Hades is finally available on Nintendo Switch and PC, and several players will be diving into the underworld for the first time with the 1.0 release. With an influx of new players, people are sure to have tons of questions about the game’s complexities, including Hell Mode. Hell Mode is an option presented to you upon creating a new Hades save file, and it’s essentially a harder difficulty for veteran players. There are other changes and tweaks as well, but on the whole, it’s just a harder experience for Hades players who really want to challenge themselves. Here’s everything you need to know about Hell Mode in Hades.
Hades Hell Mode Explained
The main difference between Hell Mode and the standard difficulty is the Pact of Punishment. In the standard mode, the Pact of Punishment is only active after defeating the final boss, while the Pact is active from the very beginning in Hell Mode. The Pact of Punishment makes the game much harder and adds several modifiers that make the experience more punishing. There are 15 modifiers normally on the Pact of Punishment, but Hell Mode includes a bonus 16th modifier called Personal Liability. When playing on this harder mode, there are 5 mandatory Pact of Punishment modifiers that are active all the time. You can see every mandatory Pact of Punishment modifier below.
| Condition | Description |
|---|---|
| Hard Labor | Each rank makes your foes deal +25% damage. |
| Jury Summons | Each rank makes you face +20% additional enemies in standard Encounters. |
| Calisthenics Program | Each rank gives your foes +15% Health to their Life Total. |
| Lasting Consequences | Each rank makes any sources of Health restoration less effective by -25%. |
| Personal Liability | Each rank reduces the damage threshold at which you briefly turn impervious by +100%. |
You can increase the intensity of these modifiers by increasing their rank, but you’re only required to keep them at rank 1. The other modifiers from the Pact of Punishment are also available for selection, but they remain optional like they normally are in the standard difficulty mode. If you want a harder Hades experience right off the bat, then you may want to choose Hell Mode when you start and turn up a few of the modifiers.
