I suspect the game's creators believe that, in their fourth-wall breaking, wisecracking, sneering protagonist, they've made Fantasy Deadpool. Perhaps some will lap up the banal venom of his humour, but for me it's a significant misfire, to the point that I struggled to enjoy a game I otherwise would have done. The flipside of this is that no-one in the game is more hateful than Styx himself. We're shown a world in which most humans blindly murder goblinkind, and though Styx is the only one of them who can speak or, seemingly, think, this attitude stinks enough that I lose all my usual hesitation about bloodshed. Shame about those experience points, mind you. In Styx, however, absolutely everyone is so hateful that I simply do not give a shit. The friends and family of a henchman, and all that. I like the challenge of it, be it avoidance or the generally longer incapacitation sequences involved, and I like the idea that I'm being Not A Bad Dude. Now, usually I gravitate towards non-lethal options in stealth games.
Shards of war dead upgrade#
Same goes for killing - although Styx has a whole upgrade path dedicated to silent assassination, you miss out on points for mercy if you avail yourself of your weapons. Even then, the game so loudly declares that you've screwed the points bonus you get for a perfect run that the temptation to reload is overwhelming. This is a game about the art of not being seen, and not really one of madcap improv if you are.Įscape is eminently possible thanks to Styx's mobility, and that leads to the age-old 'must have been rats' reset after the murderous guards' alert timers cool off, but running and hiding is pretty much your only option. Which is to say, if you object to the presence of open combat options in your stealth games, you'll probably get a lot out of Styx. While Dishonored, Deus Ex, MGSV and even Hitman to a very slight extent offer the option to be a mass murderer in broad daylight, in Styx you might survive one or two fights against a lone opponent, but generally speaking getting seen means becoming a greenskin rug. The skill tree's big enough that one playthrough will only snag you a portion of its branches, and really that's the biggest draw here - flexibility in how you play, but always within the boundaries of a fairly pure stealth game. Other tricks primarily relate to various consumables, from the obvious deadly dart to short-term invisibility potions to an acid solution that dissolves bodies on the spot. In terms of opening up new ways to play what's otherwise quite a familiar game, this is your best option. Depending on what you pump your upgrade points into, this power can expand to include summoning cloney inside a mid-air cocoon or magically swapping places with him. More singular is Styx's ability to vomit up a mindless clone of himself, which he/you can then direct to perform a few basic actions, such as distracting an enemy or knocking something onto them from a great height. It's nothing you've not seen in, say Assassin's Creed, but there's a definitely a bit more hanging by your fingernails or swinging from convenient ropes than a Dishonored. The foremost of these is the heightened mobility that being a beclawed munchkin affords him, so there's far more climbing and hanging involved here. trick arrows and and a tricksier eyeball), Styx spins off into a few more fantastical abilities. However, where Thief broadly keeps its fantasy low (i.e. He's also a Thief, with Styx's core being based heavily on the Looking Glass stealth classic - navigate around a large area, stick to the shadows, climb over and around get the loot, get out, and if you're caught you're almost certainly dead. I have not played Cyanide's 2014 game myself, and though there is a glossing over of the setup - a fantasy world in which goblins are an animalistic pest in the world of man, but one, Styx, is intelligent - there was nothing truly unclear. To get it out the way, no prior experience of the first Styx game is required to understand what's going on here.
![shards of war dead shards of war dead](https://thepitgamingshop.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Sulentic-Shards-Crystallan-Team-768x768.jpeg)
![shards of war dead shards of war dead](https://media.pocketgamer.com/artwork/na-atfii/zwar1-shamblers-and-artillery.jpg)
What it has against it is its lead character.
![shards of war dead shards of war dead](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/pqqQHUVMnHU/maxresdefault.jpg)
We are spoilt for stealth choice, and that makes this fantasy wall-hugging sequel a tough sell. Hell, even the new Zelda game has a functional stealth element to it. Recent times have given us new Dishonoreds and Deus Exes and Metal Gear Solids and Hitmen, endless Assassin's Creeds and even a so-so Thief, the game Styx most resembles. A proper stealth game that isn't low-rent or poorly balanced, with a choice of paths and abilities but which doesn't devolve into routine action - we didn't used to get too many of them. A few years ago, I probably would have forgiven Styx: Shards of Darkness a multitude of sins (and though there is not a multitude, there is one honking great sin).