Having a hard time clearing chambers in Supergiant Games’ Hades? It’s time to upgrade Zagreus’ power using Darkness.
Darkness is one of the game’s Artifact currencies that is primarily used for Mirror of the Night upgrades to help Zagreus escape the Underworld.
Aside from that, here are a couple more uses for Darkness:
- Needed to complete Nyx’s Favor
- To upgrade Zagreus’ rank at the Resource Director
- Purchase the Infinite Theme from the House Contractor
Here are ways to obtain Darkness:
Grind
The most common way of obtaining Darkness is through chamber rewards. Fortunately, it’s easy to know what the chamber rewards are from the icon on the door. During your runs, watch out for Infernal Troves to obtain more Darkness. Use weapons with the Dark Thirst or Darker Thirst buff as this will increase Darkness drops by 20%. But, make sure that the weapon helps you clear chambers fast, even with the buff or not, to help you save time.
Another tip is to start runs with a low amount of Heat to obtain Darkness instead of Bounties after each boss. With this, you can obtain 50 Darkness after defeating The Furies, 100 Darkness from the Bone Hydra, 150 Darkness from Theseus and Asterius, and 250 Darkness from Hades himself.
Also, look out for Sisyphus in Tartarus as he will give the option to obtain 50-55 Darkness. Increase your affinity with Sisyphus and you will obtain Companion Shady. You can summon Sisyphus and Bouldy to help you in battle by using Shady. Afterward, Bouldy will drop a care package of Health, Obols, and Darkness.
Boons
Certain boons also increase your chances of obtaining Darkness like Poseidon’s Ocean’s Bounty, which increases the Darkness gained from all sources by 50-65%, and Sunken Treasure which drops 50-220 Darkness. Equip the Conch Shell keepsake to increase the chances of Poseidon’s boons appearing.
You can also increase your chances of obtaining more Darkness by using Chaos’ Eclipse boons which increases the Darkness obtained by a percentage depending on the rarity. Equip the Cosmic Egg keepsake in Asphodel and Elysium to increase chances of getting higher rarity versions (along with no damage when entering Chaos Gates) as Eclipse’s effects can be stacked.
Purchase
During your runs, purchasing these items from the Well of Charon will help in farming Darkness:
- Tinge of Erebus to obtain 12-26 Darkness
- Light of Ixion to ensure a Chaos Gate will appear ahead and hopefully a fishing spot will spawn
- Yarn of Ariadne to upgrade the rarity of the next Boon picked up and hopefully it’s one of the Boons mentioned above.
- Trove Tracker to ensure an Infernal Trove will appear ahead
- Night Spindle to gain +1 use of companion’s summon so you can use Shady even more.
Additionally, check the Wretched Broker regularly for special deals to purchase Darkness.
Fish
Fish in the Chaos biome can be exchanged for Darkness. After every run, exchange caught fish with the Head Chef in the kitchen of the House of Hades. Mati (Common) can be exchanged for 100 Darkness, Projelly (Rare) for 250 Darkness, and Voidskate (Legendary) 500 Darkness. Just remember to exchange them after every run as they won’t be carried over on your next run.
Prophecies
Escaping the Underworld for the first time will complete the ‘Is There No Escape?’ quest in the Fated List of Minor Prophecies which will reward you with 1000 Darkness.
Tips
On the Mirror of Night, do not enable Dark Foresight as this will lessen the chances of having Darkness as a chamber reward (Dark Foresight increases the chances of having Boons, Obols, Poms, and Hammers as chamber rewards). Use Fated Persuasion to re-roll boons for a chance to have a Chaos or Poseidon boon and God’s Pride for more chances for a Boon to be Epic.
Basically, on every run, your main source of Darkness are chamber rewards, Infernal Troves, Eclipse boon, Sunken Treasure and Ocean’s Bounty boon, Tinge of Eberus from the Well of Charon, fishing on the Chaos biome, and rewards from bosses.
It is important to note that the Eclipse boon makes a big difference so watch out for Chaos Gates. Also, don’t forget to get rewards that’ll help you defeat bosses as they drop big amounts of Darkness too.
