#hades character design

[ultimate-character-design]

The Ultimate Character Design Tournament

Please remember to vote for characters solely based on their design, rather than which character you are more familiar with or like more!

The winner of this tournament will be crowned the first Ultimate Character Design of All Time

Zagreus | Hades

Bunger | Bugsnax

[prokopetz]

I love that Supergiant's answer to "how can we possibly follow up on the first game's rebellious failson protagonist" is to make the sequel's protagonist an earnestly dorky honour-student-with-impostor-syndrome type whose college major is murder.

[starridge]

dropping this and fleeing like a deer in the woods

[kamuch-kommando]

i honestly love making my Poseidon the tallest of olympians instead

(18.01.2025)

[crazycometspecular]

At least he didn’t overreact

[fruitgravies]

stygian boatman

insta - twt

[the-mori-arty]

Persephone, Queen of the Underworld

Her second version, when she descends to Hades domains! I had so much fun designing this dress hehehe

(Also did you know my comms are open? Yes indeed they are!)

[buggee22]

Older unfinished Medusa concept

May come back to this one actually because boy! do I have Lore for her!

[melodyartist]

I'm working on a concept for Atlas being one of the Area's bosses

For being just a silly little idea on a "what if" game of Hades 3 I'm taking this too seriously.

[bikiniarmorbattledamage]

This is truly stiff competition for the worst case of willful false equivalence we've ever seen.

So, for those not aware: Ongoing embarrassment to gamers and the gaming industry, Mark Kern (former lead on FireFall), has been desperately trying to get Gamergate 2 going on X/Twitter... well after others have given up. If you need to get caught up on Mark, I recommend this video by documentary maker and experienced game developer, Dead Domain:

One of the latest fiascos in this mix has been the comparison of responses to character designs from Hades 2 (Aphrodite, left) and Stellar Blade (protagonist Eve, right). The post isn't by Mark, but is part of the general harassment campaign he's trying to lead.

If you're somehow not familiar with Aphrodite, she's the Ancient Greek goddess of love, lust and hot girl shit. It is absolutely perfect characterization for her to show up to a battle (or anything else) nude but for her hair teasingly covering the intimate parts of her body. But the buried lede here is, you don't fight her in Hades and nothing about Hades 2 indicates she'll fight there either, she just likes the aesthetic and has no reason not to indulge.

Stellar Blade will release on 26 April 2024, so we can't really give an informed discussion of her character. But what we do know is the studio head is the illustrator from Blade & Soul, Eve is described as being a member of "the 7th Airborne Squad" engaged in an "operation to reclaim the planet from the Naytiba", and the promotion material promises "an enthralling narrative filled with mature themes, mystery and revelation. Embrace the relentless pace, with no time to pause between moments where critical, story-changing decisions are made."

It's to be compared to games like Nier: Automata, Devil May Cry 5, Jedi: Fallen Order and Sekiro. And the screenshots look like this:

And yeah, unlike Bayonetta she's not supposed to be an unstoppable force of nature (and fashion) who is immune to self-doubt, she's supposed to be the scrappy underdog last survivor of her team.

Weird they gave her a costume that conveys... the opposite of literally everything they're supposed to be trying to tell you about her.

-wincenworks

[dream--interrupted]

Started as a random crossover between Proseka and Greek mythology/PJO. Then it went out of control. And then halfway I got lazy.

My personal favourite is Shiho's design. And Nene's, but does it really count as my design if half of it is literally from the game?

[alabasterpickles]

Here’s a little family portrait I whipped up a few days ago because I had some questions about Makaria 😂 so I formally present —

Zagreus, Melinöe and the twins, Brimos and Makaria

Ages are 17, 16 and 5 (the twins were a happy accident hence the gap)

Second drawing is for color reference exclusively, it was my first pass! Everyone else’s designs are preeeetty much the same except for some minor changes tweaks with color.

Aaaand bonus smooches from a week or so ago while I tried to get back into the Hercules style (also because I wanted to draw some good ol’ fashioned lovin)

[mintroclus]

Two shades in one glade

[qiqilasblog]

Aphrodite design Idea thing Idk

[pahatarcarabosse]

Just three bros in a spa.

[starryshxckz]

I think Dionysos' design in Hades 2 is intentionally discomforting because he's drunk to the point he's sweating & needs to be derobed because the war is actively making him suffer. But that's just me I think. I don't think he's posing for anyone or meant to look sexy, the setting of Hades 2 is dire and honestly I think anyone would be drinking this heavily to distract themselves from it. Sure I think the anatomy and just general sprite could be better but we gotta take the situation he's in into account yaknow?

In Hades 1, he was the fun drunk cousin because the circumstances weren't as serious, PLUS for a majority of the game he doesn't actually know Zag's true mission, he just thinks, "hey youre cool. come join us on Olympus!"

But in Hades 2, they're at war with the TITAN OF TIME, and their whole mountain is in shambles. In addition, Ares has gone missing. The situation is DIRE. It's SERIOUS. And he said himself he's not one for that kind of conflict. So he's just in his secret party spot drinking himself pathetic. If you thought Hades 1 Dionysos was drunk out of his head Hades 2 Dionysos is drunk out if this fucking universe bro

Also the focus on his thong might be to distract the viewer from noticing that he's actively stressed out. So while yes I make jokes about how he should close his legs I think it does fit.