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Hades II has the better soundtrack overall if you want the broader, more varied listen. Supergiant Games describes it as a score running just under four hours, with music shaped around more characters, locations and set pieces, including the glam-rock Scylla and Sirens encounter. The original Hades remains the stronger pick for a compact, highly cohesive album whose songs benefit from Darren Korb and Ashley Barrett’s immediately recognizable vocal identity.
That is a judgment about documented scope, credits and musical concepts—not an objective ranking published by Supergiant. The right choice depends on whether you value variety across repeated runs or a shorter album with unusually concentrated song impact.
| # | Preview | Product | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |
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Hades - Nintendo Switch | $59.47 | Buy on Amazon |
| 2 |
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Hades II - Nintendo Switch™ 2 Edition | $49.94 | Buy on Amazon |
| 3 |
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Hades Limited Edition (Nintendo Switch) | $62.00 | Buy on Amazon |
| 4 |
![- Hades - [PlayStation 5]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51fwy58kArL._SL160_.jpg)
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- Hades - [PlayStation 5] | $26.28 | Buy on Amazon |
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Hades vs. Hades II soundtrack: the short answer
| What you value | Better fit | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Broader palette and more musical situations | Hades II | Its completed score is just under four hours and was designed around a larger range of characters, environments and set pieces. |
| One tightly focused album | Hades | Its official soundtrack is two and a half hours, making it a more concentrated listen from beginning to end. |
| The Korb/Barrett vocal combination | Hades (for the most concentrated impact) | Darren Korb composes both games and Ashley Barrett contributes vocals to both, but the original’s shorter format makes that established pairing feel especially central. |
| New vocal color | Hades II | Judy Alice Lee is featured on “Moonlight Guide Us,” adding another prominent voice to the sequel’s palette. |
| Music that changes with the world and encounters | Hades II | Supergiant creative director Greg Kasavin has described musical variety as a way to make locations distinctive, with Scylla and the Sirens developed as a collaborative musical concept. |
If you are buying only one soundtrack, choose Hades II for breadth and novelty, or Hades for cohesion and vocal-song memorability.
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Hades: two and a half hours
Supergiant’s 2019 storefront description calls the Hades Original Soundtrack “two and a half hours of blood-pumping music created exclusively for our god-like rogue-like dungeon crawler.” That is an official album-length description, not a claim about the amount of music a particular player hears during a run.
#1 Best Overall
- Battle out of hell in Hades, recipient of more than 50 Game of the Year awards
- Includes a download code for the Hades Original Soundtrack, by composer Darren Korb, best known for his work on developer Supergiant's past titles like Transistor and Bastion.
- Also includes a full-color 32-page character compendium booklet, featuring beautiful artwork of the game's colorful cast of gods, ghosts, and monsters, all by Supergiant's art director Jen Zee.
- Defy the god of the dead as you hack and slash out of the Underworld in this rogue-like dungeon crawler from the creators of Bastion and Transistor.
- As the immortal Prince of the Underworld, you'll wield the powers and mythic weapons of Olympus to break free from the clutches of the god of the dead himself.
Two and a half hours is substantial for a game score, but it is still a deliberately manageable album. You can hear it in a few sessions, return to favorite pieces without navigating an enormous track list, and experience its overall identity without a major time commitment. The compact length is one reason the original works so well as a standalone listen rather than only as background for gameplay.
Hades II: just under four hours
In its official release announcement, Supergiant calls the Hades II soundtrack “our biggest-ever soundtrack, clocking in at just under four hours of music created for this game.” The wording matters: the sequel is not simply a longer version of the first album. Its scale reflects more musical territory to cover.
Nearly four hours gives the sequel room for more contrasting moods, encounter concepts and environmental identities. It also changes how you listen. A full start-to-finish session becomes a longer commitment, while shuffle or playlist listening becomes more attractive when you want to sample the range rather than consume the album in one sitting.
Runtime is useful, but it is not quality
The length difference should not be mistaken for a scorecard. A longer soundtrack can provide more variety but also asks you to spend more time with it; a shorter soundtrack can feel more memorable because every transition reinforces a smaller set of ideas. Runtime is therefore a practical measure of scope, not proof that one game has better individual songs.
The shared creative foundation
Darren Korb composes both games
Darren Korb is the composer credited with both soundtracks. That continuity gives the comparison a stable musical baseline: the sequel expands the series rather than abandoning the composer’s role or treating its score as an unrelated experiment.
For listeners, a shared composer means that differences in scale and concept are easier to isolate. If you prefer the original’s overall sound, you can approach Hades II as a wider application of the same creative voice. If you want a more expansive palette, the sequel provides that change without removing the compositional link between the two games.
