Video game successes often resemble big budget films, requiring the work of hundreds of developers, designers and artists, in addition to flashy 3D graphics and photorealistic characters.
It is not the “Hades” of Supergiant Games.
With a team of only 19, the hand-drawn, self-published 2-D action game from the San Francisco studio was one of the most acclaimed titles of 2020. Critics praised it for fusing a modern tribute to Greek mythology – the main character is Zagreus, the son of Hades, who is trying to escape the Underworld – with a sharp game that rewards quick reflexes and quick thinking. The game achieved a positive rating score of 98% among 110,000 players on the popular Steam game store, among the highest ever on the 17-year-old platform.
The success came amid a pandemic that saw huge gains in video game players and revenue, along with the destruction of remote work, which contributed to major delays and confusing launches.
Supergiant overcame this turmoil by closing his office near the Civic Center in the spring and ending “Hades” remotely.
Amir Rao, director of the Supergiant studio, sees Hades as the culmination of the studio’s work so far, which includes three previous titles – Bastion, Pyre and Transistor – that were well received, but not box office hits. The games are all in real time – as opposed to turn-based action games – with a focus on storylines and vibrant fantasy worlds, and Hades is the most ambitious. It has more than 20,000 lines of dialogue spread between mythological figures known as Zeus and Achilles, along with more obscure characters like Megaera and Hypnos, which help or hinder Zagreus and his search.
Rao declined to disclose financial details, but said Hades had sold more than 1 million copies, making it the studio’s most successful game so far, which will finance the independent company for years to come.
Rao was born in San Jose and studied English at Columbia University, with the aim of eventually teaching. But after attending a class taught by Professor Bernie Yee, who brought together humanities and computer science graduates to explore video game design, Rao found a new way.
He became Yee’s teaching assistant and later an intern at the giant Electronic Arts, which is based in Redwood City. This led him to a full-time job after college at the company’s Los Angeles studio.
Rao was a level designer for the Command and Conquer strategy game series when he met co-workers Greg Simon and Greg Kasavin, who joined Rao to form Supergiant in 2009. The company’s first office was his father’s home de Rao in San Jose, and later moved to San Francisco.
“It was a perfect opportunity to do something more personal and in a smaller group,” said Rao. “We could take bigger creative risks as a smaller team.”
Supergiant’s first major hires included art director Jen Zee, whose sexy depictions of Greek gods illuminated social media, and audio director Darren Korb, who creates the game’s soundtracks and does much of the dubbing, including Zagreus.
The first seven employees of Supergiant Games still work there 11 years later, a source of pride for the company.
“It is one of our greatest strengths because we have this history and this creative chemistry and we are really collaborative,” said Rao. “We were just excited about each other’s work because, you know, we all do different things.”
Although its official release date was September 2020, Hades has had player-driven development over two years through early access, a practice where unfinished games are available for purchase. Developers continually release updates, known as patches, until a final product considered Version 1.0 is delivered.
Early access can be a trap for developers who don’t keep their promises, and some projects have been abandoned, but Supergiant provided updates regularly and saw the player base grow continuously, which generated more useful comments on how to improve the game.
The game’s development had another public aspect: it was filmed by documentary filmmaker Noclip, who accompanied the game since its initial announcement in 2018, going through the challenges of constant updates and abrupt switching to remote work after the pandemic.
Danny O’Dwyer, founder of Noclip, said Hades’ success was unimaginable.
“It broke expectations for them and me,” said O’Dwyer, calling him “richer, deeper, longer”, but still maintaining the high quality of previous Supergiant games.
O’Dwyer credits the studio’s self-reflection ability and its productive way of resolving creative differences for its success.
“They are incredibly talented. They also carry a lot of humility. They are also self-critical in a healthy way; they are not self-deprecating, ”said O’Dwyer of the Supergiant. “Like any good family or team, they are willing to argue with each other, interact with each other and still be water under the bridge.”
It is telling that, although Rao has the title of “studio director”, he rejects the CEO label, a role that Supergiant does not have.
“It’s just another recognition of our collaborative way of working, that we are all responsible for something,” he said. “I make decisions with a group of people. … I am in charge of how we work together, how we collaborate. “
Hades is a “roguelike”, a punitive video game genre in which players typically die repeatedly in dungeons full of enemies and traps. Instead of saving progress and restarting at the same level at which you failed, roguelikes force players to resume early in the game, eliminating much of their progress. The hook of the genre is that battles and locations are random, so each move is different.
The genre has dedicated fans, but many detractors, who compare it to banging your head repeatedly against a solid wall of difficulties. But the player’s flaws become a key story device in Hades, as each death of Zagreus – who is immortal and revives in his father Hades’ home – opens up new dialogue options with various characters. By transforming the generally disappointing game on the screen into a plot device, Hades helped to attract players who hated the roguelike games of the past.
And even if the player manages to defeat the final boss, the story is structured so that they are motivated to play another round to advance the plot.
Hades was also praised for his unconventional diversity of characters: Athena, Goddess of Wisdom, is a black woman, while Hermes is an Asian man. It is in contrast to the ancient statues of Greek figures, which tend to have monotonous, almost Caucasian, facial features.
The reasoning, Rao said, was that the Greek gods “were worshiped in ancient Greece, not because they themselves were ethnically Greek”, which opened up different interpretations.
There is also the fact that the Supergiant is largely made up of the children or grandchildren of immigrants, said Rao, whose family is Indian, which informs his approach to design.
Stanley Pierre-Louis, CEO of the Entertainment Software Association, the video game industry’s leading commercial group, said the success of games like Hades shows that small independent studios make attractive games and that players are looking for a variety of genres to play with.
Global video game revenue is expected to rise to nearly $ 180 billion in 2020, an annual increase of 20%, according to research firm IDC, as the pandemic kept most people at home and craving online entertainment and connections .
“Games are fun, games are innovative and connect people. This third point is really critical, ”said Pierre-Louis.
For some, Hades has become an opportune companion for pandemic life: the player is essentially trying to escape from home and find freedom, although Rao notes that there are moments of hope and levity, despite his gloomy scenario in the Underworld.
Rao said it is too early to say whether the studio will add content to Hades or what its next game will be. For now, the team is resting. Rao plans to play games that other companies launched last year and that he lost in search of more inspiration.
Another question that many companies face is whether to return to the office or make remote work permanent. Supergiant has not decided on a long-term policy, but plans to maintain its San Francisco office for the time being – although it suffered an invasion during summer protests that included the theft of some instruments used to make music for games.
“We owe a lot to the Bay Area,” said Rao. “We really want to stay, we want it to work and last. Our reaction when things are difficult is to come together and try to make it work. This is our way. “
Roland Li is a writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @rolandlisf