Unlock these 5 incredible Talents ASAP with the Mirror of Night in Hades

Getting through Hades in its entirety is no joke.

It has been on PC and Nintendo Switch for a while now, but thanks to its launch on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S (and its availability on Xbox Game Pass), even more players have started diving into its hellish world.

If you want to make the most of your time with Hades, you’ll want to upgrade your skills using the Mirror of Night, found in your bedchamber before each run. Nearly everything you encounter as you climb your way out of the underworld is out to get you, so you’ll want to do your best to be as prepared as possible so the odds are in your favor.

But which skills should you upgrade? In this guide, we’ll detail five of the best talents to prioritize getting from the Mirror of Night right away in Hades.

How does the Mirror of Night work?

The Mirror of Night is a dark, reflective surface on the top-left wall of your room. You purchase new talents from it using Darkness. More Darkness can be collected during each run if you choose to enter rooms featuring a deep purple teardrop icon, but you can also purchase them from Charon or potentially earn them from the cosmic being known as Chaos.

You can also earn 20 percent more Darkness if your weapon features a dark aura before selecting it. This particular feature is random, but it's always best to use whatever weapon has the dark aura for this reason alone.

Once you accrue enough Darkness for the desired talent, head back to the mirror to purchase it. Each talent has multiple tiers to upgrade, so you might need some elbow grease to get your desired build. There are two different possible talents in each section, one colored red, and another colored green. You'll unlock access the latter color by talking to Nyx after a dozen or so runs. You'll be able to switch between the two using the button to the left of the talent section.

Additional talents can be unlocked with Chthonic Keys. You'll unlock two more talents by spending 5 Chthonic Keys, then two more with another 10, two more with another 20, and then the two final talents cost 30 keys to unlock. Keys are also used to unlock the various weapons, which should probably come first, but fully unlocking the Mirror of Night will cost a total of 60 Chthonic Keys, so particularly in the early game, the keys should be your priority.

5. Dark Regeneration (green)

• Unlock requirement — Unlocked by default
• Cost — 30, then 60 Darkness

Dark Regeneration turns every bit of collected Darkness into a healing opportunity, restoring HP equal to 30 or 60 percent of the Darkness collected. If you're doing runs after defeating most of the bosses in Hades, bosses will drop Darkness after being defeated instead of items. Dark Regeneration will therefore restore your health quickly after facing a troublesome boss, making it a necessary asset when grinding.

When used in conjunction with other health-regen abilities, Dark Regeneration is an excellent choice.

4. Death Defiance (red)

• Unlock requirement — Unlocked by default
• Cost — 30, 500, then 1000 Darkness

Death Defiance is necessary for any aspiring Hades player. Whenever your HP is fully depleted, rather than dying, Death Defiance will allow you to spring back to life with 50 percent of your health. You can add extra chances to your health bar with every upgrade.

It may seem pricey, but three extra chances to defeat a boss isn't something you'll want to miss out on, especially when there are many different ways to replenish that extra health after you walk away from the battle.

3. Thick Skin (red)

• Unlock requirement — Unlocked after paying 10 Chthonic Keys
• Cost — 40, 45, 50, 55, 60, 65, 70, 75, 80, then 85 Darkness

Thick Skin increases your base health by five points with every upgrade. When you finish upgrading this talent, you'll enter each run with nearly double your original 50 health points. This makes you a whole lot more durable, which then means you won't wind up having to spend your Death Defiance too early in the run.

It also gives you more wiggle room, in a sense, as you progress through Hades. If you have a wide pool of health, then you can take risks and then regain it over time in all sorts of ways.

2. Golden Touch (green)

• Unlock requirement — Unlocked after paying 10 Chthonic Keys
• Unlock cost — 70, 90, then 110 Darkness

Golden Touch allows you to gain up to 15 percent of your total wealth after clearing each Underworld region. In other words, if you hoard your money, defeat a boss, and proceed into the next realm, you'll wind up with a lot of coin to purchase everything you want in the next region.

This can be a huge help if you lost any Death Defiance along the way. The purple Well of Charon in between regions offers three items, and one of them — the Kiss of Styx — can replenish one use of Death Defiance. Such a bonus can put you over the edge in affording many useful items in subsequent regions

1. Family Favorite (green)

• Unlock requirement — Unlocked after paying 20 Chthonic Keys
• Unlock cost — 50, then 150 Darkness

When maxed out, you'll gain 5 percent in damage for every unique god you have a boon from.

For example, if you have a boon from Dionysus, Zeus, and Aphrodite, that's 15 percent bonus damage to everything you do. If in that same run you gain a boon from Poseidon, that's a 20 percent damage bonus. With this talent, you can gain an absurd amount of damage without doing much at all.

The one major drawback, however, is that you won't be able to stack all of your boons with one god to capitalize on bonuses like Zeus' Storm Lightning boon, which causes all of your chain-lightning effects to bounce even more. But still, with the right assortment of boons, there are plenty of builds that could work tremendously well with Family Favorite.

Hades is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch.