Where It Fits in the Lore

Who remembers the 2014 Xbox 360 tactical RPG Of Orcs and Men? Probably not many. The Styx games are more widely known, mostly because of the steep discounts and cheep point of entry. Styx: Blades of Greed ties directly into the overlooked tactical title that started it all, serving as a prequel that sets up the Great War between humans and goblins. It also explores the origins of the Black Hand, the mercenary group Styx belonged to in Of Orcs and Men. With its position bridging the older game and the more recent Styx titles, Blades of Greed feels like an ideal jumping-on point for newcomers.

Single-Player Stealth Action-Adventure

Unlike the tactical RPG gameplay from Of Orcs and Men, Styx sticks closely to the stealth-action formula fans expect from the series. This new entry notably drops the co-op mode that divided players in Styx: Shards of Darkness. This time around, the experience is entirely single-player, allowing the developers to laser-focus on tighter level design and more polished stealth mechanics.

Core Hook: Hunting Quartz

As a persecuted goblin (the only one who speaks), Styx now makes his living hunting Quartz, a powerful new energy resource. This time, he’s running the operation himself, commanding a crew aboard a zeppelin. Quartz fuels everything from towering golems to flying airships, and multiple factions are battling to control it. The conflict over Quartz isn’t just a narrative conceit though, it directly feeds into the game’s core systems and progression.

New Quartz Powers

Quartz introduces a brand-new suite of abilities that Styx can wield across his high-flying journey. In fact, fans of Dishonored might feel right at home here. You’ve got powers like Mind Control, which lets Styx briefly possess enemies, and Time Shift, which slows or accelerates time so you can slip through patrol routes. Flux Blast offers a more aggressive option, unleashing a shockwave that knocks enemies off their feet. Quartz abilities form just a half of the game’s upgrade system.

Cloning and Invisibility Return

The other half of Styx’s abilities come from the stealth-minded Amber skills. These include returning fan-favorites like invisibility and cloning, which lean more toward defensive and evasive playstyles compared to the offense-oriented Quartz abilities. Clone Decoy is a tad different compared to previous titles since you cannot directly pilot clones this time. The advantage is their upgradability.

Two-Track Progression

Skills in Blades of Greed aren’t static. The game features a branching, two-track skill tree giving you the option to invest in either Amber stealth abilities or aggressive Quartz powers. Your choices shape how Styx handles encounters. For example, clone-related upgrades allow you to deploy multiple decoys, which can be invaluable for slipping past heavily guarded patrols.

Crafting

Skills aren’t the only trick up Styx’ goblin sleeve; he’s also a cunning trapmaster who knows how to craft. Looting is something goblins are particularly good at and you’ll be doing much of that within the more open-ended environments. Collected materials can be used to craft temporary weapons, potions, and traps on the fly. These range from noise-making whistles and glass bottles to acid used to quickly dispose bodies. Crafting is fast and seamless, aided by automatic loot pickups.

Vertical Environments

Environments aren’t just bigger for the sake of loot though, they also serve to vary up the terrain. The game has a notable vertical element complimenting the stealth/action gameplay. Styx can climb structures and parkour across rooftops with leaps and slides, and performing kills from behind is more satisfying due to the multi-angle sandbox design. There’s some exciting tools that make traversal across the larger world more fun too, as we’ll get into shortly.

More Progression Details

These larger environments support a new platformer-inspired structure, which has me pretty excited. As you progress, you’ll unlock tools that open up new routes and shortcuts. To keep backtracking manageable, fast-travel points are scattered throughout the world in addition to frequent respawn points.

Glider and Grappling Hook

Traversal gets a major upgrade thanks to new tools. Styx can now glide across gaps using a hang glider, reaching new areas and striking enemies from above. A grappling hook allows him to zip instantly to ledges and rooftops, while climbing claws help scale steep, often rugged, walls.

Three Large Districts

Rather than a fully open world, Blades of Greed is divided into three open-ended districts. The Wall is an imposing borderland tower separating humans from the rest of the world and features some of the game’s most vertigo-inducing heights. Turquoise Dawn is a dense jungle homeland of the orcs, while Akenash offers a more fantastical, Tolkien-inspired aesthetic as the elven capital.

Zeppelin Hub

Aside from fast-travel points, you can access regions via Styx’s own personal zeppelin. The zeppelin serves as the mobile hub of the game, housing your delinquent crew of Quartz thieves with Styx at the helm. My favorite aspect of the zeppelin is that it acts as the place of conversation for all the party members. I’m not expecting the Normandy from Mass Effect here, but the zeppelin serves a similar purpose. My hopes weren’t let down when I heard the crew members speak. Your elf companion Djarak is voiced by the same actor who played Balthier in Final Fantasy XII, a fitting casting choice considering they’re both sky pirates in their respective games. Let’s just hope the dialogue writing matches the potential and we get some cool backstories and companion quests for Styx’s crew.

