Start Date: May 25, 2026
End Date: May 25, 2026
Time to 100%: 20 minutes
Platform: Steam
Achievements: 9/9
Difficulty: 2/10
The Gif
Many of us have probably seen the attached gif floating around the internet. What at a glance might appear to be an Animal Crossing machinima is actually one from Rental, a free-to-play indie horror title released in 2024. If you haven't heard of it, don't feel bad, Rental itself is barely a game. The entire thing uses only the WASD controls plus space to interact, and I'm pretty sure it doesn't even have a pause screen. A blind playthrough only takes about 15 minutes, and a second run only half as much. And yet, this 15 minute experiment struck a chord with me. It's obvious I'm not alone, as the Steam community page is overflowing with artwork and community praise. But how could this free-to-play game by a no-name studio make such an impression on people, and why?
The most obvious answer is the aesthetic. It's easy to be enchanted by its adorable bunny protagonist, Umi, and the contrast between her sweet look and the apparent horror of her scenario. The attached gif going viral on twitter certainly helped, as anyone seeking to investigate its origin was led down the rabbit hole that is Rental. Plus, the intersection of the macabre and the cute (the macute?) is extremely under-explored territory. Titles like Doki Doki Literature Club and OMORI that have explored this emerging genre are regarded as groundbreaking. But mashing these two genres together does more than just make another good thing, it opens a door.
The Door
I am very very new to horror, as my anxiety prevented me from enjoying the genre for the majority of my life. But properly medicated and with lots of life experience under my belt, I've slowly begun dipping my toe into the genre. It was easier to start with horror movies; after all, if a scene scares me too much I can just cover my eyes until it's over. But horror games are different - the scenario doesn't progress until you press the buttons to make it happen. I've managed to make my way through a few more cinematic and puzzle-based titles like Until Dawn and Limbo, but when there's so many good non-horror titles to play, I hesitate to keep experimenting with these the genre. But Rental, and games like it, are the ones that encourage me to push that boundary.
I love Umi's design, and seeing her braving a clearly haunted house makes me feel like I can do it too. After all, I can't exactly relate to horror protagonists like Leon Kennedy, who literally backflips his way out of bad scenarios. But I can hold my head high and tough out a scary thing, like Umi with her candle. Plus, it's a free to play game, which means if I don't like it I can just uninstall it, no harm no foul. With this in mind, I launched Rental.
The Game
Ok so Rental is like, not that scary. Besides a few small segments where tv static fills the screen and a creature stands ominously in the distance, there's really not much "horror" going on here at all. I'd say it's more psychological or atmospheric horror than anything, where there's not so much gore and jumpscares as there is a feeling of being watched and general wrong-ness.
The game, and achievements, are also very straightforward. You search the home looking for various objects, and once gathered you use them in a ritual to banish the creature living there. About a third of the achievements are unlocked through natural progression, a third by interacting with objects and npcs, and a third for completion. As a side note, shoutout to AndresofAstora on Steam for this wonderful Rental map guide. It made the "Curious Bunny" interactable achievement, and the speedrun "Short-Term Rental" achievement a walk in the park. Anyways, with the help of guides, there was nothing too difficult about the completion of Rental. Which is kind of why I loved it.
The Gate
I'm gonna say something controversial here - we need more easy horror games. We need horror games that use bright, colorful aesthetics to lure people in. We need horror games that feature female main characters. We need more games that are macute (that genre I lowkey invented earlier). Because when I look at games like Amnesia, Silent Hill, Evil Dead, etc., with gloomy worlds, scenes littered with gore, and "strong" male protagonists, I think "wow, this genre isn't for me." But when I experience games like Rental, as short and simple as it is, I want to play more.
