Hades 2 doesn’t ease you into its systems. You’re dropped into the Crossroads, given a brief explanation of who Melinoë is and why she’s fighting through the Underworld, and then the game expects you to figure out the rest. Resources stack under unfamiliar names, progression systems unlock without explanation, and the first few runs feel like you’re missing critical context. That’s intentional. Supergiant built Hades 2 around discovery, and the game rewards players who pay attention to patterns, experiment with builds, and commit to long-term progression.
The difference between struggling and progressing often comes down to understanding how systems connect. Boons shape your combat effectiveness, but they’re useless if you’re dying before you reach the third biome. Weapons feel weak until you unlock aspects that change how they function. The Crossroads looks like a hub area, but it’s where most of your power actually comes from. Learning these connections takes time, but once they click, the game opens up.
This guide walks through everything: early game survival, boon synergy, weapon mechanics, hub management, boss strategies, and long-term progression. The goal isn’t to hand you a single optimal build. It’s to give you the knowledge to make informed decisions during runs and adjust when things don’t go as planned.
Getting Started with Hades 2
The first few runs in Hades 2 teach you how death works, but they don’t explain why certain choices matter more than others. Melinoë moves faster than Zagreus did, enemies telegraph attacks differently, and resources like psyche and cinder replace darkness and gems. If you played the first game, some of this feels familiar. If you didn’t, the opening hours can feel overwhelming.
Early momentum comes from understanding what you’re actually trying to accomplish. You’re not racing toward a final boss clear in your first ten attempts. You’re learning enemy patterns, testing weapons, gathering resources, and unlocking incantations that expand your options. Every death feeds into permanent progression, but only if you’re spending resources intelligently at the Crossroads.
Death and Permanent Progression
Death resets your run but keeps your permanent upgrades. You lose boons, room rewards, and any temporary power you’d accumulated. You keep resources like psyche, cinder, and moly, along with any weapon aspects or incantations you’ve unlocked. This creates a loop where each run makes future runs slightly easier, but the improvements are incremental.
The mistake most new players make is hoarding resources without spending them. You can’t break progression by choosing the wrong upgrade early. Most incantations are designed to unlock mechanics, not deliver massive power spikes. If you’re sitting on 200 psyche because you’re afraid to commit, you’re just slowing yourself down. Spend it. Test upgrades. See what opens up.
Progression in Hades 2 is slower than most roguelikes. You won’t unlock game-changing abilities in your first five runs. You’ll spend more time grinding resources, completing incantations, and slowly expanding what’s available. This isn’t a flaw. It’s how the game is structured. The pacing evens out once you unlock key systems, but getting there requires patience.
Resource Systems Explained
Hades 2 has more resources than the first game, and they all serve different purposes. Psyche unlocks abilities at the altar in the Crossroads. Cinder fuels incantations that expand the world and add new mechanics. Moly is used for specific NPC interactions and certain crafting recipes. Seeds, ash, and lotus grow in your garden and tie into long-term crafting systems.
Early on, prioritize psyche spending. The altar is where you unlock survivability upgrades like extra death defiances, increased starting health, and better healing from fountains. These are foundational. If you’re dying before the third biome, survivability upgrades fix that faster than better boons will.
Cinder is the bottleneck resource. Some incantations require large amounts of it, and gathering cinder takes time. Focus on incantations that expand your options first: unlocking new gods, adding more boon choices per chamber, and increasing resource drop rates. These upgrades don’t make individual runs stronger, but they reduce RNG frustration and accelerate future progression.
Moly appears less frequently than psyche or cinder, and it’s tied to specific biomes. You’ll find it as an environmental pickup or from certain enemy drops. Don’t stress about moly early. Most incantations that require it are gated behind progression milestones you haven’t reached yet.
Understanding Combat Pacing
Combat in Hades 2 is faster than the first game. Enemies move quicker, attacks come in tighter windows, and you’ll take damage if you’re not actively thinking about positioning. The dash has invincibility frames, but they’re shorter than you’d expect. You can’t panic-dash through everything and hope for the best.
Early combat revolves around spacing. Stay at the edge of enemy attack range, punish openings when they appear, and don’t commit to full combos unless you know you won’t get hit mid-animation. Greed kills you more than bad builds do. If you’re constantly dying in the third or fourth biome, it’s not because your boons are weak. It’s because you’re overstaying in bad positions.
