Where is Apollo?

[P O P]

So the game has all other major Greek gods except Apollo. Does anyone know why he is missing?

[C4RNIVOR3]

Essentially, it was never Supergiant's goal to include all Olympians, and any gods that were excluded were due to other gods suiting the story they were creating more.

From q&a sessions back in 2020 during early access:

Greg — 31/01/2020
@Mo Heat, Mo Problems 'Are there plans to introduce other gods even if they don't get their own boon? Who would you like to add the most?'

We have plans for one more character as part of our push toward exiting Early Access and getting to v1.0 of Hades. It was never really our goal to add all of the Olympians, vs. telling the specific story we wanted to tell. That's part of the reason why we opted for a frankly unpopular Olympian in Demeter over someone like Apollo, who is much more widely known, but less relevant to the specific story we're trying to tell here.

We didn't always plan on having Demeter in this game, and I'm really glad we did. Our cast has expanded to include characters we didn't originally anticipate, and at this point it has just about everybody I would have hoped for. There are tons of other compelling characters from Greek myth we think about, too, though we want to fully deliver on the many individual character stories we've set up.

The only character missing from the game at the point of this quote was Persephone, since she was not added until the game left early access

Greg — 26/06/2020
@TreeBuilder24 'Why did you include minor deitys like hermys in hedes but not major ones like hera or hafestus'

We wanted a mix of those big iconic names from Greek myth, such as Hades and Athena, and also some less-well-known ones such as Hypnos and Megaera. Part of it is just... the canon myth around some of these characters is so fascinating that it's kind of shocking to me they're not portrayed in media more often. Primordial Chaos is my favorite example of this... the idea that everything sprang from Chaos is like straight out of a heavy metal album cover, and in a story that's ultimately about family, having the great-great grandparent in there made a lot of sense.

The game also is about a specific story, so a character like Demeter has way more of a connection to it inherently than a character like Apollo. Even though Apollo is way better known than Demeter, we opted to include characters that fit the story best. Tisiphone, Alecto, Patroclus, and Demeter were characters we didn't always think would end up in this game but made more and more sense as we moved forward.

Edit; I will note Apollo was probably considered during early development, as his boon symbol can be datamined in the game's files, but for whatever reason Supergiant decided he didn't fit into the story they wanted.

[Nibbie]

Originally posted by P O P:

So the game has all other major Greek gods except Apollo.

Are the likes of Hera and Hephaestus not "major" to you? There are plenty of gods missing. Some of Apollo's aspects are taken by other gods anyway, archery being the obvious example.

In addition to story reasons as already posted, remember that every god you add means dozens of new unique boons to think of, program, and balance; hundreds of voice lines to write and record, not only for the new god but for all the others talking about the new god; and every god you add dilutes the pool making it harder to get the boons you want. You have to draw a line somewhere.

[PyroRider]

Looking from a practical perspective, Artemis and Apollo would have the same boons. No real point in adding him.

[AerisFang]

There's a mod that adds Apollo to the game.