Last year at the Game Awards, Indie developer Supergiant Games revealed its next title, Hades II. The sequel stars Melinoë, the immortal Princess of the Underworld, as she ventures to save her father Hades from Cronus, the Titan of Time. In its initial reveal, Supergiant Games announced that Hades II would also be released in Early Access like its predecessor, with more details expected to be shared sometime in 2023. Now, Supergiant Games has provided an update and announced that Hades II will be going into Early Access in Q2 2024.

HADES II Development Update! 💀🌒🌕🌘💀

We’ve been making steady progress since our reveal at The Game Awards, and getting close to an Early Access launch some months from now, in Q2 2024.

More details and answers to your questions here:https://t.co/qioX4wKUuU pic.twitter.com/GomZuQLPyF

— Supergiant Games (@SupergiantGames) September 14, 2023

In a blog post, Supergiant Games said “Thank you for your patience as we gear up for this launch! You may be wondering, why can’t we launch in Early Access, like, right now?! The game looked pretty far along in the first trailer! The reason is, Hades II will have at least as much content from day one in Early Access as the original game did back when it launched in Early Access on Steam. And, even though Early Access inherently means a game is not yet complete, we still want to do everything we can to make sure Hades II is worth your while as soon as you can play it in any capacity.”

Supergiant Games also announced that a technical test will be run with a limited sample of players. This will also take place in Q2 2024 prior to the game launching into Early Access. The technical test will contain much less content than what will be available in the Early Access launch, and likely be limited only to a relatively small subset of players who express interest in participating. The purpose of it is to find and solve any technical or compatibility issues that may have been missed. More details about the technical test will be announced closer to when it’s ready.

Going into more detail as to why the sequel is also going into Early Access, Supergiant Games said that Early Access was vitally important to the entire idea behind the original Hades. They believed that going into Early Access with Hades II will be no less important this time, but they have the benefit of going through it before, so they know more about what to expect from developing in Early Access as well as what a Hades game needs to be. “We believe the timeframe we’re planning for will be the “sweet spot” where the game is far enough along that player feedback won’t mostly consist of stuff we already know isn’t there yet, but isn’t so far along that it’s too late in development for us to act on the feedback we receive,” Supergiant Games said.

Like the first game in Early Access, Hades II will have several Major Updates adding the rest of the game’s core content and refining what’s there based on player feedback. The story will expand with each update, introducing more characters, and deepening relationships with existing ones. This will lead to the v1.0 launch which will feature the conclusion to the story and any other finishing touches.