Styx: Shards of Darkness

Styx: Shards of Darkness is a surprisingly old-school and well-crafted stealth game, providing a welcome sneaky outlet in a world so often focused on open combat. With good gameplay, great production values, and a plot that never gets in the way of the action, Styx: Shards of Darkness should definitely be part of every stealth fan’s library.

A really good stealth game, with a great design of levels and mechanics totally oriented to infiltration, although with an AI that affects the final result.

8[0]. A solid 8[0], mind you. Styx: Shards of Darkness has renewed my trust in the game trailer once again. After removing the plush padding of the cinematic trailer, I wasn’t disappointed by what I saw in the actual gameplay. On the contrary, I was welcomed by a well-rounded stealth puzzler that I plan on playing (with) for quite some time into the future. The writing and story are both refreshing and hilarious, which gives this title a firm lead in an otherwise dark and quiet genre.

The death scene taunts can get a bit tiring (when you die frequently… especially if it’s from a fiddly jump) but overall there’s a lot of charm on offer here and an interesting story. Worth a look and a bit of fun.

Styx: Shards of Darkness is an incredibly fun game - provided you are ok with slowing down the pace and willing to put up with uncompromising stealth. If you are looking for an action heavy stealth experience, this isn’t really your cup of tea. However, if you’re like me (though I’m terrible at stealth on the whole) and want a great, difficult challenge, Styx: Shards of Darkness might be right up your alley.

If you love the stealth genre, you will love Styx: Shards of Darkness.

Ready to join a new and amazing adventure? Have you have honed your infiltration techniques? Styx is back in better shape than ever, new graphics, new skills, and of course his black humor. A sparkling new chapter of the saga signed by Cyanide Studio.

Gameplay, graphics, atmosphere: all is in the right place.

Shards of Darkness could have been an amazing stealth game, thanks to a witty and cynical main character, wonderful level design and a myriad of skills and perks. Unfortunately, the experience is partially ruined by a sub-par AI and some flaws in the control system.

Nothing short of a spectacular stealth game that brings the genre back to its roots and I can’t wait to see where it goes from here.

Where Shards of Darkness excels is when it gets you to think dynamically and to pare off all the extraneous technicalities, when hiding and slashing and scheming becomes second nature after you’re forced to hone your skills by being thrown for a loop once you think you know it all. This is a game that you need to sink more than just a handful of hours into in order to really appreciate but in my opinion, the reward is well worth it - the feeling of nailing a multi-target assassination with some high-octane traps before ziplining away and cackling was indescribable, and made much more meaningful by the fact that a few hours ago I was struggling to find my own ass in the dark.

Styx: Shards of Darkness, while a solid stealth game, does not dare travel off the beaten path. Having said that, fans of the genre should definitely check it out.

A mean-spirited character leads a big-hearted game; you’re unlikely to dwell on its lore but its features combine well to create a satisfying stealth experience.

Huge adventure playground with some little quirks, for stealth fans with a knack for experiments.

It presents an interesting world to explore but wastes its potential by recycling environments from early missions late in the game. Co-op mode is fun, too, but only selectively as some stealth-only missions seem far more manageable on one's own.

A stealth game in the true sense of the word you should keep an eye on, even if the enemies AI is still not that great.

The second adventure has the bitter taste of a wasted opportunity.

Styx is a through-and-through stealth game, so scoring system doesn’t approve of murders, and enemy placement always leaves a way to slip by. But, unlike Thief, you’ll feel the desire to cut some throats. There, stealth was like a high-stakes game of cat-and-mouse; here, it’s personal. It’s vendetta, where mercy has no place. Also, there are few things as satisfying as pouring acid on still-warm corpse to completely dissolve it. [Issue#219, p.68]

While not the best stealth game, Styx: Shards of Darkness offers some fun, unique gameplay. It might be filled with mixed messages, but there's still a number of hours' worth of sneaky, fun, stabbing action.

