Hades 2: How To Unlock The Ward To The Surface
One particularly bulky feature to unlock is an entirely separate route to the usual path through the underworld towards Tartarus and Chronos. At the Crossroads Training Grounds, a path to the surface beckons you - but it is sealed with a devilish ward that must be broken. Thankfully, it only takes a little effort.
Hades 2 is currently in Early Access , which means the details below are subject to changes over the course of development.
How To Break The Surface Ward
A key aspect to the breaking of the surface ward spell is to progress the game's story. This will involve meeting and talking to many different characters whenever you have the opportunity to do so. Of note are the Olympians who offer you boons, Hecate at the Crossroads and during her boss fight, and Chaos, a very powerful and important character.
Eventually, you'll start hearing more and more about the Olympians' plight and how their side of the war is going. This will convince Melinoe to play a role in the surface battles herself.
You will eventually unlock the Incantation Permeation of Witching-Wards. Casting this will remove the ward on the staircase to the surface. It requires the following reagents:
Fate Fabric is obtained from the Wretched Broker and sometimes offered to you by Arachne. You can also obtain it from some Fated List rewards.
The key step here is to unlock the Shadow recipe obtained from a conversation with Chaos. Make sure you're always taking Chaos Gates when they appear during a run.
Once you break the ward, you can head to the surface. However, you'll find that you have a curse that makes it impossible to survive the air up there.
How To Survive On The Surface
After attempting to survive up on the surface, you'll need to keep talking to every character you encounter to find a solution to this. Again, the key conversation is one with Chaos, who will tell you of the curse and provide you with a possible solution: another Incantation, this time, Unraveling a Fateful Bond.
This new Incantation requires the following reagents:You will need to use the Silver Spade to acquire the Nightshade Seeds and Origin Seeds.
Once you cast this Incantation, Melinoe will be immune to the familial curse that kills her quickly whenever she travels to the surface. This will unlock the surface route as a viable alternative to the underworld route.
While the underworld route is currently complete, the surface route has yet to be finished . There are two full regions to explore at the moment, but the run will end after beating the second boss.
It is important to note that the surface route provides a far more difficult challenge than the underworld route. The two regions are nothing like you're used to - the City of Ephyra presents you with all of your potential prizes at once and it's important to strategise to pick them in the right order, and the Rift of Thessaly will pit you against multiple battles with no rewards that take place in cramped arenas.
For these reasons, it's a good idea to make sure your upgrades are well looked after before taking the upper path to the surface. That said, the resources you will find up there are crucial to your progression, so don't put it off forever!
