Developer: Cyanide Studios
Publisher: Focus Home Interactive
Rrp: £24.99 (Steam)
Released: 7th October 2014
Available on: Steam
Played Using: An Xbox 360 Control Pad
Approximate game length: 20 hours
It seems that mid tier games, or AA games, are a dying breed. Indie games seem to either stay indie or become huge mega hits and most game publishers seem to have no interest in creating something that isn’t a multi billion dollar project. And that’s a real shame, many of the now very well known titles out there started life as a mid tier game, the Witcher or Serious Sam being a prime examples.Styx: Master of Shadows is one these mid tier titles and much like its main character, it may just sneak up and surprise you.
So, what is Styx: Master of Shadows? Well Styx himself is a goblin and, in a twist that’s unusual for a fantasy setting, no one seems to know what a goblin is you’re regularly referred to as ‘it’ or ‘monster’. The actual game is a third person stealth game (or an infiltration game as I’ve also heard it be called) incorporating elements from the likes of the Assassin’s Creed and the Thief series.
As the name implies the aim of the game here is stealth and this is stealth with a capital S. Styx is by no means a master swordsmen, if anything he’s an assassin, as long as he can get to his opponent unseen he usually can take them out in a single attack. I would advise avoiding direct combat, Styx is a goblin after all and they’re quite known for being a bit… squishy. That isn’t to say he’s defenceless but if he has to take on more than one opponent he comes out worse for it, assuming he survives at all.
Combat system is simplistic, literally only requiring a single button. When you get caught and an enemy goes to attack you press a button to parry, if you timed it correctly Styx will parry the blow avoiding any damage.
Once you’ve parried enough times you can finally make your first and only attack (which also uses the same button), this attack will be a killing blow and it won’t be silent or neat. As I mentioned before Styx can only really take on a single opponent, any more than that and he gets killed very quickly.
The game progresses through missions with each missions level often spanning three or four stages, for the most part you’re free to complete each stage however you wish. The maps have a lot of verticality to them with lots of places to explore and items to find.
At the end of each mission you’re awarded skill points. These are based on several factors including how often you were spotted, if you completed the mission under a par time, how many items you found, if you completed any secondary objectives etc. You gain extra skill points for earning a insignia, there are four to earn; not triggering any alarms, not killing anyone, finding all the tokens and being quick. Thankfully you don’t have to try and get all the insignia’s at once as the game allows you to replay any previous mission once you return to Styx’s hideout.
Skill points are spent on unlocking new skills while at your hideout, there are a total of seven skill ladders each with four tiers.
Styx: Master of Shadows is not an especially easy game, especially if you intend on going for any of the bonuses. However as challenging as the game may be the powers that Styx has at his command help immensely, such as vomiting up a controllable clone to help get past some puzzles or going invisible for a short period and those are just the ones you start the game with.
Like many middle tier games there are a few small… quirks that can occur. In this games case one such quirk was that sometimes (quite rarely) a character would move without using their feet.
If this game has one major flaw, and it may seem like a small thing, I would have to say its that the detection for ledges isn’t great. That may seem like a nitpick until you think about the genre this game fits in to, stealth, as in the kind of game where hanging from ledges and dropping down is important. On top of this that game doesn’t even have a command to allow Styx to drop down to a ledge. You just have to walk him toward the edge and hope that he grabs the ledge rather than fall to his death (which happened to me more than a few times).
It’s clear that the game has taken several elements from quite a few other games, such as Assassin’s Creed style climbing and a thief-esq light indicator. Sadly none of these mechanics feel quite as polished as they are in those games, they’re completely functional but just don’t have the… flair of the originals.
To those of you out there that crave a good stealth based game I can certainly recommend this one. I had a lot of fun playing this and will most certainly buy the sequel Styx: Shards of Darkness.
If this appeals to you perhaps try;
