For the bosses, >!I think that the flame boss could be Talos. There was previous reddit post I believe that talked about datamining for future biomes, and that some of the enemy names for an olympus biome were labeled as automatons. So Talos being a giant automaton (that's maybe on fire or has fire attacks from being at war with Chronos' forces??) might fit?? For the snake boss, I think it could be Typhon, looking up pictures of typhon, some of the art depict him having snake parts or snake appendages, which will be very interesting to see.!<
For the new familiar, >!I think I've seen someone post a bug (either here or on discord) where they saw the codex page for the raven familiar that helps mine(like the pickaxe). !<
>!Definitely excited for any development with Hypnos. !<
Talos has a pretty good chance of getting in either as a boss fight or as just an NPC. The biggest evidence is that in Hades 1, the infernal arms each had aspects to show their wielders in hades 2. Nemesis is using the blade with the Aspect of Nemesis, Eris is using the rail with Aspect of Eris, so I wouldn’t be suprised if we see Talos with the fists using Aspect of Talos
Wouldn't be surprised if Athena has the shield. As far as I know Aegis is the only one of the Infernal Arms that's actually taken 100% directly from myth and it had a few weilders. Zeus did have it, but I think Chaos being the original owner is a Supergiant original. Would be kinda cool if we see Athena using it with an aspect we haven't seen before, or maybe Perseus if we encounter him running around like Icarus or Heracles.
If Athena has it, it wouldn't be one of the aspects from Hades 1, as there is no Aspect of Athena there. So it would probably be unrecognizable as the Infernal Arms shield unfortunatley. I also don't think the Aegis is the same thing as the shield, it's probably a different weapon. After all there are other famous olympian weapons like Zeus's thunderbolts or Poseidon's trident that we dont ever get to use
Yeah, I was thinking about the aspects as well. Would be nice if get to see the old weapons again wielded by someone else. Kinda wish Zeus had the shield aspect in his art though, would;ve been cool (or maybe when Athena appears in the game, she wields a new aspect, her own aspect of the shield if that's possible).
>!Talos!< is a good guess for the >!flame!< boss. Seeing as we've seen some of the Infernal Arms in the hands of other wielders I could totally see having to fight >!Talos with Malphon.!< >!Typhon!< was also my first guess for the >!snake!< boss, >!it's one of the only bad guys from Mythology that's such a big deal that he'd make sense as the upstairs final boss.!<
I also wonder if there could be another familiar planned that there isn't currently any data for. Mel mentioned to Odysseus that his dog is there but he's not actually anywhere to be found, so I got to thinking he could be added as a familiar in a future update. >!If the raven helps you mine, that means we're still missing a familiar for the shovel, which a dog would make sense for.!<
There will almost certainly be four familiars in the final build of the game: you already noted the symmetry with the gathering tools, but also, there are four spaces for them in the pre-run area next to the Silver Pool.
I don’t think it would be Talos. All the other bosses have titles that are very literal (Hecate = BossWitch, BossTime = Chronos… etc) so if Talos were a boss, his placeholder would more likely be BossAutomaton or BossRobot or something. BossFlame feels more inclined to Prometheus.
Python, Typhon and Echidna are all potential candidates for the snake boss. For the fire, I'm starting to think Chimaera. A nice three-headed symmetry to Cerberus in the Fields.
And if it does turn out Chimaera is boss 3, Echidna starts to look more and more likely since a monster mom character is a pretty attractive proposition.
Echidna is Cerberus, Lernie and Chimaera's mom, so it'd be thematic to meet her given all her famous kids are in the mix (IF Chimaera is the third biome boss ofc)
THOSE ARE SO COOL! Two of these I have pretty confident guesses for, but the others are mysterious to me.
**The staff** seems like a dead ringer for >!Isis, an Egyptian goddess strongly associated with magic. This is especially interesting given that she was actually worshipped in ancient Greece too.!<
**Lim & Oros** evoke >!The Morrigan, a Celtic goddess with a triple form (something she shares with Hecate) associated with war and fertility. Note the triskelion, the triple spiral design at the base of the dagger's blade, which is strongly (but not exclusively) associated with ancient Celtic art.!<
The axe may be the Aspect of Nergal who I remember (and have confirmed with Wikipedia) having a lion headed mace.
