This guide is meant for people who want to know what they should prioritize during the very first hours of playing and for those who want clear goals what to do and what to get and unlock first. If you want to experiment yourself you might want to skim only the general goals and play as you like.

There are many early guides and tips that will leave you confused about stuff you haven't seen yet or give you information overload. You don't need to know about fishing, weapon aspects or builds in the beginning. I wrote this guide because I was looking for information like this and couldn't find a guide that actually focuses on the very beginning.

Enjoy Hades!

This game is a roguelite with permanent upgrades. That means during your runs you will get random rooms, enemies and rewards. Some of those rewards will help you only during your current run and some of those rewards act as a currency that you can use to make your subsequent runs easier. We will focus our early game only to those currency rewards. We want to get our character upgraded asap and do some unlocks.

I suggest you explore and speak to all characters while you are in the House of Hades. There are plenty of cool dialogue and interesting characters that appear and disappear between runs. You can't miss anything in Hades but it might take you multiple runs to get same event again that you ignored earlier so better safe than sorry.

By the way you're going to die when playing Hades. You're going to die a lot in fact to beat this game. Don't worry - it's part of the charm and you get better each attempt. For most people the game starts to 'click' somewhere between runs 10 to 20. Early on you might lose half your hit points in some harder rooms and then later on you will notice that you didn't even take a single point of damage anymore during the first biome. It will happen to you too if you just keep playing and learning.

The game will teach you the basic concepts - I won't do it here. Just follow along and keep in mind what I suggest your task is.

Now here is the part where player skill comes into play. You might be a godlike roguelite veteran and can reach the last boss on your 5th run or you might be new to the genre and struggle with the first boss for the next 10 runs. I will write this guide in a way where I expect you have beaten the second boss by your tenth run and reached the final boss for the first time on your 15th run. Most players seem to win their first escape within 20 to 30 runs according to howlongtobeat.com. It took me 15 runs to reach the last boss and I got him down on my 24th.

Our first goal is to get our character upgraded a little bit with essential upgrades and then start unlocking weapons and room upgrades. We want to gather Darkness, which is the currency that upgrades our character, until we have 80 of it and then switch our priorities to keys which will unlock weapons and more upgradeable character talents.

On our first runs we are not going to beat the game so we will focus gathering currencies that prevail between runs instead of focusing on stuff that improves only our current run.


Darkness - upgrades your character





Chthonic Key - unlocks weapons and more character upgrades





Gemstone - unlocks Work Orders from the House Contractor (after your first death)

• Get 80 Darkness
  
• Learn permanent currency door symbols
  
• Get some Gemstones and a Key

On our first runs we try to get as far as we can and learn about the different door symbols and of course learn the game, the enemy patterns and our attacks. When you have an option to choose which door you are going use this door priority chart.

Priority chart


The priority chart works so that if you see Darkness symbol, go to that door instead of any other that you can choose. If there is no Darkness room enter a Key room instead and if that is not available enter a Gemstone room and if that is not available then enter whatever room you want. Experiment what different symbols mean. Since the rooms are random it might take you only one run or multiple runs depending on how far you get and how 'lucky' you were.

After first death
Once you die first time you will return to House of Hades and keep all the permanent currencies you gathered. You will be introduced to House Contractor where you can use your Gemstones and the Mirror of Night in your own room where you can upgrade your character with Darkness.

The House Contractor
There are some very beneficial things that you can buy from the House Contractor. First buy the free Fountain and then if you gathered enough Gemstones get the Fated List of Minor Prophecies. That item can be found in your room and is a mini quest - reward mechanic. For example there is a quest for you to talk to all Olympus Gods and then you get a reward when you have completed it. When talking to House Contractor only focus on Work Orders for now - they're the actual upgrades. Other tabs show other shiny things but don't spend your few Gemstones on those yet as they are cosmetics only.

The Mirror of Night
You might want to spend your Darkness to for example upgrade 'Chthonic Vitality' to heal you a little bit but I suggest not to. Keep your Darkness until you get 30 and get the Death Defiance. It's basically an extra life for you which means you will get further on your subsequent runs and can gather more resources. Second upgrade should be Greater Reflex even though it costs 50 Darkness as a second dash will help you stay alive much more than just a single one. After those two upgrades it's up to you what to get next.

• Upgrade Death Defiance (30 Darkness)
  
• Upgrade Greater Reflex (50 Darkness)
  
• Purchase Fated List of Minor Prophecies (20 Gemstones)

You now have an extra life and can dash twice. Our next task is to get more upgrades and unlock some weapons which means our priority chart looks like this

• Get 8 Keys
  
• Gather more Gemstones and Darkness
  
• Learn weapon move sets
  
• Give your first Nectar to Cerberus for a Keepsake. Then give one to Skelly (+1 life)

Next up we will unlock some new weapons instead of opening new talents in the Mirror. We do this because it's more fun to alternate between weapons instead of always choosing the same one. There is no 'best weapon' in this game. All of the weapons are very balanced. Learn their move sets. Also when you get your first Nectar give it to Cerberus. First time you give a nectar to a giftable npc you will get a Keepsake which is basically a run modifier. Cerberus Keepsake gives you +25 health which is very good for a beginner. Once you get more Nectars give one to Skelly and one to Hypnos for good Keepsakes for the future.

