Netflix subscribers are getting one of the decade’s best games this month

05.03.2024 - 22:51 / digitaltrends.com / Tomas Franzese / Greg Kasavin

Hades, an exhilarating action roguelike that took the game industry by storm following its 1.0 launch in 2020, earned the #8 spot on Digital Trends’ best video games of all time list. Now coming to a new platform very soon: iOS.

As was teased last year, Hades will make the jump to mobile via the Netflix Games initiative. If you have a Netflix subscription, you can download and play Hades from the App Store for no additional cost starting on March 19. Ahead of its release, I attended a presentation held by Netflix and Supergiant Games to learn more about how the studio ported Hades to mobile, why it’s not on Android phones, and how the port will serve as a primer for the soon-to-launch early access version of Hades 2.

Hades is a run-based roguelike where players try to escape the underworld as Hades’ son Zagreus. It’s not only an isometric action game that feels silky smooth to play with challenging but satisfying combat, but it keeps players engaged in the roguelike loop by smartly doling out bits of the story during runs. Once you get into a groove of playing Hades, it’s hard to get out of it. Creative Director Greg Kasavin says that Hades‘ design naturally fit handhelds like the Nintendo Switch, so Supergiant jumped at the opportunity to bring it to another mobile platform.

Supergiant spent over a year turning the iOS version into an “uncompromising” port of Hades that didn’t cut any content. It runs smoothly at 60 frames per second and has intuitive touchscreen controls, according to Supergiant. Players can reposition and resize all of the touchscreen controls — there’s even a dynamic stick that follows where a player places their thumb, and they’ll only appear when contextually relevant.

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Players can also use mobile gaming controllers if they’re more comfortable playing Hades that way. Although I did not have a chance to go hands-on with it, it seems Supergiant is doing everything right with this Hades mobile port. There are only two downsides. First, Digital Trends confirmed that Hades on iOS won’t support cross-saves with other versions of the title. Second, there’s the fact it is an iOS exclusive.

For the most part, all Netflix games are available on iOS and Android, so it’s disappointing to see that such a significant addition to the service is locked to a single platform. I pressed Supergiant on this, and Publishing Director Will Turnbill explained that Supergiant used the MacOS version of Hades as a starting point for the mobile port. Kasavin also commented on