Hades 2is a sexy game. That feels obvious at this point. Nearly every god in its pantheon is a grizzled hunk or an absolute babe,with the sequel doing an admirable job of trying to address the lack of body diversityin the previous entry. Each update for early access brings with it updated art, new character portraits, and oodles of illustrations the fandom can’t help but thirst over. I’m right there with them, but the return of Dionysus has people conflicted.
The God of Wine returns as part of last week’s Olympic Update, now taking refuge inside a luscious bathhouse where fellow gods and goddesses ignore reality in favour of what seems like a neverending celebration. Even in the face of certain doom, Dionysus would rather party it up and take advantage of his immortality rather than help defend his homeland. It’s not a good look, and neither is his new design, which swaps his gorgeous robes and grape necklace for a leopard print banana hammock and a massive bulge.
Dionysus’ New Design Is Meant To Be Polarising In Hades 2
When it comes to the attractiveness of its cast, Hades 2 has always been pretty tasteful. It is wonderful at dressing each character with an outfit that not only serves their identity in a very practical sense, but simultaneously accentuates their greatest assets. Abs, muscles, chests, and other parts of the body are stressed in ways that emphasise a character’s personality.
Whenever I see Dionysus in his new outfit I can’t help but think of Todd from Scrubs. If you know, you know.
There is a reason why so many of them have gone down in pop culture history, and we rarely talk about them in the same terms of objectification as something likeStellar Blade. That title is a gooner’s paradise, while Hades 2 weaves sexualisation into its identity while drawing so much of its intentions from the Greek mythology it seeks to adapt.
But on the surface, Dionysus' new design seems to abandon that trajectory. Gone are all of his clothes except for the aforementioned speedo, which sees the leopard print return along with nothing else. His bulge is comically huge, too, a testament to his godly figure and lust for excessive pleasure. When he first greets Melinoe, he confuses them for Zag, which a handful of players have interpreted as him playfully accepting a potential gender transition, but I viewed it as Dionysus being so desperately out of touch with reality that he isn’t even aware that his niece is fighting through the literal underworld to save her struggling family.
He’s no longer looking after himself or considering how he looks on the outside except the base-level desires he surrenders to. As the God of Wine, he is all about a bit of tipple, and within his secluded bathhouse there is an opportunity to indulge, forget, and ignore all the little things happening in the outside world.
Dionysus has always been the cool uncle that Zag looked up to because he didn’t care and was always willing to have fun, but when so much is at stake, the last thing you want is a family member who parties too hard over the ways in which they can help. Dionysus is played for jokes in the first encounter, but as I’m bumping into him on each new run, I’m sure Supergiant will dig into this more and more.
The Bulge Represents How Far Dionysus Has Fallen
To see Dionysus strip away his godly appearance and surrender to the vices that he can’t help but be defined by is quietly heartbreaking, and no doubt fills his family with frustration as they risk their immortal lives again and again in service of salvaging the only place they have ever called home. Hades 2 is great at balancing humour with drama, which is a hard act to get right when it comes to characters like Dionysus, but I’m confident he can evolve into more than a friendly face with a winning smile and other noteworthy assets.
Upon meeting Melinoe, Dionysus even twists her into an object of desire, describing her as a Nymph who has stumbled into the bathhouse to serve him.
Speaking of, I totally understand why the bulge is a turn-off. It’s comically large, and clearly meant to be a statement on the sexualisation being projected onto his character. Dionysus now represents nothing but muscles, wine, and endowment, but he should be much more than that. But until he comes to terms with how low he’s sunk and how irresponsible it is to party the end of the world away instead of helping his loved ones, he’s not going to change.
Hades 2
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Hades 2 is the sequel to Supergiant Games' smash-hit roguelike dungeon crawler. This time you’ll play as Melinoë, Princess of the Underworld and Zagreus' sister, as she takes on the forces of the Titan of Time.
