The Two Paths and Their Regions

The folded map of Hades II, the four descent regions and the four ascent regions in order, with their guardians, hazards, and which reagents come from where.

Hades II runs in two directions. The descent is the path you start with: Melinoë fights down through the Underworld toward Chronos. The ascent is the surface campaign, unlocked partway through, where she climbs from the mortal city of Ephyra up to Mount Olympus to deal with Typhon. You alternate between the two over many runs, and each has its own ordered list of four regions, its own guardian at the end of each region, and its own set of crafting reagents. This is the one page that lays the whole map out in order, so you can plan which path to take for the materials you need.

The descent, region by region

The Underworld path is the primary campaign and the route most early runs take. You clear a region’s rooms, beat its guardian, and drop into the next.

#	Region	Guardian	Notes and hazards
1	Erebus	Headmistress Hecate	Starting region. Source of Nightshade seeds and Moly (found when it is not raining).
2	Oceanus	Scylla and the Sirens	Watery region. Narcissus, an NPC here, can give Silver.
3	Fields of Mourning	Cerberus	Fast, dangerous enemies. Source of Glassrock.
4	Tartarus	Chronos	The final descent region, the fortress of Chronos.

Erebus is where the game teaches its systems, and Hecate at the bottom of it is the wall every new run has to clear. Oceanus opens up the water and Scylla, a three-versus-one fight against the sea monster and her two siren bandmates. The Fields of Mourning throws faster, more aggressive enemies at you before Cerberus. Tartarus is the end of the line, where Chronos waits in two phases.

The ascent, region by region

The surface path unlocks after you have made progress on the descent. Hermes recruits you to it by way of a stairway in the Crossroads.

#	Region	Guardian	Notes and hazards
1	City of Ephyra	Polyphemus	The mortal city. Source of Bronze.
2	Rift of Thessaly	Eris	The mid-surface region.
3	Mount Olympus	Prometheus	The climb toward the gods. Source of Adamant from Outcroppings.
4	The Summit	Typhon	The final surface area.

The ascent ladder runs Polyphemus the Cyclops, then Eris the personification of Strife, then Prometheus on Olympus, and finally Typhon at the Summit. You cannot reach the surface bosses until the descent has unlocked the path, so the two ladders gate against each other rather than running in parallel from the start.

Plan a run around the reagent you are short on, not just the boss you want to beat. Cinder comes only from Hecate in Erebus, Glassrock only from the Fields of Mourning, Bronze only from Ephyra, and Adamant only from Mount Olympus. If a weapon you want is blocked on one material, the region that drops it dictates which path you take that night.

Where the reagents come from

Each region is also a supply line. The weapon-crafting reagents are tied to specific places, and knowing the map means knowing your shopping route.

Silver: gathered with the Crescent Pick from crescent-moon clusters across regions, plus some from Narcissus in Oceanus.
Cinder: one per run from defeating Hecate in Erebus.
Glassrock: found in the Fields of Mourning, past Scylla.
Bronze: found in the City of Ephyra on the surface, after you unlock the ascent.
Adamant: gathered with the Crescent Pick from Outcroppings in Mount Olympus.

Bring the right gathering tool for the region you are entering, because a Crescent Pick run through Oceanus or Olympus banks materials toward the weapons and unlocks you are chasing. The full picture of what each material does lives on the resources page.

How the regions shape a run

Region depth scales the difficulty: trash enemies and minibosses get tougher the deeper you go, and each guardian is a sharper test than the last. The reward icon for the next room shows before you enter it, so you route through a region by reading those icons and steering toward the boons, Hexes, or reagents your run needs. The Oath of the Unseen layers extra modifiers on top, changing enemies and boss encounters as you raise the difficulty for better rewards.