Immediately after finishing Rental I added Crow Country and Birds Watching to my wishlist, two more games that use this cute retro horror aesthetic. I also discovered Mircea, Lonely House's upcoming macute horror project, that I sincerely hope we hear more about soon. I'm not suddenly a horror junkie after playing Rental, but it has inspired me to try new titles, and branch out further into this genre I've been hesitant to explore. Again, Rental isn't a perfect game, it's barely a game at all. But it got me thinking, and the internet talking, more about the macute. So for a free game, I'm gonna say they did a pretty damn good job.
Start Date: March 7, 2026
End Date: May 20, 2026
Time to 100%: 91 Hours
Platform: Steam
Achievements: 50/50
Difficulty: 4/10
Part 1: Doubt
My biggest enemy in rogue-like games is always myself. During the first few hours of play, when I'm inevitably losing runs over and over again, my first thought isn't "this is what's supposed to happen." My thought is "I'm terrible at the game." Somewhere in the back of my mind, I KNOW you're supposed to spend the first 10 hours or so learning the mechanics, the regions, the builds, etc. You're expected and encouraged to fail. But I always assume I'm doing something wrong, or that I'm "washed" and not the gamer that I used to be. This is the case with every rogue-like I've touched, and it was true again in Hades 2.
Thankfully, as the 2 in the title implies, this is a sequel. And back in 2021, I 100%ed the first game. So I figured, "if I did it once, I can do it again."
My first month with Hades 2 was all about failure. I died time and time again to Scylla and the Sirens, until I got fed up and fled to the surface. There, I died time and time again to Charybdis and the Yargonaut. I guess it's true to the "Fyre" in my name that ocean-themed bosses always give me a run for my money.
During this phase, my morale was pretty low. With a month gone and only a handful of achievements earned, I was hardcore doubting myself. But like Artemis says, when you miss, you take another shot. When you fail a run, you try again. So I tried and tried. I slowly made progress on the surface and underworld, while learning builds and unlocking weapon aspects that would come to make all the difference. Doubt followed me wherever I went, but so did that mantra: Just take another shot.
Part 2: Victory, & What Comes After
The first time I cleared the underworld was during a run I was absolutely certain I was going to fail. My build was all over the place, I was missing a lot of key boons, and I simply hadn't practiced enough with Chronos' second phase to feel confident. But, through persistence, luck, and use of 3 death defiances, I did it.
My heart swelled, and my confidence soared. Not only because I proved I could do it, but I could now allow myself to fall back on God Mode.
God Mode, for those who don't know, is an accessibility setting brought over from the first Hades, which gives your character extra damage resistance each time you fail a run. Though I know some people look down on these kinds of difficulty adjustments, I'm personally a big fan of gamers being able to adjust their experience to their level of skill. After all, everyone is different, and where some people take about 20 hours to get their first clear, others will do it on their first try (true story, this was me versus my friend Troy with the first Hades).
Personally, I'm someone who doesn't shy away from challenge. However, I also don't want to struggle excessively. I like some friction, but not so much that makes me want to rage quit, or feel like I'm just wasting my time. Since I knew the rogue-like formula requires multiple clears to "beat" the game, I had decided while playing the first Hades that I would do my first clear on the default difficulty, then turn on God Mode afterwards to save myself time. This ended up working out well, so I brought back this tactic for the second one. And again, this proved a good balance for me.
God Mode didn't immediately make things easy, as I still failed my next 3 runs in a row. But progress came a lot faster. Within the next few days, I cleared the surface for the first time, unlocked all weapon aspects, and fully upgraded my grasp and arcana. Between the upgrades and damage resistance, I went from stagnancy and doubt to consistent progress.
Part 3: Fear & Chaos
Progressing the narrative and deepening my relationships brought a lot of fun back into the game. I started getting weird dialogue, trying out funky builds, and just generally letting the winds take me where they may. I quickly found new favorite characters in Odysseus and Hecate, and new favorite boons with Ares and Poseidon. Completion progress was steady, and I was earning about 7 new achievements each week (a far cry from my previous 5 achievements in a month).