Tone

It’s perhaps worth pointing out that Styx himself is a very chatty goblin. In fact, he talks to himself more than he does to his crewmates throughout the game. Much of the game’s humor is filtered through his monologues and quippy observations. Thankfully, the developers have confirmed that the very repetitive death screens from Shards of Darkness are gone, replaced by contextual ragdoll animations. Numerous words are heard in the short demo alone, so if you’re averse to heavy swearing, steer clear, and if you want something with more of an edge, you’re in the right place.

Length

According to the developers, a casual playthrough clocks in at around 20 hours. Completionists and explorers can expect to spend significantly more time uncovering secrets and side activities scattered throughout the districts.

Price and Editions

For a semi-open-world platformer offering over 20 hours of content, the price is appealing. Styx: Blades of Greed retails for $39.99 on PC and $49.99 on consoles. Still not sure if it’s for you? Well, there’s a 30-minute demo available, and best of all, your progress carries over to the full game. For fans who want early access and extra bonuses, the Quartz Edition costs $10 more and includes 48-hour early access, skins, weapons, and some bonus talent points to spend on your Quartz thievery antics.

Styx: Master of Shadows is a prequel to 2012’s Of Orcs and Men. For this release, Cyanide Studios departs from the action RPG to produce a traditional stealth game, one that sweeps together all the clandestine conventions of past success. This collaboration offers no surprises, and ultimately fails to argue a purchase. It is too familiar, too often.

Styx is not terribly fun to play. There are many things responsible for it’s deflation, but the macro fact is that there is no great reason to play it. For every unoriginal design there are five buggy visual interruptions. For every five bugs there are ten frustrating checkpoint resets. Other facets like sound design, and narrative are there, but neither are remarkable.

"It is too familiar, too often."

You take on the role of Styx, a goblin who’s equal parts sneaky, and snarky. You guide his plunder of the Tower of Akenash, a massive structure housing unionized humans, and elves who guard a magic tree, and its coveted sap of Amber. The politicized possession of the sap, and glares of goblin bigotry don’t hide the by-the-numbers fantasy stage. Somewhere between the Dungeon Master’s Guide and the Monster Manual, Styx checks every otherworldly box to unflattering effect.

The low production cut scenes and occasionally forced dialogue do little to engage its audience, and the villainized defendants of the Amber hardly seem worth butchering. The attempt at making Styx an anti-hero falls into the question of who the real enemy is. Between his angsty f-bombs, fart jokes, and constant widow making, Styx feels like a real jerk, one who repels cheerleading.

With a well-visited fantasy world, one would hope the gameplay might land on new shores. It doesn’t do this, and underperforms on genre contrivances. Excluding the unpredictable AI, the main enemy here is the light. Our goblin friend can snuff torches by hand, or toss wet sand to extinguish at a distance. As long as you are standing in darkness, you are free to assassinate your adversaries with a noisy quick kill or elongated quiet kill. Heard this one before? How about ‘Hold to pick lock,” or “Press to look through keyhole”?

"The macro fact is that there is no great reason to play it"

You have played this game already. At some point in your gaming career you have played and enjoyed an element of Styx in a different (likely more entertaining) title. The inclusion of platform elements is welcome, but feels underutilized and derivative. These familiar tropes are tossed into big environments that ask the player to cut their own route to the next objective. This can be fun occasionally, but often times it felt that there was one clear path for success and the rest was peripheral or outright divergent. While the environments mock vastness, the same cannot be said about the gameplay toolkit. An upgrade system allows you to slot points into different categories, but you will spend most of your time killing the lights, and slitting throats. The ability to clone yourself proves useful when required, but is unhelpful beyond a brief area scouting.

Maybe it is okay that Styx lacks an infinite holster of death, because his AI counterparts are slack-jawed quitters. When one of them catches the scent of danger they do everything in their power to stop the threat, e.g. they leisurely pace toward the clue, gawk, and turn 180-degrees and return to thinking deeply in a fixed position. The more athletic guards will strut highly telegraphed patrols that you can comprehend in a matter of moments. The difficulty spawns mostly from the player getting too cocky and discrediting the bloodthirsty AI.

"You will spend most of your time killing the lights, and slitting throats"

You will die, though, and often. If you are spotted, you can almost bet on your demise. Coming into range of an assailant will lock you mono e mono, your only saving grace being a well-timed parry. In these situations, Styx can only target one enemy while the rest are free to prod you with blades and release their bolts. If you escape, well, you’ll likely get shot in the back. Escapism is so commonly ineffective that you might wonder why you don’t immediately restart after being spotted.

For all its frustration, the game can be fun. Some of the upgraded abilities trigger satisfying results, and throwing your lifeless victims over the edge is worth a giggle. These strides don’t last very long, and quickly become marred by repetitive level design, and airhead AI. The game is not short, but the overall quality won’t compel anyone to the credits, or feel like their money was well spent. All told, Styx: Master of Shadows is a pickpocket.

This game was reviewed on the PC.

Editors note: Due to technical difficulties on the site this review has been published under Philip Hartmeyer’s byline. In actuality, Eli Kineg wrote this review and deserves whatever credit is due. You can follow Eli on Twitter at @NAPK1NS