The Sound of Hades

James Parkinson
James Parkinson
The Sound of Hades

Hades is the fourth title from Supergiant Games, and one the best games of 2020. A rogue-like dungeon crawler, inspired by Greek mythology, you play as Zagreus, the son of Hades, as you attempt to escape the Underworld, fighting your way through waves of enemies. The game posed a unique challenge for Audio Director Darren Korb when he came to compose the music. This episode, we explore the soundscape of Hades and how the music and sound design was carefully crafted to provide a thrilling experience, even after hundreds of hours of play time.

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 TRANSCRIPT

JAMES PARKINSON: One the best games of 2020 is Hades from Supergiant Games. A rogue-like dungeon crawler, inspired by Greek mythology. You play as Zagreus, the son of Hades, as you attempt to escape the Underworld, fighting your way through waves of enemies.

JAMES PARKINSON: The game has received high praise for its beautiful art style, unique storytelling, and compelling gameplay. But the one element that ties it all together is its incredible music and sound design.

DARREN KORB: The thing that's really interesting about composing for games is the fact that you're taking a linear medium in music, and combining it with a non-linear or interactive medium in video games, right?

JAMES PARKINSON: This is Darren Korb.

DARREN KORB: And I am the Audio Director for Supergiant Games.

DARREN KORB: You know, you can't control how long a player is going to hear a particular piece of music, you don't have, you know, if a piece of music plays in a certain area, that the player is in the game, you don't have any control over when the player is going to leave that area, they're going to do it at whatever pace they're going to do it at. And so trying to account for the interactivity that is inherent to the medium is a really interesting challenge, I think.

JAMES PARKINSON: And Hades itself posed its own unique challenges when Darren came to compose the music. Death is merely an inconvenience for the immortal Zagreus, in his effort to escape the Underworld and reach Mount Olympus. The player begins each run, hacking and slashing through room after room of enemies, but death is inevitable. Failure is just part of the game, upgrading your abilities as you go and trying again. So ensuring the music didn’t become monotonous was crucial to the entire experience.

DARREN KORB: The way that we implemented the music in Hades was really deliberately to try and extend the shelf life of the music, within the experience of the game. Because one of the unique challenges of this game, in particular, is we expect people to play it for dozens, hundreds of hours, you know. So I wrote about two and a half hours of music for Hades. And it's got to stand up to people playing the game for maybe a couple hundred hours.

JAMES PARKINSON: I’m James Parkinson. From Lawson Media, this is Gameplay, stories about video games and the virtual worlds that power culture and community.

JAMES PARKINSON: Hades is the fourth title from Supergiant Games, following 2011s Bastion, 2014s Transistor, and Pyre in 2017. And Darren Korb has been the composer on every one, bringing his own approach to the sound of each game and matching the tone and feel of their unique worlds.

DARREN KORB: For me, I usually approach that with a few big questions, right at the beginning of the project. And I try to make the music feel like it is ‘of the place’. It's really important that the music feels like it comes from the place that the game exists in, and that the player is in. And so, some of the questions at the beginning of the project that I asked myself are; “what instruments would exist in this place?”, “What kind of music would exist in this place?”, “What would the characters listen to?”, “What would be playing ambiently in this place?”, you know, “what instruments would these characters play?”. You know, for Transistor, for example, I knew that Red - all the music in the game is Red’s music that she has written, that was sort of a conceit that I had for myself, right? It helped sort of constrain the creative point of view for me in a really helpful way.

JAMES PARKINSON: Transistor is a science-fiction action RPG set in the futuristic city of Cloudbank, and you play as Red, a famous singer who has lost her voice. Darren describes the game’s music style as "old-world electronic post-rock". This kind of concise description is actually something he devises for every game soundtrack he works on. For Bastion, which is set in a lush fantasy world, Darren labelled its music as "acoustic frontier trip-hop".

