PART 3 — FULL SATELLITE ARTICLE 6
Incantations and Long-Term Progression in Hades 2
Incantations are how Hades 2 handles permanent progression outside of runs. You gather specific resources, unlock new mechanics, and slowly shift the baseline of what’s possible. Some incantations open new areas. Others add boon options or buff existing systems. The trick is knowing which upgrades give immediate returns and which ones pay off twenty runs later.
Progression feels slow until it doesn’t. You’ll spend hours grinding resources for an incantation that seems minor, then suddenly the game opens up and you’re accessing areas that weren’t visible before. Certain unlocks change how the entire game flows, but the game doesn’t tell you which ones matter. You’re expected to experiment, waste resources on dead ends, and figure out priorities through trial and error.
How Incantations Function
Incantations are crafted at the silver pool in the Crossroads. Each one requires specific resources: cinder, moly, ash, seeds, or materials that only drop from certain biomes. You select an incantation, confirm the resource cost, and the effect activates immediately. Some incantations are one-time unlocks. Others have multiple tiers that require additional resources to fully upgrade.
The incantation list is organized by category, but the categories don’t always make sense. Some incantations labeled as “exploration” unlock combat mechanics. Others labeled as “enhancement” just add cosmetic options. The descriptions are vague, and you won’t always know what an incantation does until after you’ve unlocked it.
This is intentional. The game wants you to discover systems organically instead of optimizing every choice. But it also means you’ll waste resources on incantations that don’t help your current goals. If you’re struggling with combat, unlocking a lore entry doesn’t solve that problem. If you’re trying to access a new biome, upgrading your garden doesn’t open the path.
Resource costs scale steeply. Early incantations cost ten or twenty cinder. Later ones cost hundreds of cinder plus rare materials that take multiple runs to gather. This gates power behind time investment, and there’s no shortcut. You need to commit to farming specific biomes or enemies to gather what you need.
Priority Incantations for Early Progression
The first incantation you should unlock adds a second god to your boon pool. The base game starts with a limited selection, and expanding that pool gives you more build options. More gods means more synergy potential, more duo boon possibilities, and less RNG frustration when the game offers boons that don’t fit your weapon.
After unlocking gods, prioritize incantations that increase resource drops. More cinder per run, more moly from environmental pickups, and better chances for rare materials all accelerate progression. These incantations don’t make individual runs stronger, but they reduce the grind required to unlock everything else.
Next, focus on incantations that unlock weapon aspects. Aspects change how weapons function, and having access to multiple aspects per weapon gives you flexibility when experimenting with builds. Some aspects pair better with certain gods, and unlocking them early means you’re not locked into the base weapon version for dozens of runs.
One incantation that gets overlooked: the one that expands your garden. Garden space is limited initially, and you can only plant a few seeds at a time. Expanding the garden lets you grow more resources passively, which feeds into crafting systems and later incantations. It’s not flashy, but it compounds over time.
Another critical unlock is the incantation that adds more boon choices per chamber. The base game offers two or three boons per god encounter. Upgrading this to four or five boons reduces bad RNG and makes it easier to steer builds in specific directions. If you’re hunting for a specific duo boon or trying to stack a particular god’s effects, more choices per chamber helps significantly.
Unlocking New Biomes and Areas
Certain incantations unlock access to new biomes. These are the most impactful unlocks because new biomes mean new enemy types, new resources, and new challenges. The game doesn’t tell you which incantations open new areas, so you’ll need to read descriptions carefully or experiment blindly.
The first new area unlocks after you’ve completed a specific set of incantations and reached a certain point in the story. You’ll know you’re close when NPCs start referencing locations you haven’t seen yet. Once the path opens, new biomes introduce mechanics that weren’t present in earlier areas. Enemies move faster, attack patterns layer more complexity, and environmental hazards become more common.
New biomes also drop unique resources. Some materials only appear in specific areas, and you’ll need those materials to unlock later incantations. This creates a progression loop where unlocking one biome gives you the resources to unlock the next one. If you’re stuck because an incantation requires a material you’ve never seen, push deeper into runs and explore new areas.
One thing that helps: certain incantations unlock shortcuts or alternate paths through biomes. These aren’t essential, but they let you skip sections you’ve already mastered and jump straight to areas that challenge you. If you’re farming a specific boss or trying to reach a late-game area quickly, shortcuts save time.
