Choose Hades for fast, room-by-room action, short repeatable attempts, randomized build decisions, and a tightly authored story hub. Choose RuneScape: Dragonwilds for survival pressure, gathering, crafting, base construction, persistent character growth, quests, and multiplayer. They can both involve fantasy combat and progression, but they ask for very different kinds of play.
The unnamed “new medieval crafting game” in this comparison is RuneScape: Dragonwilds, the survival-crafting game identified by PC Gamer’s 2026 coverage. If you meant a different medieval game, the systems below will not apply.
| # | Preview | Product | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |
|
Hades - Nintendo Switch | $59.47 | Buy on Amazon |
| 2 |
|
Hades II - Nintendo Switch™ 2 Edition | $49.94 | Buy on Amazon |
| 3 |
|
Hades Limited Edition (Nintendo Switch) | $62.00 | Buy on Amazon |
| 4 |
![- Hades - [PlayStation 5]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51fwy58kArL._SL160_.jpg)
|
- Hades - [PlayStation 5] | $26.28 | Buy on Amazon |
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Hades and Dragonwilds are built around opposite session loops
Hades is a roguelite action game organized into individual attempts. You enter a sequence of authored rooms, defeat monsters, choose from randomly offered upgrades and rewards, and fight the final boss of each area. When the attempt ends, you return to a hub and spend the progress that carries over into the next run.
RuneScape: Dragonwilds is a persistent survival-crafting game. You remain in the same developing world while gathering materials, making equipment, building facilities, improving skills, completing quests, and responding to threats such as raids. Death sends your inventory to a gravestone that you can retrieve; the comparison data records no experience-point loss. There is no equivalent “run ends, return to hub, start over” structure.
#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.
That distinction should decide your purchase before graphics, setting, or price enter the discussion. Hades makes each attempt a compact tactical puzzle. Dragonwilds makes your entire save a long-term project.
Quick comparison
| Category | Hades | RuneScape: Dragonwilds |
|---|---|---|
| Core format | 2D room-by-room action roguelite | Survival exploration and crafting in a handcrafted world |
| Combat context | Continuous fights through rooms, with random upgrades shaping each attempt | Combat is tied to exploration, equipment, skills, survival needs, quests, and raids |
| Run structure | Short, repeatable attempts that end at death or completion and return you to a hub | Persistent world; progress continues in the same save instead of resetting between runs |
| Progression | Temporary build power during a run plus permanent hub advancement | Persistent skills, weapon proficiencies, gear, resources, construction, and quest progress |
| World design | Authored rooms, bosses, characters, and hub spaces with run-to-run variation | Handcrafted map with gathering, building, dungeons, raids, farming, fishing, and mounts |
| Building systems | Hub upgrades and crafted progression features rather than survival-base construction | Crafting benches, facilities, structural integrity, crafting from storage, creative mode, and custom difficulty |
| Multiplayer | This comparison does not establish an equivalent multiplayer mode for the original Hades | One to six players, with crossplay listed by PC Gamer |
How Hades combat works
Every room is a tactical decision
Hades presents combat in compact arenas. You move, attack, use your available abilities, and react to enemy patterns while choosing which reward to take after clearing a room. The next reward can change the value of every choice that follows, so a successful attempt is less about following a fixed build guide than adapting to what the game offers.
PC Gamer describes the Hades-family structure this way: “Both games share the same basic structure: They’re 2D action games where you’re a brooding Greek god fighting your way through rooms of monsters choosing random upgrades and rewards to help you slay each area’s final boss.” Tyler Colp wrote that description in a 2025 PC Gamer review. For Hades, the important practical point is that rooms are discrete tests. You can read the encounter, clear it, select a reward, and prepare for the next one without managing hunger, shelter, or a stockpile of building materials.
Do these 3 things before closing this tab:
1Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches2Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors3Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteRandom rewards create the replay value
Each attempt offers a different combination of upgrades. The build you planned before entering may not be available, so you make a series of smaller decisions: which effect improves your current weapon, which reward covers a weakness, and whether a short-term damage increase is worth giving up utility or survivability.
That randomness does not make progress meaningless. A run can fail while still contributing to permanent advancement at the hub. The temporary build disappears, but the resources and story progress that the game allows you to carry forward improve future attempts.
Bosses provide clear run milestones
Areas end with major boss encounters. Reaching a boss tests whether the choices made in earlier rooms produced a coherent build, not merely whether your character has accumulated enough raw materials. Players who enjoy learning attack patterns, refining movement, and trying a new combination after every defeat will find a deliberately concentrated combat loop.
How Dragonwilds combat differs
Fighting is one part of staying alive
Dragonwilds does not isolate combat into a chain of challenge rooms. You fight while exploring, gathering, traveling between facilities, pursuing quests, and protecting the progress you have made in your world. Equipment, weapon proficiencies, resources, and survival settings all influence whether an encounter is worth taking.