DARREN KORB: Yeah, I mean, it certainly is helpful having that, and it's been, like, different amounts of helpful on each project, if that makes sense. It was really helpful on Bastion and helpful on Hades as well. For Transistor, I ended up coming up with that, kind of at the end, after I'd made it all, you know, if that makes sense. Just because it was kind of a different beast in that game. But yes, I do tend to try to have like a genre for the music of the game, to help unify it and tie it all together.

JAMES PARKINSON: For Darren, music has always been a part of his life, and his experience and musical influences have shaped his own style, providing inspiration for his writing.

DARREN KORB: I think a lot of it is, you know, I listen to a lot of music and I'm often inspired by a type of sound that I hear or a production aesthetic, or a feeling I get from a particular piece of music, or a particular moment in a piece of music. And I tend to sort of catalog those in my brain, and think about, how can I evoke that feeling that I get when I listen to this? How can I, you know, the chorus of ‘Yoga’ by Bjork, or whatever, like, 100% of the time makes the hairs on my neck stand up or whatever. How is that possible? Like, how do you do that? You know, and so I'll think about that kind of stuff when I'm trying to compose or trying to write music, depending on what the goal is, I'll think about the things that affect me in a particular way. And if that's an effect I'm trying to achieve, you know, what sort of my, my take on that?

DARREN KORB: Writing is sort of a muscle that you exercise, you know, it's like a creative muscle, so to speak. And the more you do it, the easier it becomes to do it. For me, at least. Because part of it is, I think, the less precious your material becomes to you, the less precious you become about it. And so, something that can be a sort of killer, when you're trying to write, is the tendency to self-edit before you've written anything. And I think the more you write, the more you learn to ignore that tendency. And sort of trust your instincts, your creative instincts and see where they lead you. You know, I go by feel. Sometimes it's playing something that feels good in your hand, you know, fun to play. Sometimes it's trying to achieve something very specific emotionally, sometimes it's, you know, a set of chord changes that make you feel a particular way or a melodic movement that makes you feel a particular way. And so for me, I'm always interested in what's the objective of the piece? What's it trying to achieve emotionally and tonally? And for me, that's sort of my, the compass that that guides me to wherever I'm trying to go.

JAMES PARKINSON: It also helps that Darren plays multiple instruments.

DARREN KORB: I play, sort of, the rock instruments, I would say. Guitar, bass and drums are my primary instruments and then I dabble in keys. And I sing. And then, I can play, sort of, anything kind of shaped like a guitar, basically, more or less - mandolin, banjo, you know, kind of random instrument with a neck and some frets. Then I can, more or less, you know, do something with it, functionally play it.

JAMES PARKINSON: When it came to composing for Hades, and its Greek mythology setting, Darren looked to regional influences for inspiration.

DARREN KORB: Early on, we knew we were going to do something having to do with Greek myth. And so I went out, and I acquired, sort of, a handful of Mediterranean guitar-shaped instruments basically. Because I knew I wanted to have something sonically that represented that part of the world, in some way or another. And so I dug into that a little bit, and I got a bağlama, and a lavta and a bouzouki. And the first two are Turkish instruments, and the bouzouki is a Greek instrument. And they're all, they all have pretty distinct sounds, I think. And even, I find, even if I don't play something on a particular instrument, that it's that is the type of music that is normally played on it, just having that, the sound of that instrument can really be evocative, and help in sort of creating or evoking a setting. And so, that's where I start a lot of times, and that’s where I started with Hades. And then from there, I began experimenting making pieces that we would put into our prototypes.

JAMES PARKINSON: The song you’re hearing right now, ‘Wretched Shades’, was the very first piece Darren wrote for the game.

DARREN KORB: Yeah, it's definitely leaning into the bağlama, and really trying to get the most out of that. And leaning as hard as I can into that vibe.