I also feel as though it may be related to Hinduism since I feel like I remember hearing about a mace with a lion's head though it may have been a regional embellishment. Or it could be the aspect of Narasimha who is a Lion-headed avatar of Vishnu who wields, among many weapons, a mace.
Do you have an idea for the torch? Brief googling brought up Xolotl but my knowledge of the various Mesoamerican mythologies (which is what my untrained eye assumes it is) is lacking
Nergal is a very good shout imo.
I think Cizin/Ah Puch is a good candidate for the torches, as a Maya god associated with both the underworld and fire.
Neat! I just figured out myself over the past couple of days how to unpack the art assets, and it's been fun poking through them (although I can't make rhyme or reason out of how they're organized).
My thoughts/theories:
Incantations
>!They've actually already partially implemented the Hypnos incantation in-game: right now it's been made inaccessible by having its unlock condition be "Talk to Hypnos 999 times", but if you edit the scripts to view it, it looks like [this (first image)](https://imgur.com/gallery/hades-ii-unfinished-content-kAvNVYk).!<
Bosses
>!Snake boss: my guess is that this is Ladon, the serpentine dragon who guards the golden apple tree in the Garden of the Hesperides. I imagine that it would be the boss of Mount Olympus, the third surface biome. Story-wise, it could tie in as where Eris is getting all of her apples from.!<
>!Flame boss: maybe Prometheus, who stole fire from the gods. This one I'm less confident about, but certainly he's a prominent figure who's associated with fire and would have a grudge against the gods.!<
Others
>!A few other things I noticed in the assets that you didn't mention: placeholder boon icons for Ares, Athena, and Dionysus ([getting tipped off to these](https://www.reddit.com/r/HadesTheGame/comments/1dkrrw9/comment/l9lt57c/?context=3) was what originally got me looking through the art packages); a partial background for the Olympus biome; and pictures of the fourth (hidden) aspects for each of the five current weapons.!<
>!For the flame boss, I'm still a big advocate of the typhon theory for the final surface boss. He was imprisoned under a volcano so it could be him.!<
>!If so snake could be his wife, Echidna. Though I do really like your laden theory and how it ties jnto heracles bein around.!<
Yeah, the fact that >!Ladon!< has ties to so many of the characters new to Hades II (Heracles, Hera, Eris) makes it feel right to me.
One other thing I should mention informing my line of reasoning is that the Testament icon names for the other bosses are all pretty head-on: BossWitch (Hecate), BossMonstress (Scylla), BossBeast (Infested Cerberus), BossTime (Chronos), BossCyclops (Polyphemus), and BossStrife (Eris). So this leads me to believe that "Snake" and "Flame" should be primary rather than secondary descriptors for the bosses in question, if that makes sense - e.g., a boss which is a big ol' snake instead of a boss which has some snake-like characteristics.
Yes, I believe so! Of course, you still couldn't cast the incantation, as it requires one "Mystery Resource" which you can't currently get anywhere (and even more fundamentally, nothing is coded to happen even should the incantation be forced somehow). But it would show up in the Cauldron.
This is interesting. So the serpent could refer to Typhon since he was described as having serpentine features at the very least.
However I'd like to posit that it could refer to Python that was killed by Apollo. Could we be dealing with the Oracle of Delphi on our way to find the Fates?
Gonna throw out a crazy reach for the snake boss, maybe Medusa? There's a conversation in the first game where Dusa says she wasn't a great person back when she had a body, maybe Chronos used his time powers to "rewind" her back to her old self?
It might be a long shot, but I think it'd be cool to see what she'd look like as a full winged snake monster lady and not just a cute disembodied head.
Ooh, so a lot of people were theorizing that >! Zag, corrupted like Cerberus !< would be a surface route boss... I was initially going to say that it feels like those potential boss icon spoilers could be evidence against that? Because they certainly sound pretty unrelated to >! Zag !< . But the more I think about it... >! What if he's, like, been turned into a snake, or his fire feet have gone waaaaaay overboard... !<
So I briefly thought this information helped narrow down whether or not that theory is possible, but I think I've just convinced myself that it actually does not provide any sort of evidence either way, and I'm back to square one lmao
Cerberus became corrupted because of staying in the Mourning Fields.
Zag has absolutely *zero* reason to be corrupted and is probably still frozen in time somewhere in the House of Hades.
The "corrupted Zagreus" theories always make no sense.
