The Harmonious Secrets of Hades’ Hermes
Supergiant’s Hades is a fantastic game. This isn’t a hot take. This isn’t even a room temperature take. Ever since its launch in September 2020, the game has been showered with praise; not only for its fast-paced, satisfying gameplay, but also for its narrative. The way Hades blends its story progression with the trial-and-error style of gameplay that defines the Roguelike was something few had ever seen before.
To have story progression tied to all different forms of progress, from pushing the main story forward, to furthering the tales of individual characters made the endless grind and numerous deaths more worthwhile. That even a failed run, a subpar performance, can add value, really engages with players.
But as I said, this is nothing new. Hades has been praised for its narrative systems over and over again, rightfully so. Instead, I’d like to take a deep dive into a very specific pair of decisions the folks at Supergiant made, indicative of their ability not only to balance the game, but have the story and gameplay feel cohesive. The star of the show is the messenger of the gods, Hermes.
Hermes is arguably one of the least interesting members of the Greek Pantheon that you encounter on your journey out of the underworld. He’s quick-witted, quick-tongued, and doesn’t have the time for a lot of flattery and gum-flapping. He has a job to do, y’know.
And like every other member of the Greek Pantheon you can encounter out in the underworld, he offers gifts in the form of Boons. These powerups exist to assist the player in growing stronger for that escape attempt. Each God has their own style of Boon that encourages a specific playstyle.
Zeus’ Boons focus on bolts on lighting that can strike multiple targets. Poseidon adds extra damage when an enemy is smacked against a wall; and Dionysus has his “Hangover” status ailment, which is essentially just poison under a far more lore-appropriate name. Players may have favorite Gods that fit their individual playstyle. Some are better suited for defensive play, like Athena’s projectile-reflection boons. While for players who have already mastered boss patterns, they might no longer be useful.
These boons are also a reflection of the given God’s personality. What does this mean for our boy Hermes? How does fast, impatient, and simple equate to powerups in a game? What playstyle does that encourage? Well, the problem that Supergiant had to solve is that the answer to that question is “all of them.” So, Hermes is the strange exception of the main 9 Gods, in several ways.
Hermes’ boons include incredibly straightforward buffs to your default actions and verbs, rather than adding complementary effects. Instead of adding lightning or freezing effects, it just makes your basic attack go faster. Rather than giving some effect to your dash like deflecting projectiles, or leaving some damaging goop in your wake, you just get to dash more often.
These buffs compliment every single possible playstyle. No weapon type or build would turn down extra movement speed, or a flat chance to just dodge any individual hit. These buffs are just universally good. And Supergiant knew this. Which is why Hermes is the exception to the rule, not only mechanically, but also narratively.
Narratively, Hermes is in a bit of a strange spot compared to his cousins and uncles up in Olympus. He is the only member of the Pantheon to directly contact the underworld on the regular, as he ferries souls from the Earth to the River Styx. He is close to Charon, the ferryman, and the game’s shopkeeper. Unnervingly close, if some conversations are to be taken at face value.
What that also means is that Hermes knows Zagreus’ secrets, and his true intentions for trying to leave the underworld. Something that would be disastrous, would Zeus et al discover. But Hermes is a bro. He helps instigate the game’s story by passing the message of Zagreus’ escape to Olympus, and is always on the player’s side. He’s always around.
This is reflected in many of the mechanics of Hermes’ Boons and how you receive them. This is reflected in that the odds of receiving a room clear prize of a Hermes Boon is actually in a separate drop pool from the other standard 7 members of the pantheon. His gifts are not competing for your attention alongside his fellow Gods. Even if you obtain, say, Swift Strike, which increases your attack speed, it doesn’t collide with other boons. Normally, you can only have one boon that affects a given function, like Attack, Special, or Call. Hermes’ abilities do not take these slots up, and can co-exist alongside a boon from any other God in the pantheon.
Even his keepsake reflects this lack of competition, the lack of a need to seek him out. When you work on building a relationship with a character, they give you what’s called a “keepsake”, of which you can carry one with you at a time, providing a unique effect. In the case of the vast majority of boon-giving characters, their effect is nigh-identical. To guarantee the first time you get access to a boon-giving reward, it’d be of the God that corresponds with that specific keepsake. Zeus offers his Thunder Signet, Aphrodite offers the Eternal Rose. While the names differ, their effects are identical. Hermes, if you can believe the emerging pattern, deviates from this.
His keepsake, the Lambent Plume, does not increase your odds of finding him. It instead offers a flat increase to damage, for each room you complete quickly, without taking damage, rewarding speedy players who don’t let their agility get them into trouble. You do not need a keepsake that helps you find him. He knows the underworld better than any of those Gods that sit on stuffy, golden thrones on Mount Olympus. You’ll see him. He gets around.
The fact is, Hermes’ Boons are common, and ever-useful. They are not meant to be something you build a particular run through the underworld around. These effects do not define an escape attempt. They are incredibly useful, but they compliment every other Boon, never taking center stage. Standing in the background, Hermes, and his boons, help keep the things running behind the scenes. And most importantly, out of the big family drama that is Hades. Again, both narratively and mechanically.
One of the big themes of Hades is family. How close they are, how close they pretend to be, and how close they want to be. The family dynamics of Hades’ cast is complicated and messy, just like any real family. There are very few dynamics between any two family members where their feelings are completely reciprocated. Or even close. There is this underlying feeling of contempt and slow-boiling hatred in many interactions between the Pantheon. That they’re just one big incident from exploding, from saying the quiet part out loud, where plausible deniability leaves the picture.
Which is a fascinating subject in its own right, and worth its own dissection, but the point here is that Hermes sidesteps all of that. Perhaps he just doesn’t have time for petty bickering, or perhaps he’s just emotionally detached from his family. But regardless of why, he keeps his distance from the rest of Olympus’ finest. He does not compete for attention, he does not compete for your ‘primary boon’ slot, and he certainly doesn’t compete with the player.
In Hades, there is a special room type called a Trial of the Gods. Where two Gods you’ve taken boons from during that run, an incredibly common occurrence, present their boons to the player, side-by-side. You take one. Regardless of who is involved, whoever you do not choose becomes irritated with you. They then end up assisting the enemies of the room using their special mechanics, the same ones they’d often grant you. Once the dust settles, they offer some poorly-thought out justification for their outburst, then letting the player select a boon as normal. This is one of a few ways that the player sees the lords and ladies of Olympus directly speak with each other.
Hermes is notably absent from these rooms. His boons cannot be found in these petty squabbles. He does not waste his time bickering with his cousins over a fleeting moment of attention. He’s got places to be, after all.
This is further cemented by another form of interaction between the Gods. The “Duo Boons”. If you make it near the end of a given run, you have the chance of encountering a Boon containing the power of two Gods, both of whom have helped you get to this point. These boons are very unique, and designed to compliment a playstyle that utilizes both of these Gods’ specialties. These interactions are often filled with snide asides and petty potshots, but always end with the Gods working together, even if it is a bit begrudging.
There are no Duo Boons involving Hermes. While this does fit narratively, with his interactions, or lack thereof, with the rest of the Gods, I think there is another reason, one just as important. One just as functional.
Duo Boons exist to tie a bow around a build, to connect two separate mechanics and unify them in a way that brings it all together. An example of this is “Heart Rend”, the Duo Boon of Artemis and Aphrodite. It increases the amount of damage a critical hit does, of which manipulating and mastering crits is Artemis’ speciality, to enemies afflicted with Weak, Aphrodite’s signature debuff. It enables you to do the two things you were already doing, causing Critical Hits and inflicting enemies with Weak, but now further incentivizes you to use the two in tandem.
From a game balancing standpoint, what Duo Boons could possibly come from, say, Artemis’ crits and Hermes’ speed? While you could certainly come up with a few ideas, to be sure, they’d be largely underwhelming. But also, largely unnecessary. You do not need a Duo Boon for Hermes’ gifts to compliment Artemis’. Or for Ares, Demeter, Zeus, or anyone for that matter. If the goal of a Duo Boon is to tie the playstyles of two different Gods together, to form a single cohesive playstyle, then yes, a Duo Boon involving Hermes is entirely redundant.
The game wholly avoids falling for this trap of redundancy. Supergiant could’ve very well treated Hermes the same as the rest of Olympus’ roster, and it wouldn’t have been *bad* design, necessarily. The Hermes Boons would’ve just been… underwhelming. They would’ve been *fine*, but perhaps not really necessarily anyone’s first choice.
That’s assuming they are as they are now. But maybe they drastically increase the effects of the boons to make them properly competitive. Only 10% attack speed, with the rare being only 20%? Sounds pretty weak to me. How much further can you increase these numbers to make it worth it over the other boons?
I’m not a supergiant employee, so for me to speculate further would be a bit silly. However, I can imagine a very simple problem that you could come across. Making it competitive without making it so powerful that you can just cheese things. Going too fast for your own good, really. The problems could be numerous. Could be a gamefeel problem, if you can’t properly control your character, or keep up with where Zagreus is on screen, if you’re moving that fast.
Maybe it’s a technical problem? Perhaps animations could break, or lose their readability if they’re set to play that quickly? Maybe it’s a design philosophy issue. A game that’s about learning boss patterns and enemy behavior to outwit them over many attempts may lose the beat if you can just spam buttons and out-DPS everything.
Whatever the reason could be, they chose not to have any power-ups in Hades that increased the overall speed of any action by too, too much. A decision I think was the correct one.
Regardless of how they ended up at this point, Hermes’ place in Hades is just right. The right distance from his cousins, aunts and uncles; and the right distance from the player. Items and mechanics that could’ve been either overpowered or completely redundant have their perfect place. That’s why I wanted to write about Hermes, specifically. It feels like a microcosm of Hades as a complete product. Everything fits. Narratively, Mechanically, and beyond.
Hades is good, ya’ll.