DARREN KORB: And then eventually, about a few months into development, we sort of had a redirect, a creative redirect for what we wanted the game to be about, fictionally. And at that point, is when we decided that the game was going to take place in the Greek Underworld, and that you were going to be Zagreus escaping hell. And that's the point at which I added the metal to the music. Because I knew it was going to need some metal, if you were gonna be escaping hell.

JAMES PARKINSON: This song was Darren’s first step in this new direction; Out of Tartarus.

DARREN KORB: Once I knew, “okay, well, I need metal, I need hard rock in this”, that was the first one I did, after that point. And it sort of set - it was the template for all the other pieces. And yeah, so that one I'm trying to, you know, I'm experimenting with weird time signatures and stuff. Because I figured, in Hell, I figured they wouldn't have a lot of 4/4, was my suspicion, right? It would be like weird metal, prog sort of time signatures. And one thing that's fascinating, actually, is that this sort of, in various types of folk music, they have weird time signatures as well. So that was sort of a commonality between this sort of Mediterranean folk thing and the metal thing, the hard rock thing. And that was a test of that as well. That was the first piece I had written in, like, a funky time signature for this game.

JAMES PARKINSON: Despite the pretty grim setting of Hades, the tone is quite playful. Supergiant really ran with the mythology idea, putting their own spin on it. So Darren had to match that with his music.

DARREN KORB: You know, for this project, it's kind of a dark setting. And if you were to describe what is happening in the game, it's sort of like a pretty intense situation. But when you play the game, it's kind of, it's got like a pretty light and cheeky atmosphere. And so that’s something I wanted to convey in the music as well. So I added this, sort of, I call it like a Halloween music, kind of sound. And it's sort of like a theremin type instrument, and it's actually just a little, it's this Casio SK1 keyboard from the 80s, it's like a little kind of toy sampling keyboard. And I use the little synth sound on there with a really slow portamento. So it kind of feels kind of feels like a theremin - I put a bunch of effects on it and stuff.

DARREN KORB: So the sort of genre that I set up for myself, for Hades is Mediterranean Prog-Rock Halloween Music, is what I call it [laughs].

DARREN KORB: For me, you know, most of my influences when I'm working on something aren't other games, musically speaking. Usually, I'm kind of pulling from the non-game music that I enjoy, or that I'm interested in, or that sort of feels relevant to me, emotionally or sonically or otherwise. And, you know, the sort of metal stuff or the hard rock, metal stuff, I was pulling from things like, you know, Soundgarden Black Sabbath, Alice In Chains, you know, Rush, know, Opeth, whatever, you know, random - a whole bunch of random influences there, kind of, depending on what piece I was working on.

DARREN KORB: Megadeth, rest in peace, was like a direct influence for me on this project, and that's certainly a heavier brand of metal. But yeah, so tried to bring, you know, it was an opportunity for me to, sort of, try to bring a lot of a lot of stuff that it's fun for me to listen to, to bring to the table and try to evoke some of the same excitement that some of that stuff brings to me.

JAMES PARKINSON: When you boot up Hades, the first piece of music you hear is the song we heard at the beginning of this episode, ‘No Escape’, and it’s the kind of piece that gives you a taste of what’s to come.

DARREN KORB: I wanted it to make, to really announce what sort of experience this was going to be, and help immediately set the tone for what this game is going to feel like. I think this was the first time I really deliberately tried to make a main theme for a game. I was really interested in making, like a simple series of a handful of notes that were, “that's the theme, it’s these four notes”, you know. And I was interested in sort of trying something like that, for sure. I wanted the, sort of, Zagreus version of it to feel a little bit more badass. Because, you know, the image of him with a sword over his shoulder on the main menu there, you know, you've got to sort of live up to that, that cool image.

DARREN KORB: You know, that later became a lot more important throughout the score, just because a few other pieces referenced that. It was that main theme, and then there was a sort of, like Hades, you know, ‘Death and I’, was sort of the, like, Hades version of it, right? With no rocking guitars, and it's all it's, it's a little stuffier and, and more oppressive. And more ominous, maybe.

