Let's be honest, Hades 2 is a pretty macabre game at its core. The first game was entirely about the son of the God of the Underworld trying to escape the Greek equivalent of 'Hell', all the while fighting all sorts of creatures, dead legendary warriors, and while dealing with a whole host of familial drama.
Hades 2: 7 Ways Melinoe Plays Nothing Like Zagreus Did
With players now able to get their hands on Hades 2 through the Technical Playtest, they can find out how different Melinoe & Zagreus are.
Hades 2 is even more macabre, clearly seen even in its Early Access state, as the situation in this setting has only become more dire and Melinoe has to make use of every resource and Shade at her disposal if it gets her one step closer to Chronos. You'll be collecting a lot of different resources in Hades 2 in the pursuit of this goal, and one of the core ingredients you'll be collecting is Ash. If you're wondering if those are the Ashes of the deceased, you'd be absolutely right, and here's how to get it (and what exactly to use it for).
What Ashes Are Used For
What is This Brand New Resource?
Ashes in Hades 2 are the equivalent of Darkness from the first game. Instead of using Darkness at the Mirror of Night to unlock new abilities for Zagreus, Melinoe uses Ash at the Altar of Ashes to unlock new Arcana Cards. The amount of Ash used per card obviously varies depending on the effect the card provides, and a lot of cards require more materials than just Ash to unlock.
Of course, that isn't the only use for Ash as it's used in a lot of Incantations & other Crafting Recipes. Melinoe is a witch of the Crossroads after all, taught by Hecate herself, and as such she uses a lot of different ingredients for her spells.
At least at our current progress level in the game (which is honestly, a bit too much given how long we've had access to Hades 2, we're a bit obsessed) there are quite a lot of random crafting recipes that will unexpectedly require Ash, so it's always worth having a stockpile of.
The Standard Way To Get Ashes
As Well as All The Other Ways to Get It
Now, the primary way you'll be gathering Ashes in Hades 2 is as a room reward. As you progress through Erebus into Oceanus into the Mourning Fields and finally Tartarus, you'll get previews of what the rewards are for each room before you head in.
Now in Erebus, there are typically only two options for which rooms to go in, but in future Realms there may be more options. So, choosing to get Ash as a reward does typically mean you'll be missing out on another reward or ingredient or even multiple. Outside of that, there are a couple of other ways to acquire Ash, and they're listed below:
Method | Description | Explanation |
|---|---|---|
Method 1 | Wretched Broker | You can take Bones (about 10 per Ash) to the Wretched Broker in the Crossroads, once you complete the Incantation to summon them, to purchase Ashes. |
Method 2 | Charon's Shop | Using Chronos' Gold, you can sometimes purchase Ashes at his shop, depending on what he's offering. Typically they cost about 50 Gold pieces. |
Method 3 | Charon's Well | Sometime, there will be a 'Receive X amount of Ash Now' Purchase option in Charon's well. The Gold cost & amount of Ashes offered can differ each time too. |
Method 4 | Shrine of Hermes | Once you unlock Hermes' Delivery Altars through an incantation, he basically serves as the Amazon Prime of Hades 2. You'll have a variety of options each time you interact with this, and Ashes can pop up as one of the things you can spend Gold to have delivered. You can even spend extra Gold to have it delivered sooner rather than waiting through a predetermined number of Encounters |
Method 5 | NPC Rewards | On each level of Melinoe's journey, there is an NPC you can run into each run that offers unique rewards or buffs. In-game, the reward preview for these rooms is visualized by a pair of yellow hands gesturing like they're offering something. We won't spoil every NPC, but in particular, the one in the second zone can offer a decent amount of Ash, and the one in the third zone can offer Ash depending on your choices in previous rooms/runs. |
Method 6 | Charon's Gold Rewards Program | After making a certain amount of progress in Hades 2, you can complete an incantation to have Charon start offering his delivery services in the Crossroads. At the edge of the pier near the Broker, you'll see an empty bag or container, if you interact with it you'll see that you can have Charon deliver 20 Ashes by spending 1 Obol Point Card. Keep in mind that you will have the clear 20 Encounters before he actually finishes this delivery. |
So, as you can see, there are actually a whole ton of different ways to acquire Ash in Hades 2 outside of the default method of getting it as a room reward. So, if you're really trying, you can get a pretty huge pile of Ashes (not a sentence we thought we'd ever type) to spend on all sorts of things without all that much time or effort.
