‘Woke’ Hades 2 is proving the haters wrong
Oh no, did that 2020 roguelike with a bisexual lead suddenly become 'woke' for its 2024 sequel? After the original Hades was declared as Game of the Year by many, no one really doubted that the next chapter would be anything less than another award-winning hit. Still, some of you just like to have a moan.
Hades was never afraid to wear its LGBTQ+ credentials on its sleeve, with everyone from Achilles to Chaos, Dusa to Thanatos fitting under the rainbow umbrella. With whole Reddit threads ranking how queer the characters are, the devs are fully aware that Hades is a game for the hes, shes, gays, they, thems, and everyone in between.
Don't fuel the Hades hate
It's a sad state of affairs that even in 2024, there are those who can't accept someone confirming to their own ideal standard. It's even more baffling when you remember we're playing literally video games. Could a portly Italian plumber really throw a giant, spiky turtle into a bomb?
As soon as Hades 2 revealed its glorious character artworks, there were the typical grumbles that it's gone 'woke.' Away from its inclusion of LGBTQ+ characters, others have taken issue with the races of some gods. In particular, they have a problem with the design of Hestia.
One Steam thread saying Hades 2 is "a little too woke," adds, "They definitely earned their commission on the black character quota." While you might think this is a sh*tpost, the comments are a dumpster fire that agree. Someone else said, "It's always unfortunate when games lose quality due to real world politics."
Another chimed in with, "Typical american woke writing team with their insufferable white guilt, I can bet the dev team of this game is 95% white," while a third concluded, "Good that gaming isn't for me and thats why i won't drop a single cent on companies that hate me and my people."
Hades 2 is the epitome of 'go woke, go successful'
You might remember when Kotaku Senior Editor Alyssa Mercante was bombarded with abuse for her article titled, "Hades 2 is the kind of hot we need right now." Celebrating the shapes and sizes of characters, so what if Hecate has washboard abs and Hephaestus is a little bigger? Are we also going to complain that Arachne is an actual spider?
Thankfully, it seems the typical vocal minority are waving their angry fists in the virtual space. The numbers speak for themselves, and despite Hades 2 only being in early access, it broke Hades' Steam records and hit a concurrent player count of 103,567 players in less than 24 hours.
It's Steam's top-selling and top-trending game and has a 95.7% positive review rating. Considering it's only in early access, we expect the positives to continue outshining the negatives when it eventually gets its full release. We'll leave you with this glowing review that says, "Hades is better than sex because there is Hades 2 but there is no sex 2."