JAMES PARKINSON: 'Death and I', being the piece that plays every time Zagreus dies.

JAMES PARKINSON: Hades was originally released in Early Access on December 6, 2018, which allowed Supergiant to really hone the gameplay through feedback from players over a two-year period. And Darren was also playing these early versions of the game through development, to get a feel for how his music and sound design was being implemented.

DARREN KORB: I think it's really important for me to play, just because the details of how everything is implemented, are so critical to the way the player is going to experience it. And I played a ton, just to make sure that I had context for the way everything was sounding, and the way everything happened in the game, and the context of the game. And particularly for sound effects, it's really critical too, just making sure the balance of everything is right, the mix sounds good, you know, things are getting out of the way of the vocals or the VO when people talk, you know. So you can hear whatever the most important thing is, at any given moment, you know, we want to highlight that. And so yeah, there's a lot of testing my work, but then also just sort of playing “for real”, so to speak, to try to get to get the actual experience that a player is getting, because that's the most, sort of, accurate way you can assess how everything's working.

DARREN KORB: So I think the time between when we started development, and when we launched into early access was maybe, like, 14 months or something. Yeah, it was, like, not super long. But at that time I released about 14 tracks, when the game launched into Early Access, and it took me basically the course of the rest of the project, to write the rest, the other 16 tracks that show up in the game.

JAMES PARKINSON: Darren also incorporates vocals in his music, both his own, and those of his friend Ashley Barrett, who he’s worked with on previous Supergiant titles. For Hades, Ashley was brought back again to provide vocals on a few songs. One of the standouts on the soundtrack is 'Good Riddance', with two versions, sung from the perspectives of Orpheus and Eurydice.

DARREN KORB: You know, the other vocal pieces in the game, for the most part, are written by Orpheus. And that's a Eurydice special, 'Good Riddance', you know, she wrote that one. So I wanted it to have a different feeling about it, I wanted it to be a little bit less baroque, you know, like a little bit more straightforward, in a way that hopefully would come across well. I wanted it to be a little bit simpler, but perhaps more relatable because of that. And I knew it was going to be a piece that her and Orpheus could both sing, and I wanted it to feel like it had a different meaning when each of them sang it.

DARREN KORB: The Orpheus melody comes across a little bit more somber, because it sort of has a more of a minor feel. And the Eurydice melody has a little bit more of a major feel. But, you know, it just kind of works out that way, because of the way the harmonies relate to each other, you know. But yeah, that all sort of came together how I hoped it would.

DARREN KORB: This one I, I had always imagined how it would be implemented before I wrote it. We knew we wanted to have that storyline in the game and have it resolve in a particular way. And so I wrote it with that resolution in mind.

JAMES PARKINSON: Vocals are not particularly common in video game music, but when used purposely, they can really complement storytelling.

DARREN KORB: You know, I think when you add vocals to a piece, if you have a space for it, it can really help convey - add a little bit of extra emotional heft to a moment. I think it's one of the things and. You know, I think we don't tend to blanket the game with wall-to-wall songs. So I feel like creating a spot for it is really important, and having an excuse, that makes a lot of sense to the player, right? But yeah, I really - I wanted to see if we could enhance, you know, moments in the game, emotionally. Kind of similar to musical theatre, in a lot of ways actually, where you know, we're not necessarily conveying plot through the song, like you might do in a musical, but it certainly is trying to sell the emotion of a moment, or at least help with that.

DARREN KORB: I think in general, my feeling about music in our games is, you know, we don't want it to pull focus, unless it's being featured, if that makes sense. And I think the role of it is to enhance whatever else is going on, and enhance the emotion of the moment and enhance, you know, if it's an exciting moment, adding to the excitement, and if it's a moment of respite or calm, kind of adding to that sensation. And I think, yeah, unless we're trying to highlight it, my approach is that it's always sort of there to assist.

