Since Hades II launched in Early Access just over a week ago, developer Supergiant Games has been collecting feedback from players. Now, some of that feedback has been used in the game’s first patch, and more tweaks are in the pipeline.
Today, Supergiant Games released the first Early Access patch for Hades II, which includes substantial changes to player movement, encounters, and level design, as well as a handful of bug fixes. The patch notes are available on Steam.
“Here’s our first patch Early access!! We are very grateful for all the feedback so far, which inspired this first set of targeted improvements and fixes.” the patch notes said.
Most notably, the patch makes sprinting faster, attack recovery animations more reliable, and gathering easier (now players can get resources from any source point once they’ve unlocked the appropriate Gathering Tool, and Tools can be prioritized given to make the respective sources more common). The design of several areas has also been changed to make running and gathering resources easier.
It also fixes some frustrating bugs, including certain Boons not working as expected and enemies spawning out of bounds.
The patch is almost entirely player-inspired, with every item in the notes except two inspired by community feedback. The patch notes also mention that the next patch will focus on balance changes and other adjustments based on feedback.
First announced at the 2022 Game Awards, Hades II underwent a brief technical test last month before heading into Early Access. Since its launch on May 6, its predecessor’s concurrent player count has more than doubled. We gave it a 9 in our review, saying it feels “impossibly grand and incredibly polished by any standard, let alone an early access game.”
You can check out the full patch notes below.
General gameplay
- Your sprint is naturally faster and the turning is more responsive; rescaled skills that reinforce this
- You can now exit attack recovery animations much more reliably
- You can now collect from any resource point once you’ve unlocked the corresponding collection tool; You can now prioritize every available resource in the training grounds so that resources will appear as often as before, while resources for tools you don’t prioritize will appear much less often
Altar of Ashes
- The Swift Runner: now also makes your Dash instantaneous (note that the higher speed means your invulnerability is slightly shorter); rescaled Sprint speed bonus because Sprint is now naturally faster
Level design and environments
- It’s easier to run across gaps in Oceanus
- Driftwood sources are more common in the Rift of Thessaly
Menus and user interface
- If you use a source from Charon, your current gold will be displayed without you having to check your Boon info
- The Grab upgrade tutorial in the Altar of Ashes will repeat if ignored
- Added Patch Notes option to the main menu (where you can read this!)
Mixed
- Early encounters with people are less likely to occur; she also drops something of value…
- Related, if this has already happened, look for a one-time bonus in the intersection while it is present
- Entries in the Book of Shadows are generally easier to reveal
- You can give a gift without having to wait so long after the conversation
- Custom upgrades invalidated by the above changes to the Gathering Tool
- The Flashback will eventually play a hint for players who don’t realize they are in control
- Improved mouse selection in several cases
- Improved support for some additional controllers
- Skills that increase sprint speed display more accurate numbers (generally lower than before)
- Updates and fixes for translations in some languages
Bug fixes
- Fixed several issues with Dark Side (Selene).
- Fixed an issue that sometimes prevented the Sun Worshiper (Apollo) from spawning new enemies
- Fixed the fire extinguisher (Hestia) not causing damage as expected
- Fixed Sister Blades’ Omega attack not hitting reliably from certain angles
- Fixed an issue where the ability to block is retained while under Twilight Curse (Selene)
- Fixed several cases where enemies would sometimes spawn outside the boundaries
- Fixed an issue that caused camera zoom to freeze in certain situations
- Fixed cases where you could run out of bounds at the intersection
- Fixed an issue where the Fishing Pier events at the Crossroads were not passing through the Whiles like other similar events
- Fixed auto-lock not being cleared as expected while using mouse controls
- Fixed an issue where keyboard input would sometimes freeze unexpectedly
- Fixed several input issues when switching from gamepad to mouse and keyboard controls
- Fixed several issues when playing in ultra-wide resolutions
- Fixed some visual effects related to lingering between stages or after battle
- Fixed an issue where the Melinoë voice line would repeat unexpectedly around the phone
- Fixed several rare crashes
- Fixed several text errors
- Other minor repairs
Amelia Zollner is a freelance writer at IGN who loves all things indie and Nintendo. Outside of IGN, they’ve contributed to sites like Polygon and Rock Paper Shotgun, and are currently developing a game called Garage sales. Find them on Twitter: @ameliazollner.