A look at Raiders of the Broken Planet’s Hades Betrayal campaign

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Hades Betrayal, the penultimate premium campaign in Raiders of the Broken Planet’s debut season, was accompanied by a stellar free update that overhauled the game’s systems and pretty much fixed all of the wider issues we’ve raised in our past coverage. Whilst the patch is an overwhelming success, Hades Betrayal is a strong outing that wraps up with a bit of a whimper.

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by Sam Sant

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@SlamShotSam

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Comprised of four new missions, the campaign sets the Raiders at loggerheads with the eponymous Hades Division, lead by General Krausher and his case of small penis syndrome. To tackle (teehee) the most powerful military force in the galaxy, our ragtag crew could use a hand, or a pair of hands, as they set out to convince Lieutenant Ayana Kwena to defect to their cause.

By devastating the location Kwena is assigned to defend, they do exactly that, as returning to Krausher with failure in tow would be suicide. From here on in, Ayana is playable across all missions. She’s a characteristically bizarre prospect within the Raiders universe - a tribal future pirate with an accent that flits between Jamaican, Indian, German and Welsh…

In terms of loadout, Ayana rocks a mortar rifle used to launch proximity-triggered mines into the environment. They persist for just a short time, but long enough to synergise particularly well with her special, whereby she hooks and drags an enemy towards her, and, with a bit of pre-planning, into their inevitable fiery death along the way. Cool as that is, anyone that struggles with Raiders’ rock-paper-scissors melee combat system will love the humble ability to drop mines at Ayana’s feet, serving as an excellent counter should someone foolishly opt to charge her down.

The campaign’s second mission intelligently facilitates getting to know her loadout, with multiple defence points and a range of enemy types allowing the new recruit to be used to her fullest potential. Moving to intercept a Hades Division assault, you’ll carry an Encoder through the level in order to prevent Schneider, a brattish whiz kid, from downloading critical data. In a cruelly amusing twist, you’ll then need to double back and lug Schneider himself through the level in reverse.

New recruit Ayana is a characteristically bizarre prospect within the Raiders universe - a tribal future pirate with an accent that flits between Jamaican, Indian, German & Welsh.

Having inadvertently recruited the red-headed teen, he’ll soon be added to the roster as a universally purchasable playable character, whereas Ayana is a free exclusive to Hades Betrayal owners.

Breaking from established convention, a boss battle rounds out mission number three. Taking place in a gorgeous interior, you’ll aim to draw a big ol’ chainsaw-wielding mech towards explosive plant life, utilising the bulging buds to damage its armour and expose the vulnerable pilot within. It’s a hugely chaotic encounter, true to Raiders form, but one we ultimately could’ve done without.

Hades Betrayal’s culminating confrontation proceeds to shoulder the blame for this; what’s typically a spot reserved for grossly malformed behemoth bosses that beg for you to put them out of their misery, is instead occupied by another mech requiring similar tactics to take down. Once again, there’s nothing technically wrong with the fight, but it would’ve been so much more effective to see Hades Division’s Gundam-style tincan descend without it ringing incredibly familiar. While the shoe fits - General Krausher is exactly the kind of character that’d send a series of giant robots to do his bidding - it just isn’t worthwhile to end on such a comparative creative low.

Samey bosses set aside, Hades Betrayal does boast good mission variety and a heightened sense of scale to build towards Council Apocalypse, which is set to close out the current season of content at some point soon. As ever - in fact, especially so following the update - what’s here is highly revisitable thanks to digestible mission lengths, a sustained level of challenge, the ability to replay as an Antagonist, and now, to earn greater rewards than ever before.

Couple that with access to the brilliant Ayana Kwena and plenty of kooky, character-driven cutscenes to build upon the burgeoning lore, and Hades Betrayal is another standalone campaign that Raiders of the Broken Planet fans won’t want to miss.

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