Whereas it could not have the ambition or bells and whistles of its contemporaries, Styx holds a particular place in my coronary heart as one of many few pure stealth sport collection we’ve got left. Will you discover Hitman’s extremely artistic situations, or Dishonored’s insane ranges of sophistication and replayability? No. As an alternative, Styx is content material to easily be a dependable method for stealth followers to get their repair, and Styx: Blades of Greed is not any exception. The same old playbook of sneaking round, stealing and assassinating the whole lot in sight has by no means been extra enjoyable, and this sequel makes some important tweaks, equivalent to eradicating weak multiplayer mechanics and refocusing on a solo stealth expertise, and swapping out smaller mission-based maps for completely huge areas. But it surely additionally has fairly just a few of the identical issues it all the time had, finicky actions, efficiency points, and a mediocre story, which is as disappointing because it was totally anticipated.
Like its 2017 predecessor, Blades of Greed has you slipping into tight areas within the sneakers of an older, cranky goblin, stabbing people, elves, and monsters within the gentle spots, and utilizing an arsenal of devices and particular skills to beat the truth that you will be killed in two seconds if noticed. There are some modest additions, equivalent to just a few new devices and skills that assist you to do issues like thoughts management NPCs from a distance or use a grappling hook to shut giant gaps in a brief period of time, however for probably the most half, there’s little change by way of moment-to-moment gameplay. For instance, you may nonetheless discover the outdated dependable capacity to make your self invisible for brief durations of time, permitting you to cover in a closet or a barrel earlier than coming out and slitting the throat of a silly guard. It is a good time. As all the time, stealth is certainly the star of the present, and Blades of Greed has the high-quality sneaky strikes you’d anticipate.
Styx’s story has by no means been nice, however Blades of Greed lives as much as these low expectations by delivering a very forgettable story even supposing the primary character is inherently attention-grabbing and distinctive. After creating a thirst for magical skills granted by crystals discovered everywhere in the world, you start repeated journeys to search out extra of it. 90% of the marketing campaign has little to no plot between treasure hunts and simply shifting from place to put stealing these shiny stones to energy up. Alongside the best way, you will meet characters equivalent to a gadget-obsessed dwarf and an orc who serves as your religious information, however they do not get sufficient display time to make a lot of an impression, and what you do get is not used successfully, simply explaining what everybody has to do subsequent and never a lot else. It is unlikely that you just got here to the Styx collection on the lookout for a gripping story, however simply in case you had been anticipating a nice shock, I would not depend on that.
Whereas many of the bones of Styx stay the identical, one massive change is that in Blades of Greed, relatively than stepping by way of (and typically re-stepping) mission-specific ranges, you are free to be thrown into three very giant maps crammed with each obligatory and non-obligatory areas by which to discover, steal, and fall to your loss of life. It is an ideal thought that enables for lots extra freedom than earlier adventures, and it’s extremely simple to get distracted and find yourself assassinating a whole area earlier than you understand there wasn’t really any goal behind it. Nevertheless, it is simply arduous to not take him down if you see a guard strolling by with out noticing. These enormous ranges additionally assist you to categorical your creativity in the best way you progress across the space and clear up the issue of dodging when there’s somebody who can blow your breath each 10 toes and get killed. Whenever you’re observing a purpose that is a mountain distant, you simply should crawl and experiment to discover a approach to get there. You would possibly discover a great spot on the facet of a tower the place you can also make a daring leap whereas avoiding guards alongside the best way. Otherwise you would possibly discover a quiet path that results in the identical location by way of the sewers, however it’s infested with big bugs that may swarm you in case you go too far. shut.
Whereas it may be a really attention-grabbing stealth problem to determine, it additionally has some distinctive drawbacks. First, it may be tiring having to sneak throughout such a big space on a regular basis. You will should undergo a technique of trial and error and be ready to reload so much as you attempt to dash previous the whole lot to succeed in your purpose. Its journey time feels a lot much less targeted and curated than a extra linear mannequin of stage design. Usually you will simply be half-heartedly sneaking by way of ruins and rooftops with no actual obstacles alongside the best way till you get to the place your goal marker requires you to be, at which level issues begin to really feel rather more targeted. In different phrases, it is loaded with fats earlier than you get to your major purpose. In actual fact, I spent the higher a part of the 20-plus hours it took me to beat Blades of Greed attempting to determine the place my subsequent goal was and tips on how to get there, relatively than really finishing up the heist in query.
The excellent news is that each one of those maps are fairly nice general. The Wall is a ridiculously cool vertical maze of concrete castles and rickety slums, Turquoise Daybreak is a jungle of timber, swamps, and big, lethal cockroaches that swarm the darkish locations, and Akenash Ruins is a ruined kingdom the place the whole lot floats unnaturally within the air and your enemies are tremendous bizarre monsters straight out of Elden Ring. Every time you go to these areas all through the story, you will unlock new areas to discover, however it is a bit tedious since you will be retracing the areas you’ve got already visited fairly a bit. Nonetheless, these are a few of the most attention-grabbing areas I’ve wandered by way of the halls of a stealth sport, highlighting the distinctive, unusual, and magic-infused world this depraved goblin calls house.
The huge areas of those maps are nice to discover, however they’ll typically really feel a bit of too giant for the a lot smaller goals throughout the maps. The principle goals of the story are a lot smaller than typical stealth missions, and you may normally full the target by merely stealing a key to open a locked door or shutting down a machine. These are miniature quests that normally take only some minutes to finish. As soon as you’ve got checked it off your listing, you are again on a principally uneventful stealth journey to search out your approach to your subsequent goal, usually having to backtrack by way of a few of the similar areas alongside the best way. That is how I’ve spent most of my adventures to this point. On the intense facet, this format basically means you are locked right into a steady stream of pure, unadulterated stealth situations for hours on finish as you full every set of missions. And since it is a highly effective go well with of Blades of Greed, you may get precisely what the physician ordered.
If you happen to’re aware of the shortcomings of earlier Styx video games, you in all probability will not be too shocked to listen to that Blades of Greed would not tackle most of them. Fight is a final resort, however typically essential, however it’s very sloppy and oversimplified, and shifting round, particularly leaping on issues like ledges, will be finicky at instances, and by this level I might fallen to my loss of life or gotten caught within the open dozens of instances. However even worse than these are the same old efficiency points and technical points, like disappearing throughout conversations with NPCs or frames dropping to horribly low ranges after lengthy play classes. The body price points are literally so much worse than I keep in mind them being in earlier video games, in all probability because of the map being so much larger, and may get fairly dangerous for lengthy durations of time when there’s so much happening on display. At this level, most of those points are type of constructed into Styx, however it’s nonetheless price a shout out that almost all of those points appear to have been largely unaddressed.