Hades II is the current gold standard for the narrative roguelite. Most players who reach the end want more of at least one of its pieces. This list, from the team at Tyrian Games, is what to play next, organised by what you want more of. The game's full release landed 25 September 2025, and the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S launch arrived 14 April 2026, so a lot of new players are emerging from the game's content right now and looking for the next thing.
TL;DR
- Hades II sets a high bar for narrative roguelite, and twelve games continue the thread in different directions.
- Picks organised by what you specifically liked: combat, dialogue, boss fights, or the whole package.
- Top cross-cut pick for players who want grimdark after Hades II's Greek is HAWKER in September 2026.
- Supergiant's own back catalogue (Transistor, Pyre, Bastion) is the surest next purchase for pure dialogue density.
- If you loved the boss fights specifically, Sekiro remains the gold standard and Furi is the concentrated indie version.
If you want more of the combat
Dead Cells (Motion Twin, 2018). Tighter moment-to-moment combat than Hades II. Continued DLC support has kept it fresh through 2026, and the moveset variety across weapons rivals anything in the genre.
Curse of the Dead Gods (Passtech Games, 2021). Dungeon-crawl roguelite with a light-and-shadow mechanic. The corruption system creates a stress-like pressure Hades II doesn't attempt, and the combat is genuinely hard in a way that tests what you learned in Hades II.
Risk of Rain 2 (Hopoo Games, 2020). Third-person combat with an endless-scaling loop. The difficulty curve is one of the best in the genre, and the sense of escalation as you stack items is distinctive.
If you want more of the dialogue
Disco Elysium (ZA/UM, 2019). The dialogue-heaviest game on Steam, and probably the high-water mark for written dialogue in any video game of the 2010s. Not a roguelite. Still mandatory if you loved the Hades II dialogue specifically.
Griftlands (Klei Entertainment, 2021). Card roguelite built around negotiation dialogue. Three distinct protagonists with full arcs, and Klei's writing stands up to anything Supergiant produced.
Wildermyth (Worldwalker Games, 2019). Tactics-RPG with procedurally-generated story threads. The character-generation system creates emergent dialogue and narrative that's unlike anything Supergiant does, and it scales across decades of in-game time.
If you want more of the boss fights
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (FromSoftware, 2019). Different genre, best boss design in games. If Hades II's boss encounters were your favourite part, Sekiro is the single most rewarding purchase on this list.
Furi (The Game Bakers, 2016). Boss-rush with no filler. Under ten hours, entirely boss fights, and the rhythm is closer to Hades II's big encounters than almost anything else available.
If you want the whole package
Hades (Supergiant Games, 2020). If you somehow haven't played the original, start here. Shorter than Hades II, tighter, and the template the sequel iterates on.
Transistor (Supergiant Games, 2014). Earlier Supergiant. Beautiful, strange, and still one of the studio's best-written games despite being overshadowed by Bastion and Hades.
Pyre (Supergiant Games, 2017). Underrated Supergiant RPG. The ritual-combat system is unlike anything else in the studio's catalogue, and the narrative stakes around the companion characters deserve more attention than the game received at launch.
If you want something darker
HAWKER (Tyrian Games, September 2026). Grimdark shopkeeper roguelite. Not Greek mythology. Breton-inflected duchy with a thirty-day Ankou debt. For Hades II players who want to stay in the narrative-roguelite register but shift from chthonic-beautiful to grim-patient. The Ink-driven dialogue is built to give Hades II fans the memory-and-specificity texture they loved, in a different key. Wishlist on Steam.
A first-hand Hawker example
One of the specific things we carried into Hawker from Hades II was the rhythm of return to the hub. Every Hades II run ends with Melinoë arriving at the Crossroads, where the characters have something specific to say about what just happened. The moment of return is almost as load-bearing as the run itself. It's where the narrative resets and re-primes for the next attempt.
Our first Hawker prototype had a weaker return rhythm. The Hawker came home, unloaded his cart, and the shop opened. Fine but flat. Playtesters came back to the caravan as if returning to a loading screen.
We rebuilt the return in mid-2025 with Hades II in mind. Now when the Hawker returns after nightfall, specific NPCs have a one-line reaction pegged to what actually happened on the run. Did you clear the second biome? A character notices. Did you come home short? A different character notices. Did Ramzel see you? Someone comments.
None of the lines are long. The rhythm is. Hades II's Skelly comments, Megaera's comments, and Thanatos' pauses all serve to make returning feel like coming home, not like hitting a checkpoint. We borrowed that rhythm directly, with the caveat that our scale is smaller because our roster is smaller. The playtest response improved the moment we shipped the rebuild, and we credit Supergiant's writers specifically for showing the genre what the return beat can carry.
FAQ
Is Hades II fully released?
Yes. Full release on Nintendo Switch, Switch 2, and Windows on 25 September 2025. PS5 and Xbox Series X/S on 14 April 2026. Supergiant continues to add content post-launch.
What's the closest game to Hades II?
The original Hades, then anything else Supergiant has made, specifically Transistor and Pyre.