Ashley Barrett appears on both
Ashley Barrett contributes vocals to both soundtracks. Her presence is a major part of the series’ vocal continuity and helps explain why fans often compare the albums through their songs rather than only through instrumental atmosphere.
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- Battle beyond the Underworld using dark sorcery to take on the Titan of Time in this bewitching sequel to the award-winning rogue-like dungeon crawler.
The original’s shorter runtime places the Korb/Barrett combination near the center of its identity. On the sequel, that familiar pairing remains important, but it sits inside a larger cast of musical ideas and voices. In other words, Hades II preserves a recognizable thread while giving the score more room to branch out.
Judy Alice Lee adds a distinct sequel voice
Judy Alice Lee is featured on “Moonlight Guide Us” in Hades II. Her inclusion is a concrete example of the sequel widening its vocal palette instead of relying exclusively on the original game’s established singer-composer pairing.
That does not make one vocalist objectively better. It gives the sequel another color to deploy when a character or scene calls for it, reinforcing the broader design that separates Hades II from the more concentrated first album.
Why Hades feels more cohesive
A compact album with a clear center
Hades benefits from constraint. With two and a half hours of official soundtrack material, its musical world can feel like a single, tightly edited statement. Themes and vocal performances have less total competition for attention, so the album’s identity arrives quickly and remains easy to recall after you stop listening.
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Vocal-song impact is easier to track
The Korb/Barrett pairing is present within a smaller field of musical material, so the songs associated with the original game can feel like landmarks in the listening experience. That is not a claim that every track is vocal-led; it is an observation about how a shorter album gives its recurring vocal identity more structural weight.
If your question is “Which soundtrack has the songs I will remember fastest?” the original has the advantage created by its concentrated format. You are choosing a focused collection, not a catalogue intended to cover nearly four hours of game-specific situations.
Rank #3
- As the immortal Prince of the Underworld, you'll wield the powers and mythic weapons of Olympus to break free from the clutches of the god of the dead himself, while growing stronger and unravelling more of the story with each unique escape attempt.
- The Olympians have your back! Meet Zeus, Athena, Poseidon, and many more, and choose from their dozens of powerful Boons that enhance your abilities. There are thousands of viable character builds to discover as you go.
- A fully-voiced cast of colourful, larger-than-life characters is waiting to meet you! Grow your relationships with them, and experience thousands of unique story events as you learn about what's really at stake for this big, dysfunctional family.
- New surprises await each time you delve into the ever-shifting Underworld, whose guardian bosses will remember you. Use the powerful Mirror of Night to grow permanently stronger and give yourself a leg up the next time you run away from home.
- Permanent upgrades mean you don't have to be a god yourself to experience the exciting combat and gripping story. Though, if you happen to be one, crank up the challenge and get ready for some white-knuckle action that will put your well-practiced skills to the test.
The trade-off: fewer kinds of surprise
Cohesion can also mean fewer sharp changes in musical premise. The original is the right choice when consistency is the feature you want. If you are listening for constant discovery, a tightly centered album may eventually feel less exploratory than the sequel’s larger set of concepts.
Why Hades II feels broader and more varied
More room for characters and places
Supergiant’s description of Hades II as its biggest-ever soundtrack is supported by the just-under-four-hour runtime and by the way the music is tied to a wider range of characters and locations. The score has room to distinguish situations that would have shared musical space in a shorter album.
That breadth matters during repeated runs. Roguelike play asks you to revisit systems and spaces many times, and additional musical concepts can reduce the sense that every return is accompanied by the same narrow loop of ideas. The sequel’s longer score is therefore valuable not only as an album but also as a tool for sustaining the game’s variety over repeated sessions.
Scylla and the Sirens: a named musical concept
Greg Kasavin, Supergiant’s creative director, has said that “Music has been vital to each of our games.” He also explained that musical variety helps make locations distinctive and discussed Scylla and the Sirens as a collaborative musical concept. The point is not merely that the encounter has a song attached to it; the music participates in defining what that encounter is.
That approach illustrates the sequel’s advantage. Rather than treating the soundtrack as one uniform layer beneath the action, Hades II can assign a more specific musical identity to a character group, place or set piece. The glam-rock framing associated with Scylla and the Sirens is an example of that deliberately differentiated design.
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Variety that serves world-building
Variety is most useful when it tells you something about where you are and whom you are facing. Kasavin’s comments connect musical differences to location identity, which means the sequel’s larger track count is not simply extra material for its own sake. More concepts can make the game world easier to distinguish by ear.
For a listener who likes scores that function as a tour through a fictional setting, this is the decisive reason to choose Hades II. You are getting more than a longer playlist; you are getting a wider set of musical viewpoints on the game.