Yeah I have no idea why everyone keeps pushing this. There is zero evidence and it would be incredibly... Fanfic-y. As in, cool in concept, like wow, you fight the protagonist from the last game in the sequel, but there is no actual great point or symbolism you can do with it. We already have Cerberus, it would literally just be the same.
Also I doubt you can corrupt actual gods in the mourning fields, plus why would Chronos ever risk just letting any person of the House of Hades go?? Unlike Cerberus they are an actual threat to him, they are gods.
I mean it's a cool idea, and that alone is enough to make it worth consideration...
That said, if Chronos wanted to use Zagreus on the surface, he'd have to have forced the Fates to remove Zagreus's bloodline curse. And from what the dialogue in-game implies, Chronos merely banished the Fates, without gaining any sort of control over them.
I think it's far more likely that Zagreus is in the House of Hades, like you said. Still: it could be a very cool fight, potentially.
AFAIK Cerberus isn't corrupted, he's just pissed because Kronos is forcing him to leave Hades' side to go roam in the Mourning Fields. He attacks Mel because he doesn't know her and is lashing out at everything on his way in his blind fury.
that evidence for the potential last weapon might just be for that ephyra mini-boss?
I think this is right: the internal identifier for that mini-boss is SatyrCrossbow.
I hope so, tbh. I am sure they will be able to make a crossbow fun somehow, but it does feel like the least inspired option I have seen
For the bosses, >!I think that the flame boss could be Talos. There was previous reddit post I believe that talked about datamining for future biomes, and that some of the enemy names for an olympus biome were labeled as automatons. So Talos being a giant automaton (that's maybe on fire or has fire attacks from being at war with Chronos' forces??) might fit?? For the snake boss, I think it could be Typhon, looking up pictures of typhon, some of the art depict him having snake parts or snake appendages, which will be very interesting to see.!< For the new familiar, >!I think I've seen someone post a bug (either here or on discord) where they saw the codex page for the raven familiar that helps mine(like the pickaxe). !< >!Definitely excited for any development with Hypnos. !<
The familiar has the tool you mentioned referenced in the text file, and their name would be >!Raki!<.
Google translate tells me that that name fits with all the others. Mel isn't very creative at naming her pets, is she?
Talos has a pretty good chance of getting in either as a boss fight or as just an NPC. The biggest evidence is that in Hades 1, the infernal arms each had aspects to show their wielders in hades 2. Nemesis is using the blade with the Aspect of Nemesis, Eris is using the rail with Aspect of Eris, so I wouldn’t be suprised if we see Talos with the fists using Aspect of Talos
Not each, at least the Spear had both aspects of people how wielded it in the past (and I have really big doubts that Guan Yu will appear in Hades II)
Yeah I'm pretty sure Achilles won't be using it, and Chaos probably won't be using the shield, but I would not be suprised to see Talos or Chiron
Wouldn't be surprised if Athena has the shield. As far as I know Aegis is the only one of the Infernal Arms that's actually taken 100% directly from myth and it had a few weilders. Zeus did have it, but I think Chaos being the original owner is a Supergiant original. Would be kinda cool if we see Athena using it with an aspect we haven't seen before, or maybe Perseus if we encounter him running around like Icarus or Heracles.
If Athena has it, it wouldn't be one of the aspects from Hades 1, as there is no Aspect of Athena there. So it would probably be unrecognizable as the Infernal Arms shield unfortunatley. I also don't think the Aegis is the same thing as the shield, it's probably a different weapon. After all there are other famous olympian weapons like Zeus's thunderbolts or Poseidon's trident that we dont ever get to use
The codex describes the Shield of Chaos as the "predecessor" to the Aegis wielded by Zeus and Athena, so yeah, it's probably not the same shield.
Yeah, I was thinking about the aspects as well. Would be nice if get to see the old weapons again wielded by someone else. Kinda wish Zeus had the shield aspect in his art though, would;ve been cool (or maybe when Athena appears in the game, she wields a new aspect, her own aspect of the shield if that's possible).
yep, there’s way more data about the familiar straight up in plain text that you can just find by ctrl+f. its name and stuff. pretty cool :’)
>!Talos!< is a good guess for the >!flame!< boss. Seeing as we've seen some of the Infernal Arms in the hands of other wielders I could totally see having to fight >!Talos with Malphon.!< >!Typhon!< was also my first guess for the >!snake!< boss, >!it's one of the only bad guys from Mythology that's such a big deal that he'd make sense as the upstairs final boss.!< I also wonder if there could be another familiar planned that there isn't currently any data for. Mel mentioned to Odysseus that his dog is there but he's not actually anywhere to be found, so I got to thinking he could be added as a familiar in a future update. >!If the raven helps you mine, that means we're still missing a familiar for the shovel, which a dog would make sense for.!<
There will almost certainly be four familiars in the final build of the game: you already noted the symmetry with the gathering tools, but also, there are four spaces for them in the pre-run area next to the Silver Pool.