JAMES PARKINSON: Each song that Darren wrote for Hades, exists in its complete form in the two and half hour soundtrack, but the player never hears a full song, from start to finish, in this linear way. Darren always writes a complete piece first, but in order to incorporate that into the game, he has to deconstruct it. Coming up, how the music of Hades is implemented to enhance the playing experience. Plus, the voice acting and sound design that brings the Underworld to life. That’s after the break, on Gameplay.

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JAMES PARKINSON: Hades is the kind of game that takes some time to master, because it’s built into the very game mechanics. At first, Zagreus is purposely out-matched by his enemies, and as you level up, and your own skill as a player improves, you steadily progress further and further in your attempt to escape the Underworld. Supergiant Games spent a lot of time refining the gameplay to ensure that it’s balanced and remains fun, even after your 100th playthrough. But they also wanted to make sure that the music didn’t become boring and repetitive. Here’s Darren Korb.

DARREN KORB: So we have, for each section of the Underworld; Tartarus, Elysium, and Asphodel, respectively, we have a handful of pieces that can play from a playlist, essentially, for that area. So we have four tracks for Tartarus, three for Asphodel, and three for Elysium, that can possibly play. You know, they play kind of in order, right? And what will happen is, there's a sort of an intro piece that plays when you begin a run, which will be the same piece every time, which has some stems; it has a drum stem, a base stem, and an everything else stem.

JAMES PARKINSON: In a piece of music, a stem is a recording that forms part of a complete mix. They’re usually separated into groups of instruments, and allow you to control individual parts of a song. So for example, you just want to hear a bass stem.

JAMES PARKINSON: Or Just a drum stem.

JAMES PARKINSON: And then you might want to combine the bass and the drum stem, or play the full mix.

DARREN KORB: And, you know, when you're sort of in combat, all the stems are playing, or at least the drums and bass are playing. And then at the end of combat, the drums turn off.

DARREN KORB: After a few chambers of that initial piece, which will advance through its sections, then will play one of these biome pieces, what we call them, that can play from this playlist. And so that'll start with an introduction section. That's essentially, like kind of, synth pads and, like, a pulsing bass, it's kind of an anticipatory section, right? With some light percussion.

DARREN KORB: And again, when you're actually fighting, the drum stem kicks in, when you're not fighting, it turns off.

DARREN KORB: And we have a, sort of, semi-randomised thing that happens with the stems, where either the guitar and bass stem can play, or just the bass stem can play, or neither the guitar, nor bass stem will play. So sometimes the drums will turn off and you'll get a moment of quiet.

DARREN KORB: Sometimes the drums will turn off and you'll just get the bass line.

DARREN KORB: Or you'll get both guitar and bass, etc.

DARREN KORB: So, then what happens is, as you advance a couple of chambers in, we have section markers, basically, at the start of every measure that says you know, “if this section dial is set to the next number, you can advance to the next section”, right? And that's kind of how we execute that on the back end. But what happens is, it'll advance to the next section, which is the, sort of, complete folk arrangement of the piece.

DARREN KORB: So, you know, the percussion amps up a little bit, then you get, like, the bağlama’s and all the other stuff, and the proper baseline and everything is playing.

DARREN KORB: And same deal, you know, it's got the randomised stems, and the drums kick in and combat and turn off in your out of combat. And then after a few chambers of that, when you get to a mini boss, or a boss, it'll advance to the sort of rocking section of the piece.

DARREN KORB: And then you know, that'll rock with all the stems turned on, for the duration of the fight. And then when you complete the fight, it'll cue the sort of ending tag.

DARREN KORB: And then the piece is over. And then, you know, if it's sort of halfway through the biome, the next piece will start for that biome. Or when you enter Asphodel or something, coming out of Tartarus, then it'll start playing the ones in that playlist.

