories about him and he has a son? ‘

Kasavin gave the idea to Rao; it enabled them to rewrite their story into something more exciting, while retaining many core parts of the game. “We just found a better angle on the protagonist, on the overall theme and the storytelling technique also in that one shot,” he says. “Things actually got out of there pretty quickly.” It also lightened the tone of the game by taking a grim retelling of myths and revising it as a lighter story about a very powerful, very dysfunctional family – one where everyone is a little small, no one ever really dies not, and Cerberus, the terrible dog of hell, is just the family dog.

As for Theseus, he also got a rewrite of a boring hero in a spectacular villain. Kasavin says that his return to the match ‘was by no means a foregone conclusion, but that the team could play more with his character. “The part where he’s brackish is something I think is deeply rooted in the mythology about him,” Kasavin says. “He is considered a hero, but some of the actions he takes are very dubious.” In death he is a little more self-conscious and paves the way for it. Hades to cast Theseus and Asterius as a tag team, some Luchadors from beyond the tomb. “Theseus has the mind in the underworld to acknowledge that his own fame, his own heroism is linked to his encounter with the Minotaur,” he says. ‘And he finds the Minotaur in death and he’s like: Oh, you were my biggest opponent. You were amazing. ‘”

Against Zagreus, says Kasavin, Theseus is a self-righteous, like-minded hero who does not want to listen to anyone. He is too confident and even unpleasant in every aspect of his personality, with one exception: “If he has one redeeming quality, it is that his friendship with Asterius is sincere.”