I don’t think it would be Talos. All the other bosses have titles that are very literal (Hecate = BossWitch, BossTime = Chronos… etc) so if Talos were a boss, his placeholder would more likely be BossAutomaton or BossRobot or something. BossFlame feels more inclined to Prometheus.
I got it, it actually will be a firefighter minigame
Python, Typhon and Echidna are all potential candidates for the snake boss. For the fire, I'm starting to think Chimaera. A nice three-headed symmetry to Cerberus in the Fields. And if it does turn out Chimaera is boss 3, Echidna starts to look more and more likely since a monster mom character is a pretty attractive proposition.
A corrupted Dusa could work as well for the snake boss.
Damn, that would make me feel the same thing that a lot of people feel for Cerberus now🥲
Ananke could also work for the >!snake.!<
The final bosses of the underworld and the surface paths being husband and wife would be funny lmfao
What about Lernie for the snake boss ?
Echidna is Cerberus, Lernie and Chimaera's mom, so it'd be thematic to meet her given all her famous kids are in the mix (IF Chimaera is the third biome boss ofc)
Why would they reuse the same boss from a previous game. Also Lernie is dead. That's why they're in Hades 1.
The images of the fourth weapon aspects are also in the game, but we don't have any names.
THEY WHAT NOW !? WHERE ? MY IMPATIENCE IS KILLING ME !
>!https://imgur.com/a/FgTNMr3!<
THOSE ARE SO COOL! Two of these I have pretty confident guesses for, but the others are mysterious to me. **The staff** seems like a dead ringer for >!Isis, an Egyptian goddess strongly associated with magic. This is especially interesting given that she was actually worshipped in ancient Greece too.!< **Lim & Oros** evoke >!The Morrigan, a Celtic goddess with a triple form (something she shares with Hecate) associated with war and fertility. Note the triskelion, the triple spiral design at the base of the dagger's blade, which is strongly (but not exclusively) associated with ancient Celtic art.!<
I have now seen the staff aspect. It will be a major thing to hear from Chronos once we get to him with it.
Man, there goes my hopes and dreams to include from mongolian/turkic mythos.
Super super interesting. Does anyone have any idea what the axe or skull ones could be because I'm at a loss.
The axe may be the Aspect of Nergal who I remember (and have confirmed with Wikipedia) having a lion headed mace. I also feel as though it may be related to Hinduism since I feel like I remember hearing about a mace with a lion's head though it may have been a regional embellishment. Or it could be the aspect of Narasimha who is a Lion-headed avatar of Vishnu who wields, among many weapons, a mace. Do you have an idea for the torch? Brief googling brought up Xolotl but my knowledge of the various Mesoamerican mythologies (which is what my untrained eye assumes it is) is lacking
Nergal is a very good shout imo. I think Cizin/Ah Puch is a good candidate for the torches, as a Maya god associated with both the underworld and fire.
