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As I lost my grip on reality over the past year, I found comfort in virtual ones.
For the first time since my teens, I was playing Nintendo.
The structure is straightforward: Theres a beginning and an alleged end when you reach the surface.
Its fast and difficult, and I was terrible at it.
I texted my friends beseeching them for their help:Help!They lobbed benign platitudes like Keep trying!
and It gets better!
I died and died and died in both new and familiar ways in aGroundhog Dayreprise.
I learned to take pleasure in the repetition.Hadesoffered a different form of solace.
It was affirmation, not wish fulfillment: We were in hell, and there was no escape.
Yes, you return to the starting line, but a narrative arc also forms.
This is how you get through this game, adds Greg Kasavin, the creative director.
You didnt screw up, you didnt do something bad.
Indeed, itdoesget better.
Still, as Zagreus gets stronger, so do you.
I learned not to stand in lava, for instance.
You carry forward your knowledge, says Kasavin.
You are no longer the same person when you have another go.
Of course, what an endless loop of death begins to resemble is life itself.
The structure of the game remains the same and yet your motivations for playing begin to change.
Then the story opened up more.
You reunite only to discover that you cant survive for long in the surface world.
You die, again.
Endings, rather elegantly, simply become new beginnings.
The game has the aesthetic and charm of a sardonic graphic novel.
You meet other characters along your journeys through the planes of death and can choose to help them.
Hadeshas multiple endings but, also, none at all.
Theres an endless number of things to do: the minutiae of everyday life.
Its a paradox, right?
How do you end something that can keep going forever?
The real mythological forebear ofHadesis not any of the Greek gods but really Sisyphus and his boulder.
The task of pushing up the boulder has not changed, but he seems to enjoy it.
Drudgery is daily practice.