While doing your first 10 runs you might beat the first or second boss and get Titan Blood and Diamonds or even more rewards. Ignore those for now. I will explain them later.

• Unlock the Bow (1 Key)
  
• Unlock the Shield (3 Keys)
  
• Unlock the Spear (4 Keys)

Do more runs with your new weapons. I suggest you always pick the weapon that has a dark aura glowing on it (Skelly will explain it) as you will get more Darkness on that run. Once you have gathered 300 Darkness you will get the chance to change your Mirror talents to their alternative versions. I suggest you change your Death Defiance to Stubborn Defiance but keep the others. Stubborn Defiance allows you to die once per chamber instead 1/2/3 times per run. Once you can reach the last boss without dying once you want to change the Stubborn Defiance back to Death Defiance.

• Try to beat the first boss and second boss around runs 5-10
  
• Learn enemy attacks in the first biome and second biome
  
• Learn backstabbing
  
• Gather more Keys, Gemstones and Darkness
  
• Always use your money immediately in shops (this will chance once you can beat the third boss confidently)
  
• Do not go to shops if you don't have at least 150 money. Exception is when you desperately need healing and have at least 50 money.
  
• Get more Nectars and give them to NPCs for more Keepsakes. Gotta collect them all! (no you don't but it's fun)

After 10th run we will start to change our room priorities to more 'Good for the current run' focused instead of gathering currencies. Depending on how are you feeling and how well you are playing you might change the priorities even earlier.

Depending on how far you have reached in your runs and how many currencies you have gathered you might have tasks and goals still left undone. At the end of 10 runs I expect you to have beaten the second boss and maybe reached the third boss. If you haven't beaten the first boss by your tenth run I suggest you turn on the 'God Mode' in the settings. It's basically a difficulty changer which will make you take less and less damage from enemies depending on how many times you die. If it makes your game experience better do it! It doesn't disable achievements or affect other gameplay aspects.

Now that you are pretty familiar with the game and no longer a total beginner let's change our priorities.



We will start focusing on improving our runs now. Daedalus Hammer is almost always the best thing you can get. The hammer upgrades change massively how your weapon works. Dual god rooms can be tricky to beat but getting two Boons is very beneficial. Also before you start your run think about which gods are good for the weapon you are using and try to get Boons from them avoiding 'bad' Boons. For example you don't want Poseidon's knock-back effect on close melee weapons like sword or fists.

Use this handy matrix made by Brahms to determine which Gods work well with which weapons

















Outside of those three priorities think what your run needs. There is no correct universal answer here. Permanent currencies help with your subsequent runs but what about your current run? Are you going to win the next boss with what you have currently or do you need more health or more Boons?

• Learn status debuffs (Weak, Hangover, Doom, Chill...)
  
• Start carrying one Nectar just in case you meet one of the random NPCs during the runs to get their Keepsakes
  
• Learn which gods work with which weapons
  
• Unlock all the weapons
  
• Unlock most of the Talents
  
• Once you start reaching the last biome safely start saving your money instead of spending it in shops. The last shop can have some really good items.

While playing these next ten runs I expect you to beat the third boss and reach the last boss.

Here are some things that might help you.

Mirror of Night
Once you have opened the 5/10/20 key new talents, spending Darkness on the extra money and on the extra life talents should be no brainers. 'Infernal Soul' and 'Boiling Blood' have a good synergy and act as boss-killers. 'Privileged Status' is pretty easy to get once you get the hang of status effects so at least one rank there is fine.

House Contractor
Codex is good so get it early. Get also the Fountains and the Keepsake Collection which allows you to change your Keepsake between biomes. Think of the Keepsakes like "For the first biome I'll take the 100 extra money, then for the second biome I'll have the Boon for my weapon I want and I'm still missing and since I died to the third boss I will take Skelly's extra life for that encounter". The urns and plunders are cool and all but you don't really need them. Urns giving what maybe 30 money during your run is not that impressive. Plunders/The Infernal Troves can spawn enemies which can end your run or severely deplete your hit points so they might not be worth it unless you aren't taking damage during normal encounters in the first place.

Mini-boss encounters - You might notice the small skull next to the symbol. It means the encounter is a mini-boss encounter which means the room is harder but you get extra rewards. For example a second key or increased rarity Boon.

• Reach the final boss
  
• Kill the final boss

Once you have reached the last boss you are no longer a beginner. This beginner guide will no longer help you but here are some things that you might want to learn.

• Learn about Weapon Aspects (Titan Blood is used on them. You can get one Titan Blood from the first boss for each of the weapons for a total of six)
  
• Use your Diamonds on House Contractor (You can get one Diamond from the second boss for each of the weapons for a total of six) - Buy fishing to get more rewards
  
• Learn fishing - it's reaction time based. If you react to the flash within 340 milliseconds you get the best rewards.
  
• Learn 'Fated Authority' after you have unlocked it for 30 keys in the Mirror - it will allow you to re-roll room rewards.
  
• Check the Prophecies table for what to do in case you want more goals and rewards

Thanks for reading!