I’m over 300 hours into Hades 2, and the mythological roguelike game continues to surprise me. There I was, in the middle of an ordinary jaunt, when all of a sudden, Nemesis turned up. Great, I thought. I was running low on money and beating the challenge to kill more enemies than she does is second nature to me. Except no, that’s not what she wanted. The goddess of retribution said that she couldn’t get protagonist Melinoe out of her head, and it was starting to become a problem. And she was determined to solve that problem.
You’d think that, for a series known for its seductive Greek pantheon and sultry voice acting, the possibility of a sex scene wouldn’t shock me. The characters in Hades are designed to look like they’re the leading love interests in a romance game, or the long-lost sixth member of One Direction. Everyone is hot and written to embody the type of confidence that suggests they’re perfectly aware of their status. Hades 2 turns things up a notch by offering bonding moments with characters that sometimes feel like they’re actually dates. You can share a golden bottle of Ambrosia with your haters-to-lovers beau. If you progress in a relationship enough, you might even be able to convince a goddess or two to soak in the bathhouse with you. Some of these scenes are clearly meant to be between friends, like when Melinoe chats with the ghostly apparition named Dora.
Others play out such a tension that’s so palpable, the player might feel like they’re intruding on a moment they’re not meant to see. The sexual aspect here isn’t an undertone. There’s flirting, and you can almost imagine the characters shamelessly checking each other out. Everyone looks like they’re blushing, or feeling sheepish. But there’s also some ambiguity in the bathhouse scenes as well. You don’t know for certain that the characters seal the deal at some point. All you’re really told is that the steamy reprieve has left everyone feeling refreshed. You can read into that, especially as some relationships start sounding romantic even when everyone’s got their clothes on. But it’s equally possible that the characters in Hades 2 are just huge teases.
But the moment I experienced with Nemesis felt fundamentally different from other things I’ve experienced in the game. For one thing, it wasn’t like I had deepened my relationship with Nemesis recently. Most of the time that I stopped to speak to her at the Crossroads of late, she either wasn’t there or she gave me a brief piece of dialogue. You know, the sort of thing that makes it clear there’s not much more to uncover within that portion of the game. Hades 2 is clearly written to anticipate players like me, that is, fans that will spend endless hours attempting to defeat time. Characters always have something new to say to me, but when they do, the dialogue doesn’t necessarily mean you’re progressing the story. I believed I had seen most of what that specific branch of Hades 2 had to offer.
My astonishment deepened as I realized that the fade to black with Nemesis was charged with suggestive audio. There was no mistaking what the two characters were doing. Even bolder was that, at the end of the scene, Nemesis informed Melinoe it would likely happen again. I don’t know if the game will make good on that promise, but I’m still stuck on the fact it happened at all. I didn’t even realize the game contained anything like that moment. There’s scarcely any mention of this sexual moment online, or any indication that Hades 2 treats other characters in the same way.
Most games don’t handle sex scenes like this, even if they’re romantic in nature. Sex or moments of intimacy are often placed near the end of a relationship pathway, almost as if they’re a prize you’ve unlocked for winning a character over. If a sex scene happens during other moments, there’s still a sense of disconnect for the player. The shorthand is ‘sex scenes’ because they’re usually cutscenes. You might be able to influence some of the dialogue during this cutscene, and the explicitness of the moment can range between mild and spicy. In Hades 2, the scene with Nemesis almost comes across like one of the many random conditions a roguelike might trigger during a run to keep things fresh. There’s only a small chance you’ll see it, apparently, if you ever see it at all. Critically, the sex scene also happens mid-run. Most relationship progression in Hades 2 tends to happen in between runs, or within the segments of the game that are designed as downtime for the player. Maybe you use that time to change up your build, or take a closer look at your abilities. Hooking up with Nemesis happened after I entered a totally normal room. I’m left with some questions about the mechanics of sex — did they just throw down in the middle of the battlefield?— but mostly, I’m delighted at how unusual the experience is.
It’s possible that, behind the scenes, sleeping with Nemesis will only happen under very specific conditions. But whatever those circumstances are, they’re a mystery to me. As it is sometimes in real life, sex in Hades 2 is sudden and unplanned. I couldn’t predict that it was going to happen. And it’ll probably happen again, at some point. It’s not a big deal, just natural.