Rank #4
- Die Macher von Bastion und Transistor präsentieren einen actiongeladenen Dungeon Crawler im Rogue-likeGewand.
- Nutze die Kräfte und mythischen Waffen des Olymp, um aus der Unterwelt und seinem Herrscher höchstpersönlich zu entkommen.
- Mit jedem einzigartigen Fluchtversuch wirst du stärker und entdeckst mehr der Geschichte.
- Diese Edition enthält die folgenden Bonusinhalte: Einen Download-Code für den epischen Hades Original Soundtrack von Darren Korb – ein zweieinhalbstündiges Fest für die Ohren. Ein 32-seitiges Charakter-Booklet mit Artworks von Jen Zee, die die kunterbunte Riege an Göttern, Geistern und Monstern zeigen.
Comparing the soundtracks by listening goal
| Listening goal | Hades | Hades II |
|---|---|---|
| Finish the complete album in a small number of sessions | Advantage: two and a half hours is easier to absorb as one coherent arc. | Requires more time because the official runtime is just under four hours. |
| Hear a wide range of musical concepts | More focused and less expansive by design. | Advantage: more characters, locations and set-piece concepts. |
| Prioritize the established Korb/Barrett identity | Advantage when you want that pairing to dominate the listening experience. | Still includes both, but places them within a broader palette. |
| Look for additional vocal color | Barrett is the documented vocal contributor in the comparison. | Includes Barrett and features Judy Alice Lee on “Moonlight Guide Us.” |
| Use the music to distinguish places and encounters | Strong series foundation, but the documented design emphasis is less expansive. | Advantage: Kasavin specifically links variety with distinctive locations and discusses Scylla and the Sirens as a collaborative musical concept. |
| Choose one score for repeated background listening | Best if you want a dependable, concentrated mood. | Best if you want the soundtrack to keep offering new combinations and contrasts. |
Which soundtrack is more memorable?
Memorable through repetition: Hades
The original has a practical memorability advantage: a shorter album makes recurring ideas easier to encounter and easier to associate with the game as a whole. If you value a small number of songs that quickly become personal favorites, its concentrated format is the safer recommendation.
Memorable through contrast: Hades II
The sequel can create memory through difference. A glam-rock encounter concept, a new vocal feature and stronger separation between locations give listeners more distinct reference points. You may remember not one single dominant identity but the contrast between several identities.
These are different kinds of memorability. Hades is easier to summarize as one album; Hades II is easier to recall as a set of scenes, characters and places with their own musical signatures.
Should you buy the Hades or Hades II soundtrack?
Choose the Hades soundtrack if:
- You want a two-and-a-half-hour album that is easier to hear in full.
- You prefer a tightly unified mood over a broad range of concepts.
- The Korb/Barrett vocal pairing is the main reason you are interested.
- You want the most concentrated version of the series’ established musical identity.
Choose the Hades II soundtrack if:
- You want nearly four hours of game-specific music.
- You enjoy scores that distinguish characters, locations and encounters through contrasting musical ideas.
- You want the Scylla and Sirens concept and other larger set-piece approaches represented in the album’s overall design.
- You prefer novelty and breadth across repeated listening sessions.
- You want Judy Alice Lee’s featured performance on “Moonlight Guide Us” alongside the returning Korb and Barrett connection.
Buy both if you want the series’ full musical arc
The soundtracks complement each other rather than making one redundant. The first gives you the concentrated foundation; the second shows how that foundation can expand into a larger, more varied score. Buying both makes sense if you listen to game music as albums and want to hear the progression from a focused two-and-a-half-hour statement to a nearly four-hour world of distinct concepts.
Where the official albums are available
Supergiant makes the official Hades and Hades II soundtrack albums available through its Bandcamp storefront. The Hades soundtrack is also listed on Steam as downloadable content. Availability, regional pricing and formats can change, so check the current product pages before purchasing.
There is no confirmed physical soundtrack, vinyl, CD or soundtrack-specific collectible established here. Do not assume that a listing on another store is official unless it is connected to Supergiant’s own distribution or clearly identifies an authorized release.
How this verdict was reached
No source assigns either game an objective “better soundtrack” score. The comparison rests on the official runtimes, documented credits, the track and concept information made public by Supergiant, and Greg Kasavin’s explanation of how musical variety supports locations and collaborative encounters.
That evidence supports a practical split: Hades II wins on breadth, variety and the ability to give more parts of its world distinct musical treatment; Hades wins on cohesion, manageable album length and concentrated vocal-song impact. If your priorities are evenly balanced, start with Hades II because its larger scope covers more listening situations. If you already know that a shorter, more unified album is what you replay most, choose Hades.
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