Quick wins for a faster PC:
Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →Because the game is survival-oriented, preparation matters outside the fight. You may need to improve a weapon, establish useful facilities, manage supplies, or choose a safer route before pursuing a dangerous objective. Raids and dungeons add larger combat goals, but they sit inside the broader world rather than replacing it with a self-contained run.
Progression changes how combat feels
Using relevant tools and crafting benches grants experience in skills and weapon proficiencies. Some proficiency levels add stat bonuses or unlock new abilities. As a result, combat improvement is persistent: a later expedition can benefit from work completed hours earlier, even if no single encounter resembles a Hades boss room.
This creates a slower feedback loop. Hades tells you almost immediately whether a reward improved your current build. Dragonwilds may reward preparation several sessions later when a better proficiency, weapon, facility, or supply chain makes an expedition possible.
Rank #2
- 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.
Does Dragonwilds have runs?
No—not in the Hades sense. Dragonwilds has expeditions, quests, raids, and dangerous trips, but the game does not reset your character and world after a failed attempt. You continue developing the same save.
What happens when you die
Death leaves a gravestone containing your inventory. You can return to recover it, turning failure into a retrieval problem rather than a complete restart. The comparison information records no experience-point loss, so the principal risk is losing time and temporarily losing access to carried items while you make the recovery trip.
Why the distinction matters
In Hades, the end of a run is expected. You are meant to begin again with a new set of rewards and a new tactical problem. In Dragonwilds, ending a session usually means logging out from a world that remains altered: your structures, stored materials, skill levels, quest state, and other persistent work are still there when you return.
If you want a game that can deliver a complete combat attempt in a relatively short sitting, Hades is the natural fit. If you want to leave a base, gather resources, build something, and continue a story over many sessions, Dragonwilds better matches that rhythm.
Progression: temporary builds versus a persistent character
Hades has two progression layers
The first layer exists only inside the current run. Random upgrades and rewards determine your attacks, defenses, and synergies for that attempt. A failed run discards that temporary arrangement.
The Tool Desk
Outbyte Driver Updater FREEFix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →Outbyte PC Repair FREEClear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →The second layer lives in the hub. Resources earned during attempts can advance permanent systems and story relationships, making future attempts more capable or opening new options. This structure gives failure a purpose: even when a boss ends the run, the hub can still move forward.
Hades II expands the hub model
The documented Crossroads systems in Hades II illustrate how the series extends this structure. They include ability upgrades, crafted Incantations that unlock features, weapon acquisition and upgrades, and relationship progression. These systems remain separate from the moment-to-moment build assembled inside an individual attempt.
That separation is useful when deciding whether you prefer “master the next run” or “develop the character over a campaign.” Hades constantly asks both questions, but it keeps the immediate build temporary so that every attempt can feel different.
Dragonwilds keeps advancement in the world
Dragonwilds progression accumulates rather than resetting. Skills and weapon proficiencies improve through use of relevant tools and crafting benches. Some proficiency thresholds provide stat bonuses or new abilities. Gear, resources, facilities, and construction remain part of the same world state.
PC Slower Than It Used to Be?
A free scan shows the junk files, broken settings and background clutter dragging Windows down - then fixes them in one click.Free scan · Windows 10 & 11Crashes, No Sound, or Screen Glitches?
Random freezes, missing sound and display glitches usually trace back to one bad driver. Find and replace yours safely.Free scan · under a minuteMain story quests drive the central progression. Sidequests are optional and can provide additional bonuses. Because the map is handcrafted, your route through that content is shaped by what you have built, what you can craft, and which objectives you are ready to tackle—not by a randomly generated sequence of rooms.
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.
Survival systems make Dragonwilds a different kind of challenge
Thirst and starvation
Adjustable thirst and starvation systems are enabled by default. These needs add decisions that Hades does not ask you to make: when to secure food and water, how long you can remain away from a safe base, and whether a detour for supplies is worth the time.
Because the settings are adjustable, you can tune the pressure to suit your group or preferred pace. A more demanding configuration makes preparation and logistics central; a lighter configuration lets you focus more on exploration, construction, and quests.
Crafting from storage
Dragonwilds supports crafting from storage, reducing the need to move every ingredient into your character’s immediate inventory before using a facility. That convenience matters in a game where materials are spread across a base and where repeated crafting is part of ordinary progression.
What’s actually slowing this PC down?
Pick the symptom - the matching free tool is one click away.
Structural integrity and construction
Buildings are not merely decorative. Structural integrity gives construction an engineering constraint, so placement and support affect what you can build. Combined with facilities, storage, and resource gathering, this turns the base into a progression tool rather than a separate cosmetic mode.
