Review: Styx: Blades of Greed

The Styx series was always one that eluded me in my long years of gaming. I’ve always been aware of it, but never got the opportunity to play it until now. Styx: Blades of Greed was my jumping-in point to the Of Orcs and Men universe and if you know me, I’m always keen to discover new fantasy worlds and explore its lore. This ended up being both a blessing and a curse for me but not to the game’s detriment, for the most part. There’s a rock-solid stealth adventure game here held back by a few problems that prevented me from giving it more praise.

As the story goes, you play as Styx, a snarky orc gifted with tremendous arcane abilities. In the fantasy universe of Of Orcs and Men, humans have risen to become the dominant species and unfavourably look down on other races, often treating them as revolting or lower-class. This includes orcs, who are mercifully not all depicted as morally good or evil. I appreciated the storytelling subtlety because this isn’t a universe where it’s easy to champion for the good guys and hate the bad guys, but Styx: Blades of Greed does an excellent job of putting you in the shoes of Styx’s personal-driven choices. On the brink of a war between elves, orcs and humans, the resource Quartz has become highly sought-after. Styx slips somewhere in the middle of the chaos, using his stealthy skills to obtain Quartz and potentially divert large-scaled clashes.

Styx: Blades of Greed is a direct sequel to 2017’s Shards of Darkness (and by extension, 2014’s original Styx: Master of Shadows). If you aren’t already familiar with those games, Blades of Greed doesn’t hold your hand and explain much to you. As a newcomer to the series, it’s initially a bit difficult to follow the plot and characters you’re sort of already supposed to know. A quick detour away to watch some lore videos online, and I returned to Blades of Greed a little more informed, but ultimately let down by where the story goes.

I appreciated the storytelling subtlety because this isn’t a universe where it’s easy to champion for the good guys and hate the bad guys.

Styx: Blades of Greed is driven by the appeal of its world and gameplay, and that’s where it scores the highest marks. Using an assortment of new magical abilities, Styx stealthily lurks in the shadows and around corners to take out enemies swiftly and silently. The stealth gameplay is simple but incredibly addictive. Common stealth mechanics like sneaking, hiding in the darkness, not making noise to alert enemies, distractions, climbing to gain leverage, and re-entering stealth when things get hairy are all explained to you very well from the tutorial. Outside of a few welcomed abilities that you gain later in the game, it never deviates too far from its basic stealth roots and that completely works in its favour.

Styx: Blades of Greed doesn’t waste time lying about what you’re getting into. Developer Cyanide Studios refined and polished its stealth gameplay splendidly and its commitment to making the stealth entertaining rather than tedious or frustrating really shows. That’s a nail that needed to be hit on the head because almost the entire game is built around stealth and silent assassinations. Getting caught outside of stealth is a one-way ticket to dying. Sure, you can technically take foes head-on but you’re quickly outmatched and destroyed, repositioning you to always take the sneaky route to succeed.

Developer Cyanide Studios refined and polished its stealth gameplay splendidly and its commitment to making the stealth entertaining rather than tedious or frustrating really shows.

Mandatory stealth sections in video games have become a heated topic, especially when they have no place in a game where its own mechanics actively work against being stealthy (see Star Wars Outlaws, for example). Styx: Blades of Greed sidesteps this issue by just making the entire game one big sneaky-stabby adventure, building all of its mechanics around that idea, which is why it works wonderfully in the long run. Stealth in Blades of Greed is so immensely satisfying and fun, you’d probably never want to play any other way (not that the game gives you many options).

The game’s level design works hand-in-hand with its stealth gameplay. Most environments and areas are designed with verticality in mind, giving Styx plenty of opportunities to gain higher ground, either to aerially take down foes or re-enter stealth during pivotal moments. Cyanide Studios also cleverly uses dark spaces for Styx to blend into, leveraging the darkness in corners of environments. I was pleasantly surprised by how great the level design was, giving players a perfect semi open-world sandbox that enhances the stealth gameplay significantly. It’s a superb example of the gameplay and level design working masterfully well together.

You frequently return to a hub area where you can gather your intel and proceed to take on newer missions in unlocked portions of the world. As the story progresses, the crew of your hub ship becomes larger as you’re joined by various races of crewmates, each quirky and interesting enough to hold your interest. Most areas are diverse and packed with variety – each location is also fittingly populated by certain races, so you’ll stumble upon humans, elves, orcs and goblins that all have unique ways of stealthily being dealt with. The game packs in a decent mixture of enemies to add variety, and when they’re thrown into a melting pot, it keeps you on your toes and forces you to strategize accordingly.

My only gripe is the inconsistent enemy AI which ranges from so incredibly perceptive, they might as well have a Sharingan to braindead, bumbling idiots (unsurprisingly, the humans fill the idiot quota). In one section, I took out an enemy standing literally two feet away from another enemy who didn’t even flinch. In another section, one terrifying enemy spotted me from what felt like a mile away and hit the old reverse Uno on me by sneaking up in my blind spot, resulting in an unexpected jump scare. This difficulty balancing fluctuates throughout most of the game and it’s disappointing after a while. Luckily, the gameplay is so fun, I just took it all as it came.

My only gripe is the inconsistent enemy AI which ranges from so incredibly perceptive, they might as well have a Sharingan to braindead, bumbling idiots (unsurprisingly, the humans fill the idiot quota).

On a technical level, Styx: Blades of Greed has problems that are well worth addressing with a few updates. Even on a PS5 Pro, the game’s framerate stuttered, often very heavily in some sections where it almost screwed up my stealth kills. One would think that the DualSense haptic feedback would come in handy for a stealth-heavy game but it was pretty unreliable most of the time. Visual blemishes also dampen the experience somewhat, with muddy texture pop-ins and instances of character models looking scarily mechanical as if their facial animations suddenly malfunctioned. Audio problems also forced me to restart the game when a cutscene suddenly stopped emitting audio. It’s not as polished as it should be, so more updates are really needed.

Styx: Blades of Greed has excellent, albeit simple stealth mechanics blended with fantastic level design and environments that will appeal to long-time fans of the series. As a newcomer, be warned that it’s not a great entry point and that might be enough to deter some players who haven’t played the previous games. It also needs a bit of extra polish due to some rough technical issues before I can fully recommend it. If you’re looking for a well-crafted stealth fantasy adventure that plays by the rulebook, this will be right up your alley.

PS5 Review code provided by Nacon | You can purchase Styx: Blades of Greed for R799 on Nexus Hub