Styx: Blades of Greed

I love Styx, one of my favorite video game character. Love that little f**cker. But that game is just horrible. I don't know what went wrong at Cyanide. I'm not a game developper and had to learn how UE5 works under the hood to fix the crazy blur, the color saturation (everything looks brown), performances.. it's not my job i'm not a game dev man. Like it's clear to me that this team was not trained properly with this engine and should have stick to the old engine. They did not have the talent to pull it off and it's obvious everywhere you look. Styx movements are so bad it's almost impressive, he's always flip flopping around like a salmon, he jumps 17 feet in the air but takes fall damage dropping off a street curb. the enemies can hit you and detect you through walls, if you make a pin drop the whole map just gets after you, if you hide somewhere unseen in an alert and you dont run 17 miles from that place 100% the AI will laser on you open your hideout spot and kill you on the spot. You can't parry any attack, the rolling mechanic is awful, you roll half the room, it's impossible to control. I just hate the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ game. I'm sorry but it's mind melting how they messed up my boy. My goblino.

I love Styx, I've played Master of Shadows and Shards of Darkness a ton and was real excited for this game when it was announced. After having completed the story and done a decent amount of gathering plenty of collectibles as well as completing all side mission content, I can say with confidence that this game feels like a downgrade from what came before. It's an enjoyable experience for people who are dedicated to this genre of video game, but even so it feels like it's taken one step forwards and two steps back. It's pretty buggy, feels very unpolished, and the controls are a mess to work with in their base form. There's too many mechanics introduced which you don't get to use that often, and the whole narrative is very weak. Granted, Styx games have never been all that interested in the story of their games, and have been far more focused on their sandbox-nature and ways of playing the game itself. I point out the weak story aspect here, however, since aside from Styx's VA no one is ever giving more than half-assed voice lines which feel like they're all from a first draft. I still enjoyed my time with this game, but I can't say I'll likely ever pick it up again after this one playthrough. I'll more likely just replay both Shards and Master every once in a while like I have done, which is what I say everyone- whether they be long-time fans of Styx, or if they're unfamiliar with the games- should do. The only reason I would recommend this game is if you either A.) want to know what happened after the cliffhanger ending of Shards, which you can just learn from the wiki anyways or by watching a YouTube playthrough. Or B.) you haven't played a Styx game prior to now, but are a fan of thief-like games and are willing to put up with jank- in which case I would still say "just play Master of Shadows and/or Shards of Darkness." From how the ending was written, this is likely to be the last Styx entry. It didn't end on a high note, but I at least have the satisfaction of knowing how it ended and have the satisfaction of knowing I saw all there was to see. Goodbye, Styx. I'll drink an Amber Flask in your memory, one last time.

