Styx: Shards of Darkness Review

Styx: Shards of Darkness is a stealth, fantasy, adventure game by Cyanide Studio. It’s set in a huge fantasy environment and is the sequel to Styx: Master of Shadows. You control the goblin Styx, whose ultimate goal is to find his way into the Dark Elven city of Korangar and find out why the Dark Elves are aligning themselves with the Dwarves.

Styx: Shards of Darkness is actually the third game in the series. The first was released back in 2012 and it was called ‘Of Orcs and Men’. The two following games focus on a single goblin, Styx, who is a jerk of a character but tons of fun to play.

Styx is able to assassinate enemies or sneak past them. If you choose the more direct route you’ll have a range of weapons and new lethal abilities to help you out. As you gain experience you’ll be able to learn new magical or assassin abilities. You’ll also find ingredients that you can use to craft items or traps for your enemies.

You’ll take Styx through a highly detailed fantasy world on 9 missions that can be completed in roughly 15 hours. The skill tree is large enough that you won’t be able to exhaust all of the games potential in one playthrough. This gives Styx replayability as you’ll want to try out the levels taking a different path and using different tactics.

Some of the abilities include making a duplicate copy of yourself, crafting acid solutions to dissolve others, becoming invisible for a time or making deadly darts. Styx is a small goblin and it’s best if he stays out of sight. Getting into combat means trouble although you may be able to survive a couple of fights against single opponents.

For the most part you’ll be sneaking around in the shadows, climbing to the rooftoops or swinging like a monkey from the ropes or ledges. The voice acting for Styx is wonderful although his comments can be quite banal and often insulting. I guess it suits the character of a goblin but can be a bit much at times.

All-in-all Styx: Shards of Darkness is an enjoyable stealth adventure set in a dark fantasy world. If you enjoyed Styx: Master of Shadows you’ll probably really enjoy this new release although you don’t need to have played Master of Shadows to follow along with Shards of Darkness.