Hades almost starred in Theseus, who would have been boring

Imagine yourself playing Hades, working to escape the underworld, fighting and succumbing to swarms of relentless enemies. Every time your character perishes, you hear the low, sinister laughter of the king of the dead in your ear, mocking your weakness. Until finally, after countless attempts, you stand in front of Hades, preparing for the final confrontation, and you hear your character say, “To all our followers, we dedicate this fight to you” Because in this version of Hades, you play like Theseus.

Fortunately, that didn’t happen. But according to a report near, we narrowly avoided a bad chronology in which the platinum blonde was the star of Supergiant Games’ 2020 roguelita success instead of the soft, sweet Prince Zagreus.

The game’s early concepts featured Theseus as he explored the maze of Crete, said Amir Rao, co-founder of Supergiant, in a talk on the Clubhouse social app, just for invitation and audio. Although Theseus is a popular heroic figure in Greek myth, the team was not satisfied with his development Hades‘hero.

“When we tried to bring him to life as a protagonist, he has this risk of being very generic,” Hades said creative director Greg Kasavin Virgin. “But as soon as we start adding specific details[s] for him, he really no longer feels like Theseus. “

Returning to the mythological drawing board, Kasavin found the sloppy story of the son of Hades and decided that Zagreus would be a better protagonist.

“We just found a better kind of angle on the protagonist, on the overall theme, and on the storytelling technique as well in that shot,” Kasavin said.

Theseus com HadesThe protagonist had a logical sense. After all, he is the famous and minotaur-killing hero of Greek myth. But HadesThe story worked because it subverted expectations. The gods were still whimsical and petty creatures, but they are your family and you love them, damn it. A disgruntled son still appeared killing his overbearing father, but the main story of the game was about reconciliation, not revenge. Even the design of the same gods as people of color he was a revolutionary. Although I think Hades it would have been fun no matter who rode through these dungeons, I think the success of the game is because Supergiant took the well-worn source material and made it fun. In Hades, Theseus remains a hero: a nasty, self-absorbed, overly arranged hero, whom everyone loves to hate.