On May 1st I rolled credits, and wasted no time starting on the postgame. Experimenting with fear runs and the alternate versions of each boss fight brought new challenges, and fresh excitement. I unlocked the first two gifts of night for 8 fear and 16 fear in quick succession. Though, once I got to 20+ fear and the alternate versions of the Prometheus and Cerberus fights, things got dicey. Thankfully, most fear runs past 16 are entirely optional, so I was able to focus on what would become the most time-consuming postgame tasks: story quests and chaos trials.
I had heard from another completionist (shoutout bestie Vik) that the all random Chaos Trial was the hardest achievement in the game. So, naturally, I procrastinated working on it and any trials until the very end of my time with Hades 2. Eventually, the time came that I could procrastinate no longer, and in I went. Thankfully, by this point I had built up quite a bit of damage resistance with God Mode, so the trials proved surprisingly easy, and even fun. It was only the final two that gave me pause.
The first barrier was the Great Chaos Below trial, which was an all-random item run at 20 fear. My first attempt at this trial went horribly, as I rolled White Antler (the worst keepsake - it limits your health to 30) and the Argent Skull. While I don't hate the skull, I also don't love it, and that combined with the health limitation killed my run at the first boss. My second try I rolled my favorite weapon, the umbral flames, and a Demeter keepsake. I also got lucky with my fear rolls, as I only got alternate boss forms for Hecate and Scylla, and even got the Luckier Tooth keepsake during the final boss. With tooth in hand I completed the trial and the Chaos in Hell achievement. But then came the second barrier.
The Improbable Outcomes achievement required succeeding in two all-random Chaos Trials back to back. I had just succeeded in the first one, now I just had to do it all again. But again, I got lucky, and rolled the moonstone axe and Charon's Keepsake. Even better, although this run was all random it didn't have a fear requirement, so I breezed through the regions happily. With success came the Improbable Outcomes achievement, as well as the Infinite Possibility achievement for clearing 20 chaos trials. Which meant, all that was left for completion was story quests. Which should come easily...right?
Part 4: Cleanup & Final Thoughts
Nearing the end of my time with Hades 2, I had 2 story achievements left to finish: Voice and Vanity and Haunted by the Past. The first required speaking to Narcissus and Echo, the second required speaking to Dora and Prometheus. While speaking to them was easy enough, I couldn't get them to talk about their damn problems. Run after run, characters cycled through different lines of dialogue relating to my progression in the main story, but never about their dang quest. While it was fun at first listening to Narcissus try and fail to flirt with Melinoe, after the 50th time encountering him without him mentioning Echo, I was starting to go insane. The same went for talking to Prometheus, who had a lot to say about the "fate of humanity" but REFUSED to discuss Dora night after night.
Procking these last two quests was exhausting, as night after night I would speedrun my way to the relevant regions, and either get irrelevant dialogue or have the characters not show up at all. It was all down to numbers, and I've always hated achievements that are locked behind rng. Because, you either get lucky, or you suffer, no skill required or relevant. So I suffered for another 5 hours, until eventually I got the dialogue I needed from Prometheus, then Dora, then finally Narcissus (fuck that guy). And thus came, Voice and Vanity, Haunted by the Past, and finally Goddess of Nightmares, the achievement for getting all other achievements.
Besides some stupid rng, there was nothing particularly difficult about completing Hades 2. God Mode took care of most late game problems, so my biggest hurdle was, funnily enough, time. Building the skill and resources to succeed in the early game took time. Gathering incantation materials for every mid-game quest took time. And getting characters to say their specific story line during achievement cleanup took time. After 91 hours, I see why Hecate was so persistent in bringing Death to Chronos, and an end to time and its misery.
But even so, I really enjoyed my time with this game. As was the case with the first title, it struck a brilliant balance between action and story, with phenomenal art direction, voice acting, and music to boot. I liked the characters and combat a lot more than the first game, and the completion was easier too (Hades 1 was like a 6/10 difficulty). Sure it was time-consuming, but games worth playing, and problems worth solving, are worth every second.
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