[h1]Not a terrible game, but not one I would recommend[/h1] Steam does not ask whether a game deserves a passing grade. It asks whether you would [b]recommend[/b] it, and to me those are two different things. If “recommend” means telling someone [i]“hey, you really should try this”[/i], then my answer is clearly no. That does not mean [i]Styx: Blades of Greed[/i] is a terrible game. There is still plenty here to enjoy, and I had a decent time with it for a good part of the game. But for me this is a [b]5/10 or 6/10 at best[/b]: enjoyable, but not good enough to actively recommend. [h2]Mission design and a story with no real direction[/h2] My biggest problem is the mission structure. The game massively overuses the same formula: you need to open something, so you need three keys; activate something, so you need three levers; get an object, but first collect several others. Entire levels start becoming variations of [b]“you need X, but first collect A, B and C.”[/b] For a stealth game I expected much more variety: steal something from a specific person, assassinate a target without being seen, manipulate a situation, deal with a specific infiltration problem, or simply give me an objective and a complicated environment where I have to figure out my own solution. Instead, far too often it becomes more like completing a checklist than carrying out a plan. This would bother me less if there were a strong narrative objective, but for a large part of the game there really isn't one. The characters themselves practically admit at one point that they do not know what to do next, so they will keep gathering things until something happens. That is remarkably close to the plot itself: Styx is rarely pursuing a clearly defined goal with a plan behind it; you collect objects, information and resources while waiting for the story to decide where it wants to go. [h2]Some of the stealth identity has been lost[/h2] Several things that contributed to the identity of the previous games have been diminished or are simply gone. Torches and other light sources have lost much of their usefulness. Earlier entries had missions that actually took place at night, where extinguishing lights and creating darkness could genuinely change how you approached an area. Here, manipulating light rarely seems important. I also really miss the old mission challenges: finishing without being detected, without killing, under a certain time limit, and so on. They encouraged you to learn the map, optimize routes and replay missions to execute them better. Removing them is not just losing a few badges or achievements; it removes a layer of replayability directly tied to mastering the stealth mechanics, which seems like a particularly strange thing to lose in a Styx game. [h2]A lighter story and a weaker cast[/h2] The previous two games were considerably darker to me. Their worlds were dirtier, harsher, more cynical and decadent. [i]Blades of Greed[/i] still has elements of that, but the overall tone has been softened, and the new allies are one of the main reasons. Narratively, they barely add anything that requires them to exist. One gives information, another provides upgrades, another pilots the vehicle, but those functions could easily be handled without adding new characters. Styx handled his own upgrades before, information could come from existing characters, and the vehicle could simply have been stolen. You could remove most of these allies and very little would actually change. They are lazy writing: characters created to perform a plot function rather than because the story actually needs them. Their personalities are also extremely naïve compared with the existing cast and the world around them. Instead of reinforcing the cynical atmosphere I associate with Styx, they push parts of the story towards a much lighter adventure about friendship and teamwork, sometimes getting strangely close to a “power of friendship” dynamic, which clashes badly with the kind of world the series had previously established. Their visual designs do not help either: they are generic and forgettable. [h2]A main antagonist with almost no presence[/h2] The main antagonist has an even worse version of this problem. For someone so important, the design is remarkably generic. Visually, the character is closer to some regular enemies you can kill with a single stab than to a memorable central villain, with little to distinguish them in silhouette or presence. The personality is no more intimidating. You never get the sense that you are dealing with someone genuinely dangerous, experienced or hardened by this world. It often comes across as a childish interpretation of how “the bad guy” is supposed to behave: gestures, attitude and dialogue that signal evil without ever creating a genuinely threatening presence. The character does not command the room, does not feel unsettling, and rarely gives the impression that Styx is facing someone he should actually fear. Even after the later change in appearance, the character remains surprisingly forgettable. [h2]It often seems unfinished[/h2] There is a [b]lot[/b] of pop-in, and some transitions are especially rough. I have seen scenery or situations appear for a brief moment before the loading screen itself appears, showing things that clearly were not meant to be visible yet. It may only last a fraction of a second, but it gives the game a sloppy, unfinished quality. I understand this can happen during development, but it should not be this noticeable in a finished release. The AI has similar problems. Minor glitches normally do not bother me much, but here they happen constantly: enemies getting stuck on scenery, walking into walls or props, remaining trapped in certain states, making strange movements or behaving in obviously broken ways. None of these bugs ruins the game by itself, but together they reinforce the impression that it needed more polish. There are smaller, more subjective issues too. Some of the orc voice acting does not work for me at all: you look at these enormous creatures and then hear voices that sound like completely ordinary people. The disconnect breaks immersion for me, although I would not consider it a serious flaw on its own. [h2]In conclusion[/h2] The disappointing thing about [i]Styx: Blades of Greed[/i] is not that it is unplayable or that it has stopped being Styx. The core is still recognizable, and that is why an existing fan can still have a reasonably good time with it. The problem is that many of the things that gave the previous games their character have been simplified, pushed into the background or removed, while the new additions do not compensate for what was lost. The repetitive mission structure, weak narrative direction, lighter cast, forgettable antagonist, loss of stealth challenges, reduced importance of darkness and general lack of polish all add up. [b]If you already love Styx, you will probably still find plenty to enjoy here. I did. But enjoying something because you already love the series is not the same as being able to recommend it to someone else, and in its current state I simply wouldn't.[/b]

No longer a stealth game. Instead it one of those "keep walking around in the hopes of finding anything interactible open world games." Also avoiding detection is easy, but finding out what surfaces are climbable or what routes exists only work by trial and error.

Unfortunate disappointment. After the first two games you get into the vibe of being a stealthy little fella being rewarded for not killing anyone, doing missions as quickly as possible and having a continuous live story telling. The mission objectives have a point in story progression. You can forget all of these in this game. You got rid of the using your clone ability which made the game so characteristic. Now you basically kill everything as the guard paths dont seem so sophisticated and there is literally 0 risk for doing so. All of the abillities make the game so boring and repetitive. You can kill any enemy without a problem (even without using the abillities.) The story itself is as bland as elementary school canteen, with the gaps between cinematis filled out with fetch quests which are hard only because you need to travel through the map. If you are a player who never played the first two games its worth a try. If you come from the previous games, youll end up disappinted. I gave the game a try however I don´t intend to finish it any time soon, I´ll go invest my time into something that gives me more dopamine, for example watching evening news from archive.