Incantations That Buff Combat
Some incantations provide direct combat benefits. These are less impactful than unlocking new gods or areas, but they smooth out rough edges in your build. Increased attack damage, faster omega charge times, and better healing from fountains all make runs more forgiving.
The incantation that adds extra death defiances is essential. Death defiances are your safety net, and having more of them means you can afford more mistakes. Early on, you’ll die to bosses because you ran out of defiances before learning the pattern. Adding one or two extra defiances gives you the breathing room to learn without restarting from scratch.
Another useful incantation increases the rarity of boons offered during runs. Higher rarity means better stats, which means more damage and better scaling. This incantation doesn’t change which boons appear, but it makes the boons you do get more effective. If you’re running the same builds repeatedly and hitting damage walls, this incantation helps push through them.
There’s also an incantation that lets you reroll boon offerings mid-run. You’ll encounter a god, see three boons, and none of them fit your build. Without the reroll, you’re stuck taking something suboptimal or skipping the encounter entirely. With the reroll, you get a second chance at finding something useful. This is one of those upgrades that doesn’t feel essential until you have it, then you wonder how you ever played without it.
Resource Farming and Efficiency
Incantations require resources, and gathering those resources means farming specific biomes or enemies. Cinder drops from most encounters, but rare materials like moly or titan blood only drop from specific sources. Knowing where resources come from saves hours of aimless grinding.
Cinder is the most common resource, and you’ll gather it passively just by playing. Early on, you’ll have more cinder than you know what to do with. Later, incantations start costing hundreds of cinder, and you’ll realize how quickly it drains. The best way to farm cinder is to push as deep into runs as possible. Later biomes drop more cinder per encounter, so a single deep run yields more resources than multiple shallow ones.
Moly grows in specific biomes and appears as environmental pickups. It’s not guaranteed, so farming moly means running the same areas repeatedly until it spawns. Some incantations increase moly spawn rates, which makes farming less tedious. Prioritize those incantations if you’re constantly short on moly.
Titan blood and other rare materials drop from bosses or late-game encounters. You can’t farm these efficiently until you’re consistently reaching later biomes. If an incantation requires titan blood and you’re still dying in the third biome, you’re not ready for that incantation yet. Focus on survivability upgrades first, then come back once you’re clearing bosses regularly.
One trick: certain incantations unlock NPCs who offer resources in exchange for other materials. These trades aren’t always efficient, but they give you alternate paths to gathering rare items. If you’re one material short of unlocking a critical incantation, check if any NPCs offer trades that get you what you need.
Long-Term Meta Progression
The incantation system is designed to reward long-term play. You won’t unlock everything in the first twenty runs, and that’s intentional. Progression is gated behind resource gathering, story milestones, and NPC interactions. The game expects you to play for dozens of hours before the full system reveals itself.
This creates a pacing problem for players who want immediate results. If you’re used to roguelikes that front-load power, Hades 2 will feel sluggish. The first ten runs are slow. The next ten are slightly faster. By run thirty or forty, you’ll have enough unlocks that progression accelerates, but getting there requires patience.
The meta-game loop revolves around incremental improvements. Each run gives you a small amount of resources. Those resources unlock small upgrades. Those upgrades make future runs slightly easier, which lets you gather resources faster. The loop compounds, but only if you’re consistently playing and unlocking incantations.
One thing that doesn’t get mentioned enough: some incantations unlock story content that gates other incantations. You can’t unlock certain mechanics until you’ve completed specific NPC quests or reached certain story beats. This means progression isn’t just about gathering resources. It’s about engaging with the narrative and exploring dialogue trees.
If you’re stuck and don’t know what to unlock next, check your NPC conversations. Someone probably mentioned a system or area you haven’t accessed yet. Follow those threads, and they’ll lead you to the next set of incantations.
For a broader view of how incantations tie into builds and weapon choices, the complete hades 2 guide covers optimization paths and long-term planning. But fundamentally, incantations are about slow, steady progression. You’re not unlocking game-breaking power. You’re expanding options, smoothing rough edges, and building toward a version of the game where everything clicks. That takes time, and there’s no shortcut.
