Hades' best line was written almost instantly based on newly revealed info

Supergiant creative director Greg Kasavin gets in the weeds about writing for Zagreus

“In the name of Hades, Olympus, I accept this message!”

If you’ve played Hades, Supergiant’s seminal 2020 roguelike, you’ve likely heard that phrase hundreds of times. On his mission to escape the underworld, protagonist Zagreus says the line (or some variation of it) when accepting Boons, missives from the Olympian gods that grant powerful abilities. You'll encounter it dozens of times on a typical run. Yet it never gets old.

“In a game where so much of the dialogue never repeats, we did want a few recurring phrases such as this one,” Supergiant creative director Greg Kasavin told Polygon in an email, adding that this particular quote was “from relatively early in the development of Hades when we were figuring out what it would feel like to interact with Olympians' Boons throughout the game.”

With roguelikes, repetition is the name of the game. Hades, however, attained its popularity by bucking that framework. Sure, with every run, the dungeons look the same. The enemies fight the same. But so much of each run — from the Boons and items you find to the ways character relationships unfold — will evolve and change with each attempt you make.

This helped lead Hades to become one of the famous early-access success stories; it spent about a year and a half in early access ahead of its 2020 breakthrough, where it won the first-ever Hugo Award for a video game (and Polygon’s game of the year). Along the way, Supergiant fine-tuned the game, including aspects of characterization. You’d think the creative team would have spent time adjusting Zagreus’ de facto catchphrase too, but the “in the name of Hades” line practically came out of the oven fully baked.

“Sometimes with writing it can take a ton of iteration to get something just right, and at other times you get it right the first time, and this line is closer to the latter category,” Kasavin said. “It just seemed to work in context.” (Two other versions of the phrase, “Hear me, on my authority” and the truncated “In the name of Hades!,” also made it into the final version of the script.)

Writing dialogue for Zagreus required nailing a tricky tonal balance, Kasavin said. The goal wasn’t just to portray the character’s emotional state but also to “frequently reflect that of the player.” That meant capturing the range of emotions you’d feel while playing — that Zagreus would also acutely feel in his situation. Frustration at loss. Satisfaction at victory. And between it all, the steely resolve to keep going.

When you first meet Zagreus, he’s kind of a cocky guy. But underneath the quippy one-liners, you come to learn he’s a lot deeper than he seems. He’s got a sense of humor, yes, but also a reverence for his family, and a respect for the responsibilities of his divine station (even if he’s got some well-justified beef with his dad). Supergiant packed all of that complexity into one line.

“First and foremost, we wanted this line to convey that Boons were these powerful, god-given abilities,” Kasavin said. “But there were other narrative considerations in play, such as giving the impression that Zagreus has divine authority to use these, and that these were one-way transfers of power. It's almost like he's signing for delivery of [a] special package sent your way.”

Boons radically change how you play Hades. They (mostly) appear randomly, and mixing and matching them on each run is the secret sauce of the game’s combat loop. Boons from Zeus are shockingly powerful, giving your attacks an electrifying effect. Poseidon washes enemies away with abilities that mimic waves. No matter who it comes from, every Boon you get really does feel like a gift from the gods. And you use them all on one single-minded mission: defeating your dad and escaping his realm.

“Zagreus is using his family connections to brazenly undermine his father's authority. The family connection to Olympus is like a loophole Zagreus is exploiting against his father, playing different members of the family against each other,” Kasavin said. “Hades doesn’t like it one bit!”

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