Surprise! Hades 2 is finally here and playable. Supergiant's hack-and-slash, flirt-with-gods roguelike is a brief technical test away from its Steam early access debut. I've slashed my way through its opening area and first boss and now I need more. Even though it's clearly in an unfinished state, it's good. Like, really good.

A small part of me was a little hesitant to see Supergiant do its first direct sequel. Every game since 2011's Bastion has taken us to completely different worlds with new approaches to combat. I wasn't even a huge fan of Pyre, but I respect any game that is brave enough to mix strategic action with sports game elements à la NBA Jam. Bastion was my favorite until Hades grabbed that torch and brought it into the realm of a roguelike action game wrapped in a story about a family of Greek gods and goddesses.

After playing a few hours of Hades 2, that small part of me has been proven wrong. The world absolutely needed another Hades, and Supergiant is already pushing the first game's satisfying loop even further than before.

Zagreus and the rest of his family are gone. In Hades 2, you play as Melinoë, his staunch young sister, as she descends into the underworld hunting for Chronos, the Titan of Time. Melinoë is just as pissed off as Zagreus—you can press a button to brood after every run—but has a much stronger command over combat from the start.

Although her basic movement mirrors Zagreus' (plus the ability to sprint), her attacks can be modified for different effects using a new magick resource. With the Witch's Staff equipped, you can hold the button for a special attack to transform it from a bolt of energy into a big bubble that explodes on impact. The risk, of course, is the time it takes to charge it up. Her cast ability normally drops a circle on the floor that roots enemies in place, but holding it down causes it to also deal a chunk of damage as it expires.

Hades 2 technical test"

You can't play Melinoë exactly like Zagreus because the creatures you face are nastier than the ones I remember in Hades' first area. Stages fill up with ghosts spewing projectiles and launching fists at you quickly and the only way to manage it all is to prioritize the most dangerous ones. It's easy enough to dart between them in the early sections using her dodge (which leaves a streak of stars that retracts to visually communicate its short cooldown), but once the enemies get armor on top of their health, you have to carefully look for openings in their barrage of attacks.

Boons are back and can modify each layer of Melinoë's abilities just as they did for Zagreus. Poseidon—who still has extreme uncle energy, don't worry—turned my sprint into a tidal wave that crushed enemies as I ran into them for a small magick cost. I wasn't able to pick up Apollo's boon that restores magick while you stand in your ensnaring circle in the same run, but my build-obsessed brain has already started to connect the dots. My splashy sprint still synergized with a second boon that made my circle move with me, locking enemies in my path.

Just like the original game, you're going to die a lot. But don't worry, that's your ticket into the other half of the Hades experience: the chance to speak to more unbelievably hot gods and maybe even romance them. Each death sends you into The Crossroads, an outdoor hub with characters who will help you unpack what happened in the time between Hades 2 and the original Hades.

Hecate, who, by the way, is voiced by Baldur's Gate 3's Amelia Tyler, has already claimed first place for best new character for me. She's a tall mean witch with a set of chiseled abs out there on full display. After one of my runs, I got a peek under her shell during a flashback sequence where she teases a young Melinoë as they play hide-and-seek. That Hecate seems to be gone and replaced with a mentor figure who needs to see her apprentice succeed where she failed. Which is why, I imagine, she steps in as the game's first boss to make sure you're ready for what lies ahead. Surely placing massive expectations on your adopted child won't have any consequences down the line. Surely.

Also in The Crossroads is a big cauldron for brewing up incantations using materials you find on each run. There are flowers to pick and metals to mine that are used to unlock new weapons, equip passive bonuses for each run, and invite new NPCs to The Crossroads. I made myself a pickaxe for mining, started a little garden for growing plant materials, and revealed an arcana card that healed me every time I entered a new stage. Even though you're supposed to be after Chronos, you're encouraged to spend a few runs gathering materials for upgrades that will make your life a little easier. Oh and God Mode is back if you'd prefer to gain damage resistance after each death to focus on seeing the story.

It's all here. Supergiant has honed its ability to quickly hook you into its story and dangle exciting reasons to jump back into a run as it did in the first Hades. It's going to make it extremely hard to wait out its early access period.