Is HAWKER like Hades?
Structurally adjacent. Both narrative roguelites with rich dialogue. HAWKER is grimdark rather than mythic, and the daily loop is shop plus combat rather than pure combat.
Best narrative roguelite after Hades II?
Griftlands for dialogue, HAWKER in September 2026 for grimdark, Wildermyth for procedural narrative, Slay the Spire for pure mechanics.
How long is Hades II?
40 to 80 hours for the main content. Completionist runs can double that, particularly with post-launch content updates.
How Hades II's post-launch content will reshape the follow-up question
A short observation for planning purposes. Supergiant's post-launch content approach with the original Hades added significant material across 2020 and 2021. Hades II is likely to follow the same pattern, which means this list will need updating across 2026 and 2027 as new Hades II content lands. Players who finish the current Hades II content in mid-2026 may find themselves back in Hades II within a few months as new updates drop, which changes the follow-up question from "what do I play after" to "what do I play between Hades II updates."
For players in that mode, the shorter games on this list become more valuable. Slay the Spire, Citizen Sleeper, Into the Breach, and similarly-sized indies are good Hades II bridge-games. They satisfy the itch without requiring a major time commitment before the next Hades II content lands.
The dialogue-density ceiling
One more observation about Hades II specifically. The game's dialogue density sets a ceiling that most indie narrative roguelites won't hit, because most indie studios don't have the writer-count and voice-acting budget to produce thousands of conditional lines. Readers of this list looking for "more dialogue density" should temper expectations. HAWKER has Hawker-scale density, which is smaller than Supergiant-scale density. No indie outside Supergiant's production budget will match Hades II on this axis specifically. The games that compensate do so through narrative depth rather than breadth, which is a different trade and a valid one.
Extended genre notes
Worth naming a few observations about the broader indie gaming landscape this category sits in across 2026. The indie market has grown significantly since 2020, with Steam alone now publishing thousands of titles per year. Discovery is the category's biggest challenge, not production. Most players find new games through a combination of algorithmic recommendation, word of mouth, and curated lists like this one.
The 2026 commercial story for the category favours studios that ship with clear positioning rather than studios that ship as genre-default entries. A game that knows who it's for tends to find its audience even at small scale. A game that hopes to be liked by everyone often ends up being recommended by no-one. HAWKER's positioning (grimdark shopkeeper roguelite, Breton folklore, thirty-day clock) is deliberately narrow because narrow positioning travels better than broad positioning in 2026's crowded indie market.
The audience for this category tends to cross generational lines. Players who grew up on 1990s PC games, players who came in through the 2010s indie boom, and players new to indies through 2020s word-of-mouth are all represented. The category isn't age-coded the way some indie genres are, which means studios can build for breadth rather than specific cohorts.
Practical buying advice
If you're using this list to build a reading-and-playing library, a few practical suggestions. Most of the games mentioned go on Steam sale at least twice a year, often at 50 percent or more off. Adding them to your wishlist and waiting for the next sale is usually the most cost-efficient approach. Many of the older entries are cheap year-round. The newer ones often go on sale first during Steam's summer or winter sales. HAWKER's Early Access price is below the planned full-release price, which is standard indie practice.
If you play on handheld (Steam Deck, Switch 2, ROG Ally) most of the games above run well on these platforms. The category tends to be performance-friendly because the production values prioritise tone over graphical fidelity. This is worth knowing because category fans often play across multiple platforms.
For readers who want to go deeper
A closing note for curious readers. Every category above has subcategories we didn't fully explore in this piece, because an individual article can't be everything. If a specific entry hooked you, most of the games in this piece have dedicated communities, Subreddits, Discord servers, and developer blogs worth finding. The wider indie gaming press, including Rock Paper Shotgun, PC Gamer, Eurogamer, and Polygon, often does deeper coverage on individual games than a cross-category list can.
For players using this piece as a buying guide, the sales cadence on Steam is predictable. Summer and winter sales are the biggest. Smaller themed sales happen throughout the year. Most of the games mentioned have dropped to 50 percent off or more at least once across 2024 to 2026. Wishlisting the games that interest you is how you'll catch the right sale for the right game. Save HAWKER to your wishlist while you're at it if the grimdark shopkeeper roguelite angle interests you.
For developers reading this piece, the practical takeaway is that the category rewards specific positioning more than broad appeal. Every successful entry above knows exactly who it's for. Studios that try to hit multiple audiences with a single game usually hit none of them. Pick a specific shape, commit to it, and ship the version that audience wants rather than the version you hope will please everyone.
Spoiler wall
Everything above keeps Hawker at the level of systems and tone. The caravan return rhythm, Ramzel at the demo boundary, and the Ink-driven NPC memory are all shown in our trailers. Specific late-game NPC arcs sit behind this wall.
Closing
Hades II is a long, deep game, and you can lose a full year to it. When you're ready to emerge, the twelve above are your next stops.
Next read: Narrative roguelites after Hades, or Games like Hades II.
Further reading
For related context see what is a shopkeeper roguelite.