Supergiant Games is an independent game developer based in San Francisco, California. It was founded in 2009 by Amir Rao and Gavin Simon. The studio reached fame in 2011 their debut title, Bastion, which received critical acclaim. Around that time, Supergiant hired Darren Korb as a composer, who would then become a mainstay at the company.
Supergiant would later release Transistor in 2014 to further acclaim. In 2017, they would release Pyre, a party-based sports RPG that was a change of their usual formula. The game was also well-received, winning "Best Indie" in Game Informer's 2017 RPG of the Year Awards. Less than a month after the game's release, the company began working on Hades, which was revealed in December 6 at the 2018 Game Awards, releasing on Early Access at the Epic Games Store. Its official "Version 1.0" was formally released September 17th, 2020. It received critical acclaim, was named "Game of the Year" by several publications, and won "Best Indie" and "Best Action" in the 2020 Game Awards.
Not to be confused with Supermassive Games.
Games developed:
- Bastion (2011)
- Transistor (2014)
- Pyre (2017)
- Hades (2020)
- Hades II (2025)
Games from Supergiant Games tend to contain:
- Arbitrary Option Limit:
- Transistor: The two available new functions per level-up are preset per Character Level, out of the eleven possible ones in the first run of the game.
- Hades and Hades II: When gods offer boons, it's out of a pick of a randomly selected three, with the Gold currency being a mandatory choice if there are no more boons to offer.
- Animesque artworks and plotline.
- Characterization By Flavor Text:
- Hades: The Lore Codex is written from Achilles's perspective and he has a lot of information on characters he's interacted with a lot, like Zagreus, but he also puts his own spin on things.
- Hades II: The Daedalus Hammer description talks about Daedalus being reclusive and is all lowercase letters:the ever-reclusive artisan lets his masterwork do the talking.
- Company Cross-References:
- Transistor references Bastion with the toys in Red's apartment.
- Hades has an Actor Allusion of Christopher Saphire, who voices Thanatos, and previously voiced Asher Kendrell in Transistor, where they're both reserved, (mostly) unemotional characters, Asher is in a loving relationship with Grant, who prioritizes duty and loyalty. Fortunately, Thanatos's story turns out a lot better than Asher's.
- Strong narrative thrust with a degree of top-level Gameplay and Story Integration (upgrading in Bastion, traces in Transistor, The Rites in Pyre as a whole, the cycle of life & death in Hades)
- Some sort of play on player's game-over state, sometimes to the point that said game overs do not "cut" the story but are woven into narrative itself.
- Heavy focus on voice work (especially for the narrator character) and soundtracks.
- Elaborate user interface designs that tie heavily into the games' visual feel.
- Combinatorial Explosion, often with player's abilities or loadout.
- Theme Naming: Enemies named with derogatory words (or in Pyre's case, all of the playable races)
- Main/supporting characters whose real name is never revealed to the player. (The Kid in Bastion, the man in Transistor, the Stowaway in Pyre, The Fates in Hades)
- Optional Dynamic Difficulty system that gives the enemies new game-play traits or slaps more restrictions on the player in exchange for more reward (Idols in Bastion, Limiters in Transistor, Titan Stars in Pyre, Pact of Punishments in Hades)
- A soundtrack by Darren Korb.