Saving your Progress

Hades uses an autosave feature that frequently saves your progress in the game. There are 4 available save slots and starting a new game requires you to choose one of the 4 slots to save in. You can also start a new save file with Hell Mode difficulty, but this option cannot be changed later on.

Autosave
Progress is saved whenever the Hades sigil appears in the top right corner of the screen. This happens whenever Zagreus enters a new room, in the House of Hades or in the Underworld during a run.

The game also autosaves before generating the preview for the next chambers after completing an encounter (i.e., after accepting the room reward). This prevents savescumming to generate different rewards for the next chamber.

Giving Up a Run
You can quit the game at any time during a run by bringing up the menu and choosing 'Quit' to exit to the main menu.

However, if you received any damage during an encounter, the option to 'Quit' is replaced with 'Give Up'. This means you will abandon the run and return back to the latest save when you were at the Courtyard, before you started the run. This prevents savescumming through reloading the save when you are hit. Giving up does not break your win streak.

The first chamber's reward will not be changed if you 'Give Up' (e.g., if the first reward is Zeus's boon, giving up and restarting the run will still let Zeus offer you the first boon, unless you use another god's keepsake. This method does not replace Deadalus Hammers if they are the first reward). Abandoning the run brings you back to the Courtyard without changing the seed for the run (the randomly-generated pool of rewards). To get a new seed, you need to be killed during the run.

To save your progress in that run instead of 'Giving Up', complete the encounter and enter the next room. This should let the 'Quit' option appear instead of 'Give Up', letting you exit the game with the progress saved. You can then continue from where you left off.

There is currently an exploit where you can unlock/upgrade Weapon Aspects or Companions in the Courtyard and bring them to a run to 'try out'. If you get hit during the run and 'Give Up', you will return back to the latest save when you last entered the Courtyard, so it will be as if you have not yet invested Titan Blood/Ambrosia to unlock the Aspect/Companion. If you won that run, you will return to the House of Hades and overwrite that save, making your upgrade permanent for that save file.

Deleting a Save File
You can delete a save file from the main menu to get an empty save slot. However, the save file actually still remains on your computer until it is overwritten by a new save file.

If you accidentally deleted a save file and wish to recover it, DO NOT start a new save file in that slot. Exit and restart the game. The previous save file should be retrieved, as long as you did not start a new save file in that slot.