Supergiant Games creative director Greg Kasavin has a rather humble approach to thinking about the long-term legacy of Hades and Hades 2, especially considering they're two of the most acclaimed roguelikes of all time.
GamesRadar+ caught up with Kasavin ahead of the 2026 BAFTA Games Awards last week and asked him what he hopes will be Hades' legacy. He told us he doesn't think about it very much, and that he's just happy people play his studio's games at all. The fact that people seem to enjoy those games is just a bonus.
"We never know what the so-called legacies of our games may be. The legacy of almost every video game is to be forgotten," said Kasavin. "So, if we manage to make things that don't get forgotten right away, that's great. But, you know, above all, we're trying to make games that, like I said before, hopefully leave a positive impression on the person who played, make them feel as though they were glad that they spent the time, if nothing else."
I'm not even much of a roguelike guy, but Hades is one of the very few games in the genre I genuinely enjoyed all the way through, and I wasn't surprised to see it and its sequel come home from all of the awards shows juggling all sorts of different wins across various categories. What I'm saying is, Kasavin is being very modest here. I think we can safely assume Hades and Hades 2 will be remembered for a very long time in the roguelike pantheon and in in the industry more broadly.
Still, he acknowledges that, even if money isn't an issue, all games require some degree of a time commitment, and he's just appreciative of anyone willing to part ways with that invaluable type of currency for one of his games.
"You could get games sometimes for really cheap on a good Steam sale, you can pirate them, or what have you, but they all require time," Kasavin said. "And so we have to be choosy with games, even if they're completely free. So we really, really appreciate that people choose to play our games at all, and we want them to feel glad that they did that, not like they should have played something else instead. And we hope, yeah, that they find some richness there to think about."
Again, this is Kasavin selling himself short here. Hades has a 93 on Metacritic and Hades 2 has a 95, signaling "universal acclaim" for both games. People are indeed playing them, and they are indeed enjoying them. Ultimately, Kasavin's view is that players are the ones who get to decide a game's legacy, so why bother giving it any thought?
"When it comes to something like the legacy of Hades and Hades 2, it's just not for any of us to decide, so it's not something I give a lot of thought to in that way, because once you release a game as a developer, it no longer fully belongs to you," he said, adding that he thinks much more about the fact that the legacy of, uh, Greek mythology, doesn't belong to any one person or company.
"There's no, you know, IP holder for Greek mythology. It's a communal thing. It spans – even though it originated in ancient Greece – it spans the world, and these gods presided over the entire world," Kasavin said. Hard to argue with him on that point.
