Hades expert is the first to defeat the ‘impossible’ max-heat run

pcgamesn.com:

Hades expert Jade ‘AngeL1C’ has just made history by becoming the first Hades player to beat the game on its hardest setting with no mods or prior seeding – a challenge that was previously considered to be basically impossible. The incredible roguelike game took over when it was released in September 2020 following two years in early access, and ever since then its top players have been striving to defeat its ultimate challenge.

Just over a week ago, Hades YouTuber and Twitch streamer Dan ‘Haelian’ posted a video titled, “Why no one has beaten the max heat in Hades or probably ever will.” He explains why the challenge of completing a run with every single ‘heat’ modifier – the game’s way of ramping up the challenge with additional difficulty settings – enabled has long been considered to be impossible.

In order to hit the maximum tier, enemies are stronger, faster, deal more damage, and appear in greater numbers, while every boss appears in a powered-up state with new, more dangerous moves. Meanwhile, the player has access to none of the incredibly powerful Mirror Talents that make Zagreus stronger, only gets one random Boon option instead of a choice of three with each pickup, has to sacrifice a Boon after each region, and must play on Hell mode (meaning you lose Zag’s temporary invulnerability after getting hit, opening you up to burst damage). Oh, and you only have five minutes per area, for a total of 20 to beat the run.

That by itself puts the run out of the reach of most players, with even the top names generally considering pushing above 60 heat to be an unreasonable challenge. However, Hades is a roguelike game where your upgrades appear at random – something further exacerbated because of the ‘Approval