Hades 2 Review: Now with Native Support for M-Series Macs

Hades was a big hit when it first appeared back in 2020, so a sequel was largely inevitable and Hades II was released as an early access game for Windows PCS almost a year ago. However, the game received a major update at the end of 2024, adding original support to Macs with Apple Silicon. The bad news is that the game requires macos 12 or later, and – unlike the original Hades – Hades 2 will not run on Macs with Intel processors.

Look at our favorite games at Mac, see: Best games for Mac.

The first game threw you in the role of Zagreus, the son of Hades – the god of death from Greek mythology – as he tried to escape from his father’s underworld and finally reach the gods’ home at Mount Olympus. This time it is Zagreus’ sister, Melinoë, who takes the middle phase and faces an even bigger challenge when she tries to find and defeat Chronos, the old god who was the father of Hades and is now waging war against Olympus herself.

Hades was one of the few ‘Roguelike’ games that have been released to Mac in recent years, and Hades 2 follows this formula. Roguelike games do not allow you to save the game as you go together and then just reload when you die, so every death means you have to go back to the beginning and start again. It can be frustrating, but you can find new weapons and learn new skills as you progress through the game, as well as earning ‘boons’ from the gods that make you more powerful. You also get to keep these skills and upgrades even after you die, so every time you start again, you are a little more powerful and should be able to fight further into the game and hit stronger enemies. And if it gets too frustrating, or if you simply prefer to focus on the story that takes place when you encounter the different gods of Olympus throughout the game, there is a God state that gives you a power increase right from the start, which makes it easier for you to plow through your enemies with fewer deaths to slow down.

But even though Hades 2 follows the same basic formula as its predecessor, there are still some important differences that give this successor its own different taste. Even in early access, the developers at Supergiant Games say Hades 2 delivers more areas to explore, and more gods and monsters that you may encounter than the previous game. More important is the fact that Melinoë is a sorceress with powerful magical abilities, while Zagreus was essentially a hack-and-slip melee kind of guy. Melinoë can use melee weapons such as dagger and axes, so hand-to-hand-fighting is still an option if that’s how you prefer to play, but she also has a wide range of magical abilities available that molds long-lasting and area – Of the effect spells against her enemies at a distance.

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Melinoë uses Mana to operate his spell, so resource management also becomes more important in this game as you now have a mana bar to keep an eye on as well as the important health beam. This magic element also means that craftsmanship is more important in Hades 2 as you can gather different herbs and minerals to upgrade your weapons and skills. I don’t really have reflexes for sword-swinging melee, so I quickly felt more comfortable with the long-term magical skills of Melinoë, and the magical and craft elements also add a touch of diablo to the Roguelike format. However, we would recommend a Games-Controller-Casting Casting Forms is pretty straightforward as long as you have a two-button mouse, but the movement controls feel a little awkward when using a keyboard.

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Should you play Hades 2?

Although Hades 2 is still in early access – and probably seems to remain that way in most of 2025 – it is rather solid and stable without any noticeable bugs in my time with the game. The hand-drawn graphics style also looks good, but the relatively simple 2D-craved graphics mean you don’t need a particularly powerful Mac to run it and I was able to get 60 FPS using high graphics settings, even by 4K resolution using a MacBook Pro with M2 processor. Roguelike games do not fit all, but even in early access is Hades 2 very fun and a worthy successor to the original Hades, and it will be a good treat for anyone who enjoys challenging arcade action.