Hades is an indie roguelike from Supergiant Games, its narrative full of surprises beyond the final boss fight, including how many times players need to complete it in order to reach its true ending. While most games end their narrative after that last, brutal battle, Hades continues on, going so far as to introduce a new character. In order to resolve the emotional storyline and unlock the game's finale, players must execute a number of escape attempts to completion.
Hades' intense gameplay mechanics are centered on Zagreus, son of the titular ruler of the underworld, as he attempts to escape to the realm above. He must fight through three biomes, encountering iconic characters and Olympian gods from Greek mythology as he does. While the gameplay is dynamic and fun in and of itself, Hades' narrative and themes of family conflict resolution are what make the game shine. Zagreus' relationship with his father is perfectly broken by a marred history of secrets and tough love, and Hades' story is a journey of slowly unraveling the truth and trying to mend fences.
With such an emphasis on family ties, it doesn't make sense that Hades' genre-defining narrative would resolve after Zagreus defeats Hades, the game's final boss. Instead, after vanquishing his father, Zagreus is able to walk through the living world of Greece and meet his mother for the first time. Persephone, who has lived all these years in a quaint garden, is ecstatic to meet her son, and she is key to reaching Hades' true ending.
How to Complete Hades' Endings
As the prince of the underworld in Hades, Zagreus can only withstand the land of the living for so long, so his interactions with Persephone are limited to short cutscenes of dialogue before he fades back to the House of Hades. In order to continue Persephone's plot, players must use Zagreus to complete 10 escape runs. On the tenth victory, players will discover more about Persephone and some significant changes will take place. Players will also see the credits roll, and get a little bit of much-needed closure to the saga. This is, in fact, the game's true ending, though - rather contrarily - it isn't quite the end, thanks to extra post-game content.
Once players find out what happens to Persephone, bringing unique closure to an iconic Greek myth, players can continue to fight out of Hades in an attempt to reach a secret epilogue. Changes begin for Zagreus and his family, though furthering the story also seems to require certain relationship milestones to have been met, and a number of further completions will need to be done to advance NPC dialogue. Because of this, the number of runs to fully complete Hades and get both its true ending and its final epilogue doesn't seem to be truly quantifiable, but it takes a minimum of 10 completion runs to see Hades' true ending, and possibly quite a number more to unlock its final - actually final - post-game epilogue.