Creative mode and custom difficulty
Creative mode provides a different relationship with the survival rules, while custom difficulty lets players adjust the challenge. These options are especially useful for groups that want to experiment with construction or create a shared world without accepting the default level of thirst, starvation, and danger.
World activities and long-term goals in Dragonwilds
Dragonwilds supports a broad set of activities beyond direct fighting:
- Story quests: the main path for advancing the world’s narrative.
- Sidequests: optional objectives that can provide bonuses.
- Raids and dungeons: higher-stakes combat destinations inside the persistent world.
- Fishing and farming: resource and food activities that support survival and settlement planning.
- Mounts: an alternative way to travel through the handcrafted map.
- Building: facilities and structures governed in part by structural integrity.
- Exploration: gathering materials and discovering places needed for crafting and quests.
Hades concentrates its variety differently. Its authored rooms, bosses, characters, and hub interactions are designed to support repeated attempts, with variation coming from the rewards and build combinations offered during each run. It has more focus per minute; Dragonwilds has more systems competing for your attention across a longer campaign.
Free tools Windows power users keep installed
One-click scans. No signup required.
Multiplayer and playing with friends
Dragonwilds is listed for one to six players and supports crossplay. That makes the game a practical choice for a small group that wants to gather, build, quest, and take on raids together while using different supported platforms.
Do not assume that the original Hades provides an equivalent multiplayer experience. The available comparison information does not establish such a mode, so Hades should be evaluated as a primarily individual, run-focused game unless you verify a specific edition and feature set separately.
Group play also changes Dragonwilds’ priorities. A shared base can divide gathering and construction work, while a coordinated party can prepare for dungeons or raids more efficiently than a solo character. Conversely, survival settings and custom difficulty should be agreed on before a group commits to a world, because they affect everyone’s routine.
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.
Price, platform status, and practical requirements
Dragonwilds’ listed price
PC Gamer listed RuneScape: Dragonwilds at $30 in 2026. Treat that as the listed price reported at that time, not a permanent price across every region, storefront, tax situation, or promotion.
Recommended Free Tools
Steam Deck
Dragonwilds is listed as Playable on Steam Deck. “Playable” is a platform-compatibility category, not a promise that every control, text size, or performance characteristic will match a desktop installation.
Hades editions
The supplied comparison establishes Hades’ run structure and hub progression, but it does not provide a single current price or a complete platform matrix for the original game. Hades II’s Nintendo Switch edition is documented as released in November 2025; that is a separate edition and should not be treated as proof of identical availability or features in the original Hades.
Which game has better progression?
Neither system is universally better; they reward different habits.
Choose Hades progression if you want:
- A meaningful reward after nearly every room.
- Build experimentation that changes from attempt to attempt.
- Permanent hub upgrades and story progress even after failure.
- A clear learning curve based on enemy patterns, movement, and boss mastery.
- A campaign structure that respects short, repeatable sessions.
Choose Dragonwilds progression if you want:
- Skills and weapon proficiencies that remain improved in the same world.
- Gear, facilities, resources, and construction that accumulate over time.
- Main quests supported by optional sidequests and exploration.
- Preparation and logistics to matter as much as reflexes.
- A world you can continue developing alone or with up to five other players.
Decision guide by player type
If combat is your priority
Pick Hades. Its room-by-room structure removes most logistical distractions and puts movement, attack timing, enemy recognition, and build choices at the center of every session.
If you want a survival-crafting campaign
Pick Dragonwilds. Thirst, starvation, resource gathering, crafting, structural integrity, and facilities create a network of problems that extends well beyond the battlefield.
If you dislike losing a build after death
Pick Dragonwilds. Your world and character continue, and your inventory is recoverable from a gravestone. Hades intentionally discards the temporary run build when an attempt ends, even though hub progress remains.
If you enjoy replaying the same game with new combinations
Pick Hades. Random rewards make each attempt a fresh construction problem, while the authored rooms and bosses provide a stable framework for learning.
If your group needs crossplay
Pick Dragonwilds, whose listed feature set supports one to six players and crossplay. Confirm the exact storefront and platform combination before starting a shared world.
Bottom line: Hades for runs, Dragonwilds for a world
Hades is the stronger choice for players seeking concentrated action and a repeatable run loop. Its defining pleasure is adapting a temporary build to random rewards, defeating room sequences and bosses, and carrying the resulting progress back to a story-rich hub.
RuneScape: Dragonwilds is the stronger choice for players who want continuity. You gather, craft, build, improve proficiencies, pursue quests, survive raids and dungeons, and return to the same world with your work intact. Its one-to-six-player crossplay support makes that persistent progression viable as a group activity.
The simplest test is your preferred reset button: if restarting is part of the fun, play Hades; if you would rather keep improving one character and one settlement, play Dragonwilds.
Quick Recap
Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply.
Do these 3 things before closing this tab:
1Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors2Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute3Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems
