You'll be able to play Hades II on PC next spring
Supergiant Games has revealed when the roguelite sequel's early access period begins.
Hades is widely considered one of the best games of 2020, but players were able to get their hands on it long before then as it hit early access in December 2018. The hotly anticipated sequel is on a similar path, and developer Supergiant Games has revealed roughly when you'll be able to try it.
Hades II will enter early access on PC in Q2 2024 — in other words, sometime next spring — via Steam and the Epic Games Store. Supergiant will reveal the exact early access release date and details such as pricing and system requirements in the coming months.
Supergiant noted in a blog post that it's planning for Hades II to have at least as much content in early access from the jump as the original did during its early access period. "Even though early access inherently means a game is not yet complete, we still want to do everything we can to make sure Hades II is worth your while as soon as you can play it in any capacity," the studio said.
Some folks will be able to check out Hades II even earlier as Supergiant is planning a technical test. The aim of this is to unearth and resolve compatibility or technical issues before more players hop in during early access. However, the build for the technical test will have "much less content than what's in store for the early access launch, and likely be limited only to a relatively small subset of players who express interest in participating."
Early access can be enormously helpful for a game's success, as Supergiant and Baldur's Gate III developer Larian Studios have found. So the former is sticking with a similar rollout plan for Hades II. "We believe the timeframe we're planning for will be the 'sweet spot' where the game is far enough along that player feedback won't mostly consist of stuff we already know isn't there yet, but isn't so far along that it's too late in development for us to act on the feedback we receive," the studio wrote.
Supergiant plans to release major updates to Hades II during the early access period and to make changes based on feedback. The story and number of characters will expand, as will relationships between existing ones (it's reasonable to assume there will be a lot of sexual tension this time around too). Supergiant will wrap up the story when it releases the full version of Hades II, but it doesn't have a clear sense of when that will be just yet. Console players, sadly, may have to wait until then.