This bored me, which as someone who loved the last two enough to get every achievement without looking them up is saying something. Ultimately I think this is down to the world being to big, and to empty with little incentive to explore beyond resources and potions. They could of done so much with it, had little stories about nps characters building the world, lots of hidden quests as you explored instead of starting with a list, instead we have guards complaining about food and work and telling the same rumours over and over and over like copy paste models and buildings. Totally killed the living world feel, and felt more like a sandbox of murder and resources. They should of kept it smaller and not fallen for the open world trend.

I have played all the previous Styx titles and found them well made and lots of fun. This iteration is just not on par with the previous games, is buggy, it looks worse, it plays worse, the story is meh. Lots of graphics bugs, pop-ins, slow texture loading. The previous games ran fine on my modest computer, but Blades of Greed barely runs, has long load times, plays choppy, and has all kinds of weird graphics issues like random parts of level geometry getting all garbled. I appreciate challenging levels, but the insane loading times to restart or load a save every time you get killed is just way to tedious. Not recommended.

Same feel as Styx 2 with none of the elitist nonsense. Ignore the opening suggestion to use a controller. It's much better without, whoever wrote that has no pc. No time restraints or being caught, just freedom. Far less buggy than Styx 2 and a lot more open. Love the Balloon and Rune unlocks as well. Feels very Akenashy from Styx 1. Dunno what the rest are whining about, this is great There's huge investment in detail, wherever you look. Factions fight for control if you return to areas. Plenty of fun ways to lay traps from fireplaces to mind-games. Also missions are dynamic, so if you left a gang alive, another group later fight them for area control and if you need to follow a guy to retrieve something there's different dialogue depending on who you follow, there's even a backup in case they die for some other reason before you can follow either! The world really feels alive and the music is very Apocalyptica-esque, I love it. Sadly the Devs spoiled all the unlocks and story end location in news release a few weeks after release and story chapters refer to cutscenes that come later (like wren's shaman speech) so mission briefs don't make sense, like reading the end of the book first 😕

