Hades player completes ‘impossible’ run with only 0.41% chance of success

In an act that seemingly defies the will of the gaming gods themselves, a speedrunner has completed one of the most technically and statistically improbable runs in history. underworld. The race – which was a 64 Heat race on an unmodified, unseeded version of the game – was previously declared by some community members to be “impossible” because the chances of casting the right combination of powers are so low and the technical ability required is so high. Or at least it seemed so.

In underworld, you play as Zagreus, the son of the god of the underworld. As Zagreus, you fight your way through a series of dungeon chambers in order to escape your father and Hell itself. As the game progresses, players can tinker with the difficulty by choosing various combat modifiers; someone less familiar with an action fighting game can experiment underworld in a variety of ways suited to their abilities and preferences. On the other hand, the developers have also given players the option to increase the difficulty to almost impossible levels.

One way to do this is through the Heat tier, which imposes certain pacts of punishment on Zagreus that increase the difficulty of the game. additional challenges and nerfs to Zagreus. Some examples of additional challenges include no healing, enemies hitting 100% harder, and enemies moving and attacking 40% faster. Additionally, Zagreus does not receive any revives, so any damage you take is essentially permanent.

underworld is a rogue-like game, so every time Zagreus dies he has to start his escape from the beginning again, which means players will repeat the same series of dungeons over and over, collecting power-ups and learning more each time . A big part of what keeps the gameplay varied and interesting is that each runthrough features different modifiers and builds; Zagreus will be given different power-ups, called Boons, by other gods and allies who sympathize with his escape attempts. This variation is what makes replaying the same dungeons so enjoyable time after time, but it’s also what makes Heat 64 so difficult.

As YouTuber Haelian explained in a video essay, some pacts impose limits that essentially require Zagreus to receive specific boons in order to succeed. The tight time limit condition puts a time limit on each piece, so you need specific bonuses that help deal enough damage to complete each challenge within the time limit.

With a condition called Approval Process enabled, you cannot choose which powerup Zagreus gets from a restricted list. This means you need to be lucky enough to roll the right bonuses to complete the challenge. According to Haelian’s estimates, a player has about a 0.41% chance of receiving the first two basic powers needed to complete the race. If we take into account the chances of also receiving another source of damage which is really useful but maybe not necessary, the chances are 1 in 1,700.

Image: Supergiant Games via Polygon

Then, on Wednesday, a underworld speedrunner named Jade shared a video completing the run in its entirety. Not only did she land the perfect attacks in order to finish the race, but she was gifted with a reasonable fight against the final boss Hades. And she accomplished it on the first day, hours after attempting the race.

“I didn’t really believe it while it was happening,” Jade told Polygon via Discord. She’s been running high-difficulty Hades races for two and a half years and has around 3,000 hours of gameplay in total. Yet she didn’t even expect to take on this challenge. Before that, she completed a modified run that guarantees the right benefits and tried that run to get a feel for the challenge.

“Even in the end, Hades can spawn multiple mini-bosses, basically as additional enemies to help him out in the first phase. If you bypass all RNG factors but that, you still lose the race. Just at the end. It can be heartbreaking, which didn’t happen to me. I got basically an average result, which was pretty good.

The feat is extremely impressive. Not just because of the technical marvel of combat on display, but for the combination of luck and determination to make the build work. In my years of game coverage I’ve talked to dedicated gamers who’ve been grinding games for years in hopes of finding a super rare Pokemon or people who scour games for the good bugs, but getting that right is like a mix of all kinds of luck and skill.

And while it’s a feat that represents the immense accomplishment of just one person, Jade highlighted how the greatest underworld the speedrun community means to her.

“I would also like to warmly thank the underworld speedrun community for all the love and support over the past two and a half years. Their knowledge, their motivation, like everything you could think of, really comes from them. […] There are no more emotions to describe what I feel. I’m so happy to have had the honor of being part of both this community and the story of this game.”