Hades almost played with Theseus, who would have been boring AF

Imagine yourself playing Hades, works to escape the underworld, fighting and giving in to swarms of ruthless enemies. Every time your character perishes, you hear in your ear the low, sinister squeak of the King of the Dead, mocking you for your weakness. Eventually, after countless attempts, you stand in front of Hades, preparing for the final confrontation, and you hear your character say, “All our fans, we dedicate this fight to you!” Because in this version of Hades, you play like Theseus.

Fortunately, this did not happen. But according to a report in Verge, we narrowly avoided a bad timeline, in which the platinum-blonde was the star of the 2020 Supergiant Games’ red-hot hit, replacing the soft and sweet Prince Zagreus.

The early concepts of the game introduced Theseus as he explored the labyrinth of Crete, said co-founder of Supergiant Amir Rao in a discussion about the Clubhouse social app, with invitation and audio. Although Theseus is a popular heroic figure in Greek myth, the team was unhappy with its evolution. Hades‘hero.

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

Returning to the mythological picture, Kasavin found the neglected story of Hades’ son and decided that Zagreus would make a better protagonist.

“I just found a kind of better angle on the protagonist, on the general theme and on the storytelling technique, also in that one shot,” Kasavin said.

Theseus ca. Hadesthe protagonist had a logical meaning. After all, he is the famous hero who kills the minotaurs of Greek myth. But HadesThe story worked because it reversed expectations. The gods were still capricious and petty creatures, but they are your family and you love them, damn it. Next was a dissatisfied son who kills his ruling father, but the main story of the game was about reconciliation, not revenge. Even the design of the gods themselves as people of color he was a revolutionary. Although I think Hades it would have been nice, no matter who I piloted through those twisting dungeons, I think the success of the game is that Supergiant took the well-worn source material and became funky with it. In the Hades, Theseus is still a hero – an unpleasant hero, absorbed in himself, too neat, which everyone loves to hate.