Some of your favorite franchises get games every few years, but stealth gamers are always patiently awaiting a new entry in our favorite franchises, just ask Splinter Cells fans and you’ll understand. I would be lying if I wasn’t unbelievably hyped for a new Styx game, it had been over eight years since the last title Styx: Shards of Darkness and everything that I saw post launch made me really excited to get my hands on the game as I am a huge fan of open level sandbox stealth games. While this game won’t please everyone as most stealth games end up doing, is Styx Blades of Greed a worthy follow up to our favorite cynical goblin or was the developers greed to great for their own good?
Return of the King of Stealth
Styx is the third in the Styx trilogy which follows a snarky goblin, the only one of his kind, who is on a quest to snatch up as many quartz as possible to seize more and more power. To reach this goal, he has a ragtag group of misfits who for one reason or another want to help Styx with his goal of gathering Quartz and maybe stop the brewing tensions between orcs and humans. The story of any Styx has never really been the most compelling part of the game, but I did appreciate Cyanides’ attempt to really flesh out the characters and give them all a time to shine in the game. Helldryn is as sarcastic and unfunny as ever, being a perfect foil for Styx. Djarak comes back after the events of Shard of Darkness and is just as antagonistic towards Styx, but definitely has a secret agenda. We get some new additions to the main cast with Jasper, a dwarf who creates gadgets for you, Wren, a orc shaman, and Irving who pilots the zeppelin that acts as your home base for the game.
The basic structure of the game is that you are given three big levels to explore that have tons of key locations that could each be their own level in a normal Styx game. You are then set loose in these levels to look for quartz to absorb and once you take enough, you enter a more scripted level or action set piece that bridges the game’s story between each act. I enjoyed how the story was told for the most part, I’ll talk about some of the negative impacts later. It gave time for the characters to make a much larger impact on me, especially with the addition of crewmate missions. As the name implies, crewmate missions are specific tasks that a crewmate will give Styx that usually involve him stealing some kind of item for a reward. It’s an extra thing to do that gives more character to the cast while not being too intrusive to the core gameplay… speaking of.
Goblin stealth is good stealth
Styx is a return to form for a good old stealth game with none of the fluff that a lot of AAA video games seem to do with the genre. Styx is a small nimble goblin and is not necessarily a brawler; more of a sneaky dude. So you get access to not only the basic stealth moves like crouching, rolling, and a double jump, but you can use a variety of abilities that can change how you encounter enemies. You can turn invisible for a limited time, you can control an enemy and throw them off a cliff, you can throw clones of yourself at enemies to bind them, force push enemies off of ledges, and you can even run at super fast speeds. Of course, all of these abilities consume “Amber” which can be replenished with potions. You can get these potions by crafting them by finding materials in the open levels or you can steal them from select enemies. This game really balances the feeling of being an unstoppable ghost, but also makes you careful to manage your resources. Cause not only do you have to manage Amber abilities, but you also get access to tools like crossbow bolts and lockpicks that can get you out of some tricky situations.
One of the major highlights of this game’s stealth system has to do with the variety of ways you can traverse to areas in the game and how you can utilize those tools to get some creative stealth kills. You start off with a double jump, which is really useful in the early game and can make traversal really fun as you try to find your own routes through areas. Later in the game, you also get the grappling hook and the glider, which open up new areas and can lead to new opportunities. The way you get new items and how they open the level design is very reminiscent of metroidvania game design, which I think was intentional considering how much time and effort went into making these maps so big.
Bigger levels, big problems
One big point in the marketing that I remember catching my eye was how big these levels were going to be and oh boy were they right. Now there are two sides to this coin we call stealth video game level design, which is “do you make the level design small but focused or do you make it big and open which I don’t consider exactly how much these big levels would affect the player experience.” Now, I do not hate how big these levels are and if you know how to get around and you use the fast travel effectively, I think it can be quite manageable but there were definitely moments that I felt absolutely overwhelmed and lost. What doesn’t help is that there is no minimap or even a basic area map to help you get your bearings. All you have is a compass which can lead you to a wharf to fast travel or a quartz shard, which really doesn’t give you enough information. I can imagine many players being too frustrated figuring out how to get to a place that they could just quit the game.
The enemy AI is a bit of a mixed bag with the game having some really challenging moments that are either too frustrating or too easy thanks to the AI. There are moments where it’s do or die and the AI is on your heel constantly, which makes me feel like I’m back in prime Styx gameplay, but there are also moments where I see room with perfectly set up pins for me to knock over. Not to mention that the detection rate can be a bit too fast and considering how hard it is to escape a fully alert enemy, it can result in your frustrating death too often.
Styx is back if not a bit buggy
Another issue I really think the game needs to address is the save system and the performance issues that the game is dealing with at the time of writing. I have been playing this game on the PS5 and I have experienced a variety of bugs ranging from getting stuck in furniture to the game forgetting to perform an in-game action when I reloaded a save. My game crashed around three times and there were certain sections of the game that would reduce the frame rate. There aren’t any performance options and the fact that the game is running on Unreal Engine 5, which is notorious for its performance and optimization issues, really isn’t helping the game. Now, to be fair, this could all be due to me getting the game early and I did notice these problems being less prevalent as the release date came close, but these are still in the game to some extent.
If you ask any Styx fan, they will tell you one of the most important elements that makes a Styx game so much fun to play has to be the titular goblin. Styx has such a defined personality and is constantly cracking jokes, making sarcastic comments, and berating the player for being so crap at the game. Take Shards of Darkness, for example, where Styx has Arkham Knight style insults for you every time you die, which makes each death, no matter how frustrating, worthwhile just to see what he says next. One of the worries I had with the game is that since much of the game takes place in these open sandboxes that a result of that would be that Styx has less to say, which is unfortunately the case. Now you still do get occasional comments when you do certain actions like picking up a body, but it’s nowhere near as prevalent as in older games. The only sections where the pacing feels like the older games is through some of the more linear parts of the game. Now depending on your mileage with Styx as a character this could be a blessing or a curse.
The voice performances are very nice for the most part with many of the returning actors doing a nice job, like Saul Jephcott who returns as Styx still pulling off that raspy, sardonic voice perfectly. I did still find that some of the new characters are pretty stilted and could have been a lot more refined especially considering how many more cutscenes there are in this game. The music is alright with plenty of atmospheric tracks that do the job, but some of the sound designs needs to be touched up because there is a weird lack of sound effects when killing enemies and even traversing some environments.
I love Styx no matter the jank
Regardless of my possible issues with the game at launch, what I want you take away from this review is this: Styx: Blades of Greed is a game that we really don’t get anymore and that’s really cool. We obviously do get some stealth games but they are compromised with action or other muddled mechanics. Styx is good old fashioned stealth that doesn’t hold your hand and really makes you earn that mission accomplished. I really do applaud Cyanide with sticking to its guns and making a game that won’t appeal to everyone, but a game that stealth fans will end up loving no matter the jank. It’s not perfect and it does quite a bit of issues, but just like Styx, I don’t think I would have it any other way.
