Hades Nighty Night update includes punchy gloves and a tiny rat

Grecian roguelike Hades has taken one more step towards leaving early access hell. The Nighty Night update came out last night, unleashing some new spikey gloves, a trip to a library, and a tiny, evil, rat. There's loads more besides, but that new weapon, the Twin Fists of Malphon, is the highlight. I am looking forward to punching small malevolent rodents.

Here are the Twin Fists of Mouthful in action. I'm hoping they're a high-damage, high-risk option, because while Hades is otherwise enchanting most weapons do tend to wind up feeling piddly.

The big mirror that dishes out Talents has been overhauled, now letting you choose between two effects for each buff. The one that gives you bonus damage if you dodge just before being hit sounds enticing, and could have a big impact on how I play.

Also new is the Aspect of Arthur, which lets you imbue the Stygian Blade with the power of Excalibur. Zagreus finds this puzzlingly futuristic, which is pleasing. I'm well up for Arthur himself making an appearance at a later date.

One of the most impressive parts of Hades is how it integrates its story into a roguelike structure, so I'm also glad to see developers Supergiant have wrangled in "hours of added narrative featuring Nyx, Chaos, Artemis, Zeus, and more". There's a new room called the Administrative Chamber in the starting area, where you can "access your Permanent Record beyond a mysterious locked door". There are new events, too, like Zag's dad dealing with a line of ghosts who've come to the lord of the underworld with their requests.

There's loads I haven't mentioned, from improved visual effects to rejigged combat encounters, including that rat-based "terrifying new mini-boss". Pretty much everything has been twiddled with. Here are the patch notes in full.

Hades is excellent. According to Jay Castello, it gets even better once you embrace the joy of purposefully losing runs.

You can grab the game from the Epic Store or Steam for £19/$25/€21.