JAMES PARKINSON: The soundscape of Hades is all controlled on the backend by software called FMOD Studio. And this dynamic approach to the music not only keeps things fresh, it helps the player to really feel the story. When you finally clear a chamber or defeat a boss, the way the music concludes, right on cue, is just perfect.

DARREN KORB: We definitely, deliberately try to have the music feel like it is scoring your playthrough, as best as possible. Trying to have it, sort of, naturally follow the events of what's happening in your playthrough. It helps, you know, convey the feeling of that victory moment, just having the piece sort of end in a kick ass way. You know, and the rocking part, in a satisfying way, is an important part of that, I think, part of having it feel scored to your experience.

JAMES PARKINSON: On top of the music, Darren was also responsible for sound designing the Underworld, using sound effects that aid the storytelling and helping the games universe to feel grounded.

DARREN KORB: Yeah, I think, for me, the sound effects kind of serve a similar purpose as the music and other aspects of the audio, which is to deepen and enhance the player immersion as much as possible. And so, you know, all the creative choices I'm making are in an attempt to be in service of that, first and foremost. And then, functionally, they have, the sound effects have a job to do, that the other aspects of the audio don't have to do, which is provide specific kind of player feedback for stuff that the player does, player inputs and stuff that's happening around you, and situational awareness. And also, it's to enhance the feeling of those things, not just to provide feedback, that when you press a button, something happens and you see a visual thing and you hear an audio thing, right? It's also to enhance the feeling of swinging your sword and hitting a skeleton with it, right? It's not - it’s about making that extra satisfying and adding a little bit of, sort of, Pavlovian delight to when that happens. And so yeah, those are the three main things I’m thinking about when making sound effects.

JAMES PARKINSON: Darren used mostly existing sounds from sound effect libraries for Hades but as is common practise, these are layered, tweaked and processed in a way that achieves the desired sound and makes them feel more unique. And when he can’t find the right sound, Darren will often create it himself. From the menu navigation, to the atmosphere of each location, item pick-ups, and the combat, the sound effects in Hades play off and complement the music and the game’s narrative beautifully. And the last piece of the puzzle is the fantastic voice acting, which elevates the story, and contributes to the playful tone of the game.

DARREN KORB: Yeah, you know Greg and I had a lot of conversations about how we wanted the characters to sound, in terms of what accents they might or might not have.

JAMES PARKINSON: Greg Kasavin is the Writer and Creative Director on Hades.

DARREN KORB: And, you know, part of the thinking was, we wanted certain aspects of the game to be very much exactly what you expect. So that it's easier to sort of subvert certain aspects of it, or to put a twist on it, if that makes sense? So, part of the idea was, when Greg or I, or I suspect a lot of people think of the Greek gods portrayed in media, it's often in, you know, Jason and the Argonauts or whatever kind of old movies, with like, people doing proper British sort of accents for all the gods. Sort of pompous, you know, maybe slightly pompous British accents. And so, I thought it was a sort of something that we could lean into, to help sort of match player expectation to what was happening, that we could then subvert with however, we decided to actually execute on it, which is, hopefully going to be a little different than anything you've experienced before with these characters. And the decision to have some sort of American accented characters was, you know, I think from our perspective, it was; characters that were gods and from Greece, for the most part, have the sort of British accents, and characters that are of the Underworld or some sort of creature have an American accent, If that makes.

JAMES PARKINSON: Around 21,000 lines of dialogue were recorded for Hades, with over 300,000 words in the script. And Darren actually plays two characters in the game; our moody protagonist, Zagreus.

DARREN KORB (as Zagreus): “Gotta keep trying. There’s no reason in stopping now.”

JAMES PARKINSON: And Skelly, a humorous skeleton and, kind of, crash-test dummy, that you can practice your combat moves on.

DARREN KORB (as Skelly):Oh it’s pretty good. I mean, I get to stand around all day and get whacked with a sword - you can’t beat that!”

JAMES PARKINSON: The original plan wasn’t for Darren to voice these characters at all, but his performance kind of stuck.

