The Strategic Choice: Why the Underworld Route is Essential for Your First Hades II 1.0 Runs

After dedicating over 75 hours to the ever-shifting landscape of Hades II Early Access, experiencing the meta shifts, boon reworks, and the introduction of new Arcana and Aspects, a single strategic priority for the game’s official 1.0 release has solidified: The Underworld Route. While the Olympus path—The Surface—offers a fresh, brutal challenge and crucial high-tier resources, the tried-and-true journey through the Underworld remains the superior foundational choice for new players and the most efficient path for veterans looking to maximize their long-term roguelite progression.

This decision is not about avoiding the new content; rather, it is about optimizing the dense systems Supergiant Games has built, ensuring a smoother difficulty curve, and immediately unlocking the core tools necessary to dominate both pathways. The following analysis breaks down the key reasons this strategy is paramount for a successful launch into Hades II’s full release.

The Unmatched Value of Underworld Resources and Progression

The core bottleneck in Hades II’s progression is not skill, but the gathering of specific, essential resources that are predominantly found, or most efficiently farmed, in the first two biomes of the Underworld. Prioritizing this route in the initial phase of the 1.0 release is a high-value, high-yield investment.

Strong The Vital Commodities for Core Upgrades:Strong

• Silver (Mining Pick, Act I): This is the absolute cornerstone for nearly all the most powerful permanent upgrades at the Crossroads. It’s required for numerous Arcana Cards, the strongest Nocturnal Arms Aspects, and crucial Incantations. Maxing out Silver gathering should be the top resource priority.
• Bronze (Mining Pick, Act III): Bronze is indispensable for crafting the endgame-tier weapon Aspects and many late-game quality-of-life Incantations. Concentrating runs here is the fastest way to access the highest tier of Hades II builds.
• Bones (All Biomes): While common, maximizing the early accumulation of Bones for the Wretched Broker ensures you can easily acquire other rare resources and unlock Keepsakes much earlier, creating a powerful early-game economy.

By focusing on the Underworld, players can quickly gather these metals and unlock the majority of their permanent Grasp and Nectar upgrades, which makes the subsequent, more challenging Surface runs significantly easier and more rewarding.

The Smoother Learning Curve for New Systems

For players coming from the original Hades, or those new to the genre, the sequel’s layers of new mechanics can be overwhelming. The Underworld is expertly designed to introduce these mechanics at a manageable pace.

The Strategic Advantages of the Deeper Path:

1. Introduction to New Olympians: The initial biomes of the Underworld feature a focused rotation of the new Olympians—notably Hestia and Apollo—allowing players to learn their new curses (Scorch and Daze) and powerful Omega Boons without being overloaded by the full pantheon immediately.
2. The Magick Economy: The Underworld’s boss progression, particularly the first Guardian, forces players to master the use of Magick (Melinoë’s new resource) for her powerful Omega Attacks. This foundational training is crucial before tackling the Surface, where higher enemy density and more aggressive attacks punish inefficient Magick management.
3. Narrative and Character Continuity: For lore enthusiasts, the Underworld path provides immediate and vital context, revealing the fates of beloved characters from the first game and fully establishing Melinoë’s personal motivation. This narrative investment enhances the overall gaming experience significantly before the story expands to Olympus.

Prioritizing the Fastest High-Tier Builds: Black Coat and Moonstone Axe

While Early Access builds are subject to change for the 1.0 patch, the resource requirements for the current top-tier weapon Aspects remain the same, cementing the Underworld’s priority. Two weapons in particular benefit massively from an early Underworld focus:

• The Black Coat (Talisman): This weapon’s Aspect of Selene (which centers on a rapidly charging, high-damage Hex) and its upgrade paths require a blend of Silver and Bones. A dedicated Underworld grind makes this powerful, all-purpose weapon Aspect accessible much sooner.
• The Moonstone Axe (Axe): The Axe’s high base damage and defensive capabilities, particularly with the Aspect of Charon, often require Bronze for their later, more impactful upgrades. This sets the player up with a brute-force option capable of handling the damage sponge bosses on the Surface.

The goal is to leverage the familiar ground of the Underworld to establish a permanent power foundation, making the Surface (the true test of a fully-upgraded Melinoë) a manageable, exciting new challenge rather than a relentless roadblock. In the final analysis, for your first 1.0 escape, the path downward is the only way to ensure your eventual path upward is a triumph of optimized build-crafting and strategic resource collection.