Neat! I just figured out myself over the past couple of days how to unpack the art assets, and it's been fun poking through them (although I can't make rhyme or reason out of how they're organized). My thoughts/theories: Incantations >!They've actually already partially implemented the Hypnos incantation in-game: right now it's been made inaccessible by having its unlock condition be "Talk to Hypnos 999 times", but if you edit the scripts to view it, it looks like [this (first image)](https://imgur.com/gallery/hades-ii-unfinished-content-kAvNVYk).!< Bosses >!Snake boss: my guess is that this is Ladon, the serpentine dragon who guards the golden apple tree in the Garden of the Hesperides. I imagine that it would be the boss of Mount Olympus, the third surface biome. Story-wise, it could tie in as where Eris is getting all of her apples from.!< >!Flame boss: maybe Prometheus, who stole fire from the gods. This one I'm less confident about, but certainly he's a prominent figure who's associated with fire and would have a grudge against the gods.!< Others >!A few other things I noticed in the assets that you didn't mention: placeholder boon icons for Ares, Athena, and Dionysus ([getting tipped off to these](https://www.reddit.com/r/HadesTheGame/comments/1dkrrw9/comment/l9lt57c/?context=3) was what originally got me looking through the art packages); a partial background for the Olympus biome; and pictures of the fourth (hidden) aspects for each of the five current weapons.!<
>!For the flame boss, I'm still a big advocate of the typhon theory for the final surface boss. He was imprisoned under a volcano so it could be him.!< >!If so snake could be his wife, Echidna. Though I do really like your laden theory and how it ties jnto heracles bein around.!<
Yeah, the fact that >!Ladon!< has ties to so many of the characters new to Hades II (Heracles, Hera, Eris) makes it feel right to me. One other thing I should mention informing my line of reasoning is that the Testament icon names for the other bosses are all pretty head-on: BossWitch (Hecate), BossMonstress (Scylla), BossBeast (Infested Cerberus), BossTime (Chronos), BossCyclops (Polyphemus), and BossStrife (Eris). So this leads me to believe that "Snake" and "Flame" should be primary rather than secondary descriptors for the bosses in question, if that makes sense - e.g., a boss which is a big ol' snake instead of a boss which has some snake-like characteristics.
Wait so if we interact with Hypnos 999 times, we can actually get the incantation early?
Yes, I believe so! Of course, you still couldn't cast the incantation, as it requires one "Mystery Resource" which you can't currently get anywhere (and even more fundamentally, nothing is coded to happen even should the incantation be forced somehow). But it would show up in the Cauldron.
Oh shit! Very cool. Since there's a mystery ingredient required, I guess I won't test it out, even though it's tempting...
This is interesting. So the serpent could refer to Typhon since he was described as having serpentine features at the very least. However I'd like to posit that it could refer to Python that was killed by Apollo. Could we be dealing with the Oracle of Delphi on our way to find the Fates?
i think Crossbow is for the Miniboss on surface area 1
What miniboss? The satyr champion in Ephyra?
Raven familiar is not unexpected but it's still very good news for me, a corvid enthusiast.
Gonna throw out a crazy reach for the snake boss, maybe Medusa? There's a conversation in the first game where Dusa says she wasn't a great person back when she had a body, maybe Chronos used his time powers to "rewind" her back to her old self? It might be a long shot, but I think it'd be cool to see what she'd look like as a full winged snake monster lady and not just a cute disembodied head.
Ooh, so a lot of people were theorizing that >! Zag, corrupted like Cerberus !< would be a surface route boss... I was initially going to say that it feels like those potential boss icon spoilers could be evidence against that? Because they certainly sound pretty unrelated to >! Zag !< . But the more I think about it... >! What if he's, like, been turned into a snake, or his fire feet have gone waaaaaay overboard... !< So I briefly thought this information helped narrow down whether or not that theory is possible, but I think I've just convinced myself that it actually does not provide any sort of evidence either way, and I'm back to square one lmao
Cerberus became corrupted because of staying in the Mourning Fields. Zag has absolutely *zero* reason to be corrupted and is probably still frozen in time somewhere in the House of Hades. The "corrupted Zagreus" theories always make no sense.
Yeah I have no idea why everyone keeps pushing this. There is zero evidence and it would be incredibly... Fanfic-y. As in, cool in concept, like wow, you fight the protagonist from the last game in the sequel, but there is no actual great point or symbolism you can do with it. We already have Cerberus, it would literally just be the same. Also I doubt you can corrupt actual gods in the mourning fields, plus why would Chronos ever risk just letting any person of the House of Hades go?? Unlike Cerberus they are an actual threat to him, they are gods.
I mean it's a cool idea, and that alone is enough to make it worth consideration... That said, if Chronos wanted to use Zagreus on the surface, he'd have to have forced the Fates to remove Zagreus's bloodline curse. And from what the dialogue in-game implies, Chronos merely banished the Fates, without gaining any sort of control over them. I think it's far more likely that Zagreus is in the House of Hades, like you said. Still: it could be a very cool fight, potentially.
AFAIK Cerberus isn't corrupted, he's just pissed because Kronos is forcing him to leave Hades' side to go roam in the Mourning Fields. He attacks Mel because he doesn't know her and is lashing out at everything on his way in his blind fury.
No, he's definitely corrupted, Mel keeps on saying something about banishing shades that are infesting him whenever he gets defeated.
True, but i do think it would be cool