DARREN KORB: You know, I wound up doing the voices of Zagreus and Skelly just because, you know, at the beginning of the project, we recorded some scratch VO for various characters that we intended to replace, and the stuff that I did for Zag and Skelly, we just didn't really feel like any of the auditions improved on those, basically, on what we had. So I kind of got defaulted into doing them. And I was nervous, for sure, about - you know, this is the first time we'd had a voiced protagonist, you know, in one of our games. So I just wanted to make sure that we delivered as best we could on that idea, and have it - help it put you inside the character, not put you off of him.

JAMES PARKINSON: Skelly on the other hand, is very much the fun, comic relief of Hades.

DARREN KORB: Yes, we definitely wanted to have a character like that in this game. I mean, it started more as, like, the sort of Falcon Ron character we have in Pyre, it kind of started more as that voice. It's based on, kind of, a guy my friends and I had met at one point, and it's just a voice that I really enjoy. So, Skelly ended up kind of being that, combined more like a higher energy type character, more like a Joe Pesci or something, you know, I've heard people on the internet compare him to, like, Moe from The Simpsons, or something, which is like, “yeah, that's pretty good” [laughs].

JAMES PARKINSON: The incredible work on Hades, from the entire team at Supergiant Games is a culmination of years of refining a style of gameplay, art and storytelling that makes Hades such a compelling experience. It deserves all the praise that it’s received, and I think the music, especially, is what you’ll connect with on a deeper level, and carry with you, long after you’ve put the game down.

DARREN KORB: I'm really pleased to be able to have worked on games that are so different, tonally. They all have their own unique kind of setting, which allows me to try to develop a new kind of musical palette for each one. So it's really satisfying for me when I get to do something new each time, and try to, you know, sort of the scariest and most difficult part of the process is the beginning, when you're sort of trying to define what that is. But once you do, it really is gratifying to see it all come together.

DARREN KORB: So, it's really overwhelming, to see that kind of praise, sort of, heaped on something that you've worked on for a while. It's of course, validating, and certainly it's not something that I like to take for granted, that any project will have a response like that, you know, you’ve got to earn it. And it doesn't matter what your last thing was, you know, as far as I'm concerned. So, it feels incredible to have people respond so well to the music, and it's just kind of mind blowing, to me, the response. Yeah, it's been really cool.

JAMES PARKINSON: Thank you so much to Darren Korb, and Supergiant Games. The Hades soundtrack is available for purchase at store.supergiantgames.com, and you can get the game on Steam, the Epic Games Store or Nintendo Switch. It’s an absolute blast, so put on some headphones and enjoy the full experience.

CREDITS

JAMES PARKINSON: Gameplay is a production of Lawson Media. This episode was written and produced by me, James Parkinson.

JAMES PARKINSON: The Gameplay theme was composed by Breakmaster Cylinder. And all other music you heard in today’s episode comes from the Hades Soundtrack, and captured from the game itself. You can get a full list of the songs featured in this story on this episode’s page on our website.

JAMES PARKINSON: If you’re enjoying the show, you can help us out by telling your friends, sharing Gameplay on social media, and reviewing the show on Apple Podcasts. I read every single review and they’re a great way to encourage others to tap that subscribe button. You can also support us by becoming a Gameplay Member. The perks include an ad-free podcast feed and you’ll be helping us make this show sustainable. You can sign up now at gameplay.co/membership.

JAMES PARKINSON: You can follow us at gameplaypodcast on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. And come and join our community on Discord, where you can chat directly with me and your fellow listeners. You’ll find that link, and more, on our website, gameplay.co. Thanks for listening.


References:

Songs featured in this episode: Hades; No Escape, Wretched Shades, Out of Tartarus, Death and I, Good Riddance (Eurydice Solo feat. Ashley Barrett), Good Riddance (feat. Ashley Barrett), Rage of the Myrmidons, God of the Dead. Transistor; Old Friends.



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