Summary
Supergiant Games’Hades 2is still in Early Access, but already delivers a massive amount of storytelling and gameplay content for players to work their way through.Hades 2is expected to get a full release with version 1.0 early next year, with smaller quality-of-life patches that streamline gameplay and overall experience until then.
Despite its unfinished state,Hades 2looks to be a winneralready and a worthy successor to its predecessor. The door is open for a thirdHadesgame if Supergiant follows its current pattern of basing the games in the series on the children of Hades. WithHades 2, Supergiant Games has established a narrative pattern with theHadesgame series. BothHadesandHades 2have been centered around family, and the conflict and joys that accompany them.Hadesalso follows the children of Hades and Persephone, Zagreus and Melinoe, but a third game that follows and expands on this formula is possible because Hades had a third child: Macaria.
Who is Hades' Third Child, Macaria?
Thegod of the underworld had three children in Greek mythology: Zagreus, Melinoe, and Macaria. Like Zagreus and Melinoe, Macaria is an obscure god with very few surviving texts or sources that refer to her. Sources that have survived refer to Macaria as a god that presides over peaceful death, similar to Thanatos' role. It’s also unknown who her mother was, although there are definite sources that point to Hades as her father. Alongside Hades, Heracles has also been credited as Macaria’s father, although Macaria’s associations with death and the underworld remain intact in this version, where she offers herself up as a sacrifice to Persephone, creating a link to the Queen of the underworld.
IfSupergiant Games did move forwardwith Macaria, they would likely use the version where Macaria is the child of Hades, rather than Heracles, in keeping with the theme of the series. Because she has so many parts of her original story missing, along with her parentage in debate, it would be simple to assign Hades and Persephone as her parents in a retelling of her story. Changes such as this are common for Greek myths, which is one of the reasons why so many myths have many different versions of them.
Macaria’s lack of lore in Greek mythology and the debate about her parentage doesn’t pose a problem, as both Zagreus and Melinoe also have very few references in both Greek and Roman texts, with references to multiple parents from Zeus to Nyx. This allows Supergiant to create their own stories around these characters, making Macaria the perfect character for athirdHadesgamethat follows on from Zagreus and Melinoe’s story.
While there are many myths that could integrate Macaria, she could follow in her siblings' footsteps with an original story. TheHadesseries of games has established the theme of family, and a story involving Macaria could continue with this theme. Despite her associations with death, Macaria has less of an association with the underworld than Zagreus and Melinoe do, and a game that involves her could feature her on the surface rather than in the underworld as adeparture from otherHadesgames. Her association with peaceful death could also be used to draw parallels with Thanatos, who is also associated with non-violent death.
