I admit this is becoming something of an obsession, but you’re clicking the link and reading the post. Who is the real problem here?
The Underworld has always been a mirror. In myth, it reflects our fears, our longings, our unfinished stories. In modern media, it’s become a stage for reinvention; a place where old tales are retold with new urgency. Hades, the acclaimed video game from Supergiant Games, and Hadestown, Anaïs Mitchell’s folk opera turned Broadway (or, indeed, West-End) phenomenon, both descend into this mythic space. But they do so with radically different intentions.
Hades is kinetic, rebellious, and player-driven. You are Zagreus, son of Hades, sprinting through the realms of death in a bid to escape your father’s dominion. Each run is a battle, a negotiation, a revelation. You die, you return, you grow. The game celebrates defiance, persistence, and the joy of rewriting fate.
Hadestown, by contrast, is lyrical, mournful, and cyclical. It retells the tragedy of Orpheus and Eurydice as a working-class parable, steeped in jazz, blues, and folk. The story unfolds like a song you’ve heard before: beautiful, heartbreaking, and doomed to repeat. It doesn’t ask you to escape. It asks you to understand.
Together, these works offer a compelling dialogue about myth, agency, and the stories we choose to tell. One invites you to fight your way out. The other asks whether escape is even possible.
So, both Hades and Hadestown are built on loops. But the nature of those loops. and what they mean, couldn’t be more different.
In Hades, repetition is a mechanic and a metaphor. Every time Zagreus dies, he returns to the House of Hades. But the world doesn’t reset. It evolves. Characters remember your choices. Dialogue shifts. Relationships deepen. The game treats failure not as punishment, but as progress. You’re not just grinding for upgrades; you’re uncovering truths, forging bonds, and reshaping the narrative with each attempt.
The loop is hopeful. It says: try again. You’ll get closer. You’ll learn. You’ll change.
Hadestown, on the other hand, is a closed circuit. The story begins and ends in the same place. Orpheus sings. Eurydice follows. Doubt creeps in. He turns. She’s gone. Again and again. The narrator, Hermes, reminds us: “It’s a sad song, but we sing it anyway.” The repetition here isn’t about growth; it’s about inevitability. The tragedy is baked into the rhythm. The loop is a lament.
And yet, Hadestown finds beauty in that repetition. It asks: what does it mean to tell a story that always ends in loss? What does it mean to hope anyway? To sing anyway?
Where Hades treats the cycle as a ladder, Hadestown treats it as a circle. One climbs. The other turns. Both ask us to consider what we carry each time we return.
In Hades, agency is the heartbeat. Zagreus refuses the role assigned to him as son of death, heir to a throne he never wanted. He fights, not just for escape, but for understanding. Every run is a choice: which weapon to wield, which god’s favour to accept, which path to take. The player is empowered to shape the story, to challenge the rules of the Underworld, and ultimately, to rewrite the terms of fate itself.
Hadestown, by contrast, is steeped in fatalism. Orpheus sings to change the world, but the world does not bend easily. His music is powerful, but his doubt is stronger. The tragedy isn’t just that he turns, it’s that he was always going to. The story is framed as a cycle, one we’ve heard before, one we’ll hear again. The audience is complicit in its repetition. We hope, knowing it won’t work. We believe, knowing it will break.
This contrast is profound. Hades says: you can change the ending. Hadestown says: the ending changes you. One offers defiance. The other offers reflection. Both ask what it means to struggle against the shape of your story and whether that struggle is the point.
Let’s turn to the visual styles employed by each of our pieces. Both Hades and Hadestown are drenched in unique and striking aesthetics, but their styles serve quite different emotional registers.
Hades is bold, saturated, and electric. Its art direction channels comic-book myth with modern flair; gods rendered as radiant archetypes, environments pulsing with danger and beauty. The soundtrack, composed by Darren Korb, is a fusion of rock, ambient, and folk, shifting seamlessly between adrenaline and melancholy. It’s a game that moves fast but lingers emotionally. Every visual and sonic choice reinforces its central theme: rebellion with heart.
Hadestown is earthy, intimate, and theatrical. Its palette is rust and shadow, its sound a blend of jazz, blues, and folk. The music doesn’t just underscore the story; it is the story. Songs like “Wait for Me” and “Why We Build the Wall” carry the emotional weight of entire acts. The staging is minimal but evocative, using light and movement to suggest vast mythic spaces within a confined industrial world. It’s a show that sings its soul, even when that soul is weary.
Both works understand that style isn’t decoration; it’s narrative. The way a story looks and sounds tells us how it feels. And in both Hades and Hadestown, that feeling is what lingers long after the credits roll or the curtain falls.
One last thing worth mentioning is that the characters of Orpheus and Eurydice actually appear in both Hades and Hadestown. Both draw from the same myths, but their portrayals of Orpheus and Eurydice diverge in tone, agency, and emotional weight. I’m including this at the end of my post because it’s ultimately not relevant to the comparison I am trying to make. It is interesting, though, and I wanted to at least acknowledge it.
In Hadestown, Orpheus is the dreamer. He is naïve, idealistic, and fragile. His music is his gift and his curse. He believes in beauty, in change, in love that can rewrite the rules. But doubt undoes him. Eurydice, meanwhile, is pragmatic. She chooses Hadestown out of necessity rather than weakness. Her hunger, her cold, her isolation drive her to make a deal. Their tragedy isn’t just the failed escape at the climax of the play; it’s the emotional gulf between hope and survival.
In Hades, Orpheus and Eurydice are just side characters, but their arc is quietly powerful. Orpheus is reclusive, melancholic, and resigned to his fate. He no longer sings. Eurydice, by contrast, is vibrant, sharp-tongued, and self-assured. She lives alone in Asphodel, having carved out a life beyond heartbreak. Their reunion, if achieved, is gentle and earned. It’s not a grand tragedy, but a quiet healing. It’s a version of the myth where love doesn’t conquer all, but it endures.
Together, these portrayals offer two lenses on the same story. Hadestown asks what it costs to hope. Hades asks what it takes to forgive. And in both, Orpheus and Eurydice remain what they’ve always been: two voices trying to find harmony in the dark.
Hades and Hadestown descend into the same mythic terrain, but they take different paths. One is a sprint toward freedom, the other a song of surrender. One empowers the player to fight fate; the other invites the audience to mourn it. Yet both works remind us that the Underworld is not just a place of death. It’s a place of meaning. It’s a place where stories repeat, but never quite the same.
Ultimately, we are offered a choice by these pieces of media: do we fight the loop, or do we find beauty within it? Do we rewrite the ending, or do we sing it anyway? Either way, we return. And in that return, we find ourselves.
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