Hades wins the Best Indie Game award at this year’s Golden Joystick Awards

Hades
(Image credit: Supergiant Games)

Hades has taken the Golden Joystick Award for Best Indie Game. 

The roguelike, which offers a distinctive take on Greek mythology, sees you trying to break out of Hell as Zagerus, the son of Hades, which involves fighting your way through a lot of obstacles. 

In a particularly strong category, Hades pulled in more votes than Spelunky 2, Lair of the Clockwork God, and Paradise Killer. You can check out the full list of nominees below. 

  • Kentucky Route Zero
  • Factorio
  • Spelunky 2
  • Paradise Killer
  • Creaks
  • Hades (winner)
  • Lair of the Clockwork God
  • Necrobarista

Supergiant, whose previous games include Bastion, Transistor, and Pyre, first released an early access version of Hades back in 2018, with the final version releasing on Nintendo Switch and PC on September 17 this year. The time finely tuning the game clearly paid off, as Hades’ tight combat and intricately woven narrative won over Golden Joystick voters. 

In his piece on Hades, GamesRadar’s Austin Wood writes: “Hades does so many things so well that it's hard to focus on just one. Anytime I reflect on Supergiant's latest triumph, an isometric action-RPG about breaking out of the Grecian underworld, my thoughts inevitably spiral into random gushing. The combat's polished to a blinding luster, the art drips with style and color, the characters are diverse and likeable, and the music hammers almost as hard as your pulse will when you reach any of the game's many memorable boss fights.”

Be sure to join us for the rest of the Golden Joystick Awards by heading over to our how to watch the Golden Joystick Awards 2020 page. 

Ben Tyrer
Contributor

Ben Tyrer is a freelance games journalist with over ten years experience of writing about games. After graduating from Bournemouth University with a degree in multimedia journalism he's worked for Official PlayStation Magazine as a staff writer and games editor, as well as GamesRadar+ (hey, that's this website!) as a news editor. He's also contributed to Official Xbox Magazine, Edge, PC Gamer, GamesMaster, PC Games N, and more. His game of the year - no matter the year - is Rocket League.