Rooms with environmental hazards are the worst early on. Lava pits, spike floors, and curse zones all punish movement mistakes. You’re still learning how far your dash carries you and how long your attack animations lock you in place. Take these rooms slow. Kill ranged enemies first, manage spacing around hazards, and don’t rush just because the timer is ticking.
Health management starts earlier than you think. You won’t always find centaur hearts, and healing wells are rare. If you’re entering a boss fight with half health, that’s a resource problem that started ten chambers ago. Learn when to prioritize health over boons in reward rooms. A mediocre boon won’t save you if you don’t have enough health to survive the next phase.
Weapon Basics and Early Choices
You start with the Sister Blades, and they’re functional. Fast attacks, decent range, decent damage. Nothing special, but nothing that punishes you for using them poorly. The game adds more weapons as you progress, but don’t wait around for them. Learning the Sister Blades well makes early runs smoother, and that smoothness translates into more resources per attempt.
Each weapon has a basic attack, a special attack, a sprint attack, and a charged omega move. Omega moves are slow, telegraphed, and easy to mess up if you’re not paying attention to positioning. Early on, ignore them unless you have a clear opening. Fast attacks and mobility keep you alive longer than big damage plays that leave you vulnerable.
Weapons also have aspects, but those unlock later. For now, focus on learning base movesets and figuring out which tool feels natural. If the Sister Blades don’t click, try the Moonstone Axe once it becomes available. If that feels too slow, wait for the Umbral Flames. Every weapon works, but not every weapon works for you.
One thing that helps: spend time in the training grounds at the Crossroads. You can test weapons without committing to a full run, and you can practice against specific enemy types. If you’re struggling with a particular attack pattern, the training grounds let you isolate it and drill the timing until it becomes muscle memory.
Boon Selection in Early Runs
Boons define how runs feel. Hestia rewards constant aggression with scorch damage. Apollo rewards precision with critical strikes. Demeter slows enemies until fights turn into spacing puzzles. The difference between a smooth run and one that falls apart usually comes down to recognizing synergy early and committing before the build splits in too many directions.
In early runs, take what’s offered. You don’t have enough game knowledge yet to force specific builds, and trying to hunt for synergies you read about online usually backfires. The game’s RNG doesn’t always cooperate, and forcing a build that never materializes wastes chambers and leaves you underpowered.
Instead, focus on learning what each god does. If you take a Hestia boon, pay attention to how scorch stacks. If you take Apollo, notice how crits change your damage output. The goal isn’t to win yet. It’s to understand how boons shape combat so that when you do start building intentionally, you know what you’re aiming for.
One pattern that helps: prioritize attack and special boons over cast or dash boons early. Your attack and special are your primary damage sources, and buffing them makes every fight faster. Cast and dash boons add utility, but utility doesn’t matter if you’re not surviving long enough to use it.
Duo boons appear when you have boons from two specific gods that complement each other. These are build-defining, but they don’t show up every run. Don’t plan around landing a specific duo. Instead, recognize when you’re one or two boons away from unlocking it and adjust your choices accordingly. Flexibility matters more than rigid build paths.
What to Prioritize in the First Ten Runs
Your first ten runs should focus on three things: learning enemy patterns, testing weapons, and unlocking key incantations. You’re not trying to reach the final boss yet. You’re building the foundation that makes later runs possible.
Spend psyche on altar upgrades that increase survivability. More death defiances, better healing options, and stronger starting stats all reduce the learning curve. Once you’ve got a comfortable baseline, start unlocking gods and expanding your boon pool. More options mean more flexibility, and flexibility keeps runs from stalling when RNG doesn’t cooperate.
Don’t worry about perfect runs. You’re going to die, and that’s fine. Every death teaches you something, whether it’s an attack pattern you didn’t recognize or a boon combo that didn’t work the way you expected. The game rewards repetition, and early mistakes are cheaper than late ones.
If you’re hitting a wall, step back and check your incantations. Some unlocks completely change how the game feels, and you might be one upgrade away from breaking through. Getting started with hades 2 is about momentum more than optimization. Keep moving, keep testing, and let the systems reveal themselves over time.
