Gigantes are powerful enemies found in Hades' Palace, acting as the dark god's personal guard. They seem to be giant suits of armor inhabited by souls of fallen warriors. They are primarily melee fighters, but they do possess some abilities to deal damage to targets outside of melee range.
Gigantes are slow, but resilient. Despite their powerful appearance, the common Armorites and Vanguards are not as dangerous as, for example, groups of Machae archers, especially those that include Master and Grandmaster Archers. They deal a lot less damage with their basic attacks, but they take longer to kill.
Gigantes used to be categorized as Magical monsters, as such items with the Ritual prefix could help reduce the damage they deal, howewer that is no longer the case, as the Anniversary Edition has had them properly re-classifed as Giants.
Variations
Vanguards and Armorites: The most common types, clad in golden armor. They cannot attack distant targets, but can charge towards them. Vanguards wield spears, Armorites carry one-handed weapons and shields and can use those shields to attack as well.
Vindicators: Champions with dark blue armor. They dual wield and can deal some damage at range with fire waves.
Dactyls: Rarely encountered "super-Vindicators" with a purple name just like quest monsters, an indicator of their power. They are easily the most dangerous enemies in the entire game and can kill unprepared players in just a few seconds. Visually identical to Vindicators, except for the glowing white aura that surrounds them. In combat, they dual wield and can use two special attacks, a quake and a shockwave. Both of those attacks deal extremely high amounts of physical and lightning damage (an adequately equipped character progressing through Hades' Palace on Normal difficulty will suffer about 2000 damage from each special attack). To reduce the risk of death, max lightning resistance, increase armor and gather as much physical resistance as you can. You can try to obtain some equipment that reduces damage taken from Giants, but such items are few and far between. Dactyls themselves possess high resistances as well, particularly against pierce and poison damage.
Dactyls' special attacks: the quake and the shockwave.
Notable drops
Gigantes can drop two sets of Monster Infrequents. Vanguards and Armorites can drop Porphyrion's Set, while Vindicators, Dactyls and Gigantes heroes can drop the more rare Alkyoneus' Set. Both of those sets have strength requirements and consist of helmets, chestpieces, arm and leg armor. Gigantes can also drop the Rancor, a hammer best suited for characters that focus on dealing vitality damage and the Vengeance, a shield that reflects damage back to the attacker.
The Rancor can drop from all Gigantes (heroes and non-heroes), with the exception of Vanguards.
The Vengeance can drop from Ephialtes and common Armorites.
Heroes
Three Gigantes heroes appear in the game: Ephialtes (an Armorite hero), Polybotes (a Vindicator hero) and the Warden of Souls (a Vindicator hero). The Warden of Souls is a quest monster and appears in every game in the same place, in the Prison of Souls. His special attacks deal vitality damage.