Styx: Blades of Greed has been a fun addition to the series, and I recommend it, but not wholeheartedly. I replayed Master of Shadows and Shards of Darkness soon before this game's release. I consider the third installment to be a good bridge between the first two games - a lot has been learned from the previous titles and it shows! The tone is still comedy for the most part, like in SoD, but the level design and general atmosphere reminds me more of MoS. [h2]Most importantly: I think Cyanide did a great job in the "keeping the soul of Styx" department, despite the first two installments being so different. I didn't think it was possible.[/h2] In this review, I will mark spoilers, but not things shown/discussed in trailers and pre-release dev updates. [h3] Performance [/h3] I think the most disappointing news before release was the announcement that Styx: Blades of Greed was going to use Unreal Engine 5 as its engine - and I've got to admit, it runs much better than anticipated. On release, I expected that for the first month or so we'd see a lot of hotfixes for random crashes, that I would see a lot of lightning and shadow bugs I personally associate with UE5 the most, but that was not the case, the game is surprisingly stable optimization-wise. I played on max settings and did not have issues with framerate the vast majority of the time. Looking at other reviews, I seem to be in the minority :( Later in the game, I have encountered a few crashes, none of which were in important parts of the game, and given its quick loading, it wasn't really a problem. Obviously, the cutscenes still need a second or three to load the correct texture, which breaks the immersion. During gameplay, I did not have such issues. [h3] Visuals and atmosphere [/h3] The thing that playing on max settings actually affects... is navigation. Playing on high shadow and/or global illumination made the Garrison area impossible to explore at times, as turning off a torch could very well leave the player in pitch black darkness with even Amber vision being useless in figuring out where you are in a current room. The game does not have a mini map nor floor maps (the latter would be appreciated...), which makes this doubly frustrating, especially when collecting Emblems. Outside the Garrison, the game is gorgeous to look at environment-wise. The ever-present blue tint from SoD is gone, and the greys and browns make a big comeback here. I loved exploring the whole open-world for the second time in my life I think, which is high praise, given I don't usually enjoy it. I loved the contrast between the structured chaos of the cramped Wall and the vast jungle of Turquoise Dawn. The two places help highlight the orc-human conflict. The NPCs in general are a bit hit-or-miss whether they feel like they fit in the environment they are surrounded by, but it might be just a "me" thing. The audio design is pretty good, though! I'm not very good at analyzing music, so I'll leave it at the soundtrack being good. Not MoS-level, but it's decent. But again, I cannot stress enough how great of a job the designers did with the environment. Jumping among the ruins of Akenash, most of it destroyed and overgrown to the point of being unrecognizable, and suddenly realizing what area of the first game I'm standing in... genuinely made me feel heartbroken. While I wish we saw more of the gameplay-relevant elements Styx used to use to move around before (ledges, wall hooks, etc), their absence did add to Akenash feeling alien and unwelcoming, a place literally cursed by the ending of Master of Shadows. Most of the enemies found exclusively there make the thought of coming back there dreadful. Masterfully done! [h3] Gameplay [/h3] Cyanide told us the thing they were most proud of in Blades of Greed was Styx's movement - and it got a huge improvement indeed! I loved most of the changes done to make our goblin feel more responsive. While I liked the simplicity of Master of Shadows, Shards of Darkness made Styx feel more fast and fluid in his movement - an enjoyable change, but it was unreliable a lot of the time. The complexity of level design in Blades of Greed obviously required a major overhaul, and oh boy was it a good one. I'm glad they kept Amber Vision a cost-less ability, and thankful they decided to change the colors of collectibles and plot items to be more recognizable than crafting ingredients! Speaking of, although I used to hate crafting in SoD, Blades of Greed makes this system much less of a hassle - it still is, but it is nowhere near the first two installments' problems with having to replay missions to get resources required to progress or being too afraid to use the tools available. About upgrades and powers: I like a lot of them, they diversify the ways you can reach a place and are pretty well thought-out. I loved mind control, invisibility feels great now, and slowing time was an interesting power to use. I'm sad controlling your clones wasn't as "personal" as it used to be, but I suppose it fits our current Styx more to not do so anymore. The clone powers often proved useful in their own right. However, a lot of item-based utilities are borderline useless, given both the actual supernatural powers and their low max amount in your inventory - I've genuinely not used sand ONCE since the tutorial, because it simply feels useless compared to everything else and you can only hold 2 pinches before having to refill. I also feel like a big chunk of the abilities was made for a much riskier, combat-focused playstyle... while the combat itself still is just as dogsh*t as it used to be. Maybe it's just a skill issue on my part, I dunno, but I avoided it like the plague. As players who have finished the game might imagine, I had mixed feelings about [spoiler]the final bossfight forcing combat on you[/spoiler], but I genuinely felt so happy [spoiler]it started so similar to the Master of Shadows' final fight - the theme of Styx being haunted by his past is just so perfect in that moment[/spoiler]. [h3] Story [/h3] First thing you'll notice - the dialogues start out VERY rough. Not even the writing, which is decent most of the time, but the voice acting. Everyone has their moment later in the game, but it is for the vast majority of the time simply mediocre or outright bad, not helped at all by the atrocious lip sync. I honestly thought at some point that the mouth animations got the wrong variable of something, they look exaggerated. The story itself is, as always in Styx, linear. The abilities and open world in this game make the objectives feel more flexible in HOW you complete them, even sometimes outright stating there is more than one path to achieve the same result. The main plot feels both too short and too long in my opinion, probably because for a lot of the game, the actual main objectives ultimately boil down to very similar sequences. Is it still enjoyable? Yes, very much so. It did mean, however, that despite playing the game from day 1, I had to take breaks from it (and thus the quite late review). Without giving too much away, the plot is, again, largely about history repeating itself, being haunted by ones past, and the dangers of letting greed take over your sense of self. I love how [spoiler]the villain[/spoiler] is a perfect foil for Styx here. Styx, [spoiler]unlike Geoffroi[/spoiler], doesn't let his greed take over, both because of his strong sense of self, letting his allies and friends help him and, well, just being built different lol. All of these themes are present in the previous installments, and this game builds upon those beautifully. I enjoyed this a lot. Overall, this is not a great game by itself, but it is a very good and competent sequel to both MoS and SoD. Despite the mixed reviews, I hope that Cyanide someday makes Styx 4, and that they keep this up, because I was pleasantly surprised.