I knew Hades 2 had me firmly in its grip when I swapped to Melinoë's dual-wielded blades over the staff. Going from long-range jabs to quick swipes and a special held-down attack that teleports you behind enemies was like playing a new class in an RPG—just like the original game's arsenal of weapons. Hestia's boon infused them with flame and suddenly every enemy I hit would melt from powerful ticks of damage while I was on the other side of the screen. That run didn't go particularly well, but I felt the intense pull to do it all again just to see what other kinds of powers I could combine. In other words: it's over for me.

You can sign up for Hades 2's technical test on its Steam page right now, and Supergiant says its early access launch is very soon.

The Sims isn't the only PC life simulation game in town anymore. Dozens of smaller, more focused life sims have appeared in the years since Stardew Valley took off, and now upcoming Sims competitors like Paralives and Life by You are aiming for the same kind of broad home, relationship, family, and career simulation that EA's 24-year-old Sims series is synonymous with.

Life by You director Rod Humble, who was the head of The Sims series for several years in the 2000s, thinks the fundamental inclusivity of the life sim genre is responsible for its growth.

"The reason that life simulation is so big, and I think it's going to get bigger, is that it's an inclusive game genre that anybody can use to tell stories that are rooted in real life," said Humble in a recent interview with PC Gamer. 

Humble, whose game credits date back to the early '90s, says he prefers working on sims to games with authored stories because the latter are "exclusionary" by nature. "Who is the lead character? What is their gender? What is their skin tone? What is their age? All of a sudden, I'm just cutting people out," he said.

Designing a simulation like Life by You, on the other hand, is "always inclusionary," says Humble. "It's like, how do we extend the magic circle to this colleague who has this worldview and who wants to make sure that they can play that worldview or play that style within our game? And it's an absolute blast."

It's also a huge undertaking, which is perhaps why there haven't been a ton of Sims competitors. There's really no more ambitious genre name than "life sim," and although Life by You doesn't make it all the way down to cellular biology, it aims to simulate quite a lot. At a high level, you can "drag, demolish, and rearrange entire towns," and at its most granular, you can decide what a certain character says to another character in a particular moment, writing a live play (or soap opera, if you prefer) as you go.

Since any aspect of living—say, learning to knit—is fair game, Life by You developer Paradox Tectonic has a big to-do list, but the scope is what makes building life sims "so much pure joy," says Humble. Because everyone at the studio is an expert in life, everyone gets to contribute design ideas. And since players (should) know something about being alive, life sims can be complex without requiring a lot of instruction to pick up.

"I think people who don't play life simulators perhaps don't understand that these are also the most complex RPGs ever written, as well as being some of the most complex crafting games ever written, as well as being the most complex behavioral AI systems ever written," said Humble. "But the reason I think that they are so popular is that even though they're that complex, they are relatable, and you don't need a tutorial."

Making way for mods

Life by You won't have all its planned features when it releases in early access this June—Humble doesn't think its babies are quite cute enough for launch, for instance—but it's designed to be heavily customizable and moddable, which is really its ultimate expression of inclusivity. 

Aiming for total inclusivity comes with trade-offs. Life by You's characters are stylistically bland on purpose, for instance, so that modders don't have to mimic a distinct art style to add hairstyles, clothes, and accessories—a divide in The Sims modding separates "Maxis Match" and realistic "Alpha" content. Life by You's American suburban architecture will also be the target of much modding, I expect, as players add more diverse styles to the construction toolbox, and Paradox Tectonic will have to be careful that its official updates don't break the modding community's work.

Humble isn't shy about what's really likely to be the most popular mod category, either, and encourages players to explore sexuality or whatever else they want to in Life by You. So that players feel secure in their privacy, the studio has chosen not to include data collection systems in Life by You, which many other developers use to help them understand player behavior and prioritize fixes and updates.

"People around the world often use life sims to explore, for example, their sexuality," Humble told me in an interview last year. "Like, hey, how would it feel to have kids, or to date a guy or a girl? So it's very important for this community, in this day and age, to know that this is a private experience. There's no in-game telemetry gathering data that could, for example, go to a hostile government."

Life by You releases in early access on June 4—it's on Steam and the Epic Games Store. For more on Paradox Tectonic's comprehensive approach to life simulation, the developer has published a few feature deep dives on its blog and YouTube channel.  We also spoke to Humble in a little more depth about how Life by You will support modders.