emember when Assassin’s Creed was marketed towards the thrill of eliminating your foes from the shadows? Sneaking to every target, stealthily moving around as if you were invisible to the naked eye, allowing your enemies only a second of reaction to your presence before it was too late for them to do anything about it—yeah, after seven years running, that shit is practically gone now.
Honestly, aside from the exception of Ground Zeroes, third-person stealth affairs are barely even a thing in games now, but before all hope of finding that great new game of “killing them softly” was lost, along came a little title by the name of Styx: Master of Shadows.
Now, mind you, the last time I loaded in software that was developed by Cyanide Studio, it was that licensed Game of Thrones game back in 2012; so yeah, my hopes were significantly tempered at first impression. It wasn’t long until after I metastasized a gross little clone doppelganger of myself, only so that I could send it running off, distracting all the meddlesome guards in my way as a decoy, that I realized, second chances are real, and this Next-Gen stealth adventure is living proof.
What sets apart a game into being able to drive home the need to be sly and covert from a game that simply suggests it, are the consequences involved when detection occurs; if you can fight your way out, then there was never an absolute need to be sneaky in the first place.
A true stealth game will only leave you with one option, and it’s one that’s prone more to inevitably fail than actually succeed; escape until you go from no longer being a moving target, to now a stand-by alert that’s on the top of everyone’s shit list.
This is what makes a stealth game, and Styx: Masters of the Shadows doesn’t simply abide by these rules of distinction, it manifests them into every bit of gameplay it musters, and never compromises the strict style of interaction otherwise.
Every ability, maneuver, and tool within the cagey goblin’s arsenal is deliberately geared towards being a calculated contingency to anything, or anyone that will jeopardize the secrecy of your existence. Every corridor, room, and walk about of sorts, are fitted around the multiple avenues of covert approach, varying anywhere between the simple and clean path to the nerve-racking risky way.
For instance, turning around the corner into one room that’s armed to the teeth with soldiers, may also contain a series of precariously placed furniture that can make for an ideal route of cautiously sequenced travel at every window of opportunity for our rogue anti-hero to take advantage of, through his small stature and swiftness in movement.
Other times, you may find yourself in a section that’s just too well lit, making it impossible to slip past the sight of any guard within distance of being able to make visual contact. Meaning that the only thing to do, is to extinguish all the afflicting points of light that you’re able to, sometimes from far way even, through a careful pitch of sand to do the trick; Styx will hardly allow you a moment of rest, and that’s honestly what makes it so engaging.
Aside from the tools and tactics to choose from, Styx is a trickster at heart, and sports a number of abilities that can be tapped into whenever needed. Certain powers like the Amber Sense (a temporary super vision that travels through all structures, pinpointing specific enemy locations and areas of interest for sneaking) are one of the more vital powers, but it’s only when you get weird with the other powers that the charm really sets in.
Just as an example, spawning a Clone so that it can alert a particular guard who’s holding a key, subsequently leading him into a different area near your physical location, proceeding to then activate your temporary invisibility, and killing him without the trouble of premeditating a longer, stealthier method.
Using these powers and their little nuances successfully is always its own sense of reward, especially considering that they possess a liberating sense of depth that’s fun to play with when factored into a “outside of the box” situation that wouldn’t necessarily call for that kind of tactic directly.
It is important to mention that these powers are dictated by a special meter that can regenerate most, if not, all of the cost of the power expended by the ability back, so long as you don’t use something else during the cool-down period, which does add a risk-reward flavor to the whole thing. While it may seem a little too limiting, the potential advantage the system offers from efficiently using it is equally gratifying as it is resourceful, hammering across that every instance you do use an ability is one that should never go to waste, if you want to improve your chances to succeed.
So much sneaking, so much hiding, couldn’t I just slice my way out if I had to? Well, that’s kind of a tough question to reply to, but I guess the simplest answer I could tell you is a partial-yes—truthfully, more like a barely.
Combat is to be avoided at all cost if possible, because a large majority of it just boils down to a nearly one-sided test of reflex and patience where you’ll never really win, just survive. Once a foe locks you into a direct conflict, the usual course of button mashing won’t be the solution; instead, you’re only means of defense is to parry every strike the enemy lunges at you with, until skirmish prompts you with a small window of lethal retaliation.
To say that being caught into one of these encounters is total nightmare is an understatement, these situations are insanely difficult to come out of alive at best, severely wounded, if not within in an inch of your life at worst. Parrying requires a nearly superhuman sense of accuracy to successfully riposte every single attack your dealt, and if you’ve got a mob around you then there’s no realistic point in even trying.
This kind of dynamic doesn’t hurt the game, Styx still could’ve benefitted with from having more options to dispose of, or combat against a threat, instead of having a ridiculous amount of options on trying to simply maneuver past said threat, unnoticed. All in all though, this tone is still consistent with all of the effort that’s built towards what it wants to be; a no-holds barred challenge of evasion and infiltration under your enemy’s nose at all times
The story itself is intriguing enough, but admittedly, the anti-heroic nature and direction of Styx is a little too ambiguous during the development of the plot than I would’ve personally liked, but the In Medias Res structure of the narrative, and overall characterization is still enough to pull you into the medieval fantasy of its world. The presentation side of things is simply gorgeous, the lighting and textures are constantly popping with detail, and the soundtrack’s score is beautifully composed into setting the appropriate tone and mood to what’s happening on the screen with every passing level and prgression.
Styx: The Master of Shadows is a Stealth game that’s so brutal, it doesn’t settle for anything less, and yet, it makes the art of sneak and destroy so intuitive, that the challenge it demands is never a detriment to the experience.
If you’re up something that will challenge your wit, and your skill, then look no further, Styx has all the right stuff to keep you pretty busy for a while, and you’ll be sadistically smiling the whole time.