Within the first few hours of the game I was pretty sold on this more classical attempt on a stealth-game with a good jolt of dark humor. But after a while you start to realize that most of the stealth-mechanics aren’t even needed. The enemy AI is far too stupid to ever really force you into playing smartly and with a certain tactic in mind. Nor will you ever make much use of the crafting-system. On top of that, the dialogue often feels forcefully edgy and references pop-culture just for the sake of it. All whilst the overarching plot – if you can even call it that – remains plain and uninteresting. That being said, you definitely can have fun with Styx: Shards of Darkness. But given the fact, the developers had a chance to improve on their predecessor and didn’t utilize it, the mistakes of this game become hard to forgive.

Styx: Shards of Darkness' single-minded dedication to being a stealth game is both admirable and potentially a turnoff to players who expect more flexibility in their approach to completing missions. The flexibility is there, though it's entirely represented by the myriad ways the title character moves through the shadows and confounds his enemies. It's refreshing to play a despicable, amoral antihero; but the game's puerile, scattershot humor will not appeal to everyone. Although its mission objectives are a bit repetitive, the balletic act of moving through the world makes Styx: Shards of Darkness overall entertaining.

Full freedom and innovative level design, but sloppy controls and sometimes stupid enemy AI will ruin your experience from time to time.

Styx: Shards of Darkness could have been a big hit in the stealth genre if not for its few AI, control and level-design flaws. Still, the whole package is so fun, unique and charming that stealth fans will definitely enjoy it.

It’s not going to win any hearts and minds any time soon, but as an open-ended stealth experience, Styx: Shards of Darkness more or less does its job without major stumbles. Less of the lip, though, please.

Styx: Shards of Darkness is a classic stealth game with a stunning graphical style, but the key character is dreadful and the story is very disappointing.

Shards of Darkness is an improvement over its predecessor in visuals and gameplay, but still need better AI and other improvements.

Styx Shards of Darkness is a good evolution of Styx's Universe, and it offers a lot of improvements. Better graphics, better gameplay mechanics... and always this sneaky and funny goblin! A good stealth experience, that still suffers some technical and AI issues.

Once you get past the slightly budget look of the UI and occasional control jank, there is a solid core of a pretty damn good stealth game here. Give him a chance, and Styx might just steal your heart (only to pawn it at a fraction of its value, the little bastard).

This second helping of Styx won’t set any benchmarks or redefine the genre, but it’s a good, solid stealth game played with humour and a smidgeon of style. It feels a bit old-school and slightly hardcore in the age of MGS5: The Phantom Pain, but there’s something enjoyably tight and focused about its gameplay and a real sense of fun in Styx’s sneaking, sabotage and slaughter. It won’t kick Styx into the big leagues, but Shards of Darkness makes you glad to see him back.

Over a dozen hours of spatial environmental puzzles consisting of avoiding patrols and finding paths to objectives. Cyanide failed to push the series forward in any aspect but still managed to deliver a solid stealth game. [05/2017, p.68]

Styx is trying to cope with AAA games, yet it fails in almost all respects. With the modest cost, the game was much more interesting. [Issue#273]

A mechanically strong stealth title with some of the most eye-rollingly awful dialogue I have ever been subjected to. Styx as a character is obnoxious, unlikable, and immersion breaking, but he does wield some of the most impressive and well-designed infiltration abilities in the genre. I just wish he would shut the hell up.

The thrill of pulling off a flawless assassination as you smoothly sneak off with valuable artifacts is what makes these types of games worth playing. But its detractors--cliche writing, unsophisticated AI, and arbitrary quests--culminate to an experience that feels like it's stuck in the past.

Adding not much to its predecessor, Styx: Shards of Darkness forces the player to use the stealth elements. Once you get out of these stealthy bounds, the experience becomes overwhelming. If you like stealth elements and you have enjoyed the first game, you may like Shards of Darkness as well.

It’s a shame the writing is unmitigated garbage, because the game it’s been dribbled onto is fantastic. The level design is an improvement over the already sublime Master of Shadows, and there are some genuinely memorable missions that make great use of the world Cyanide has built...But that writing. The intelligence of its predecessors, which explored everything from racism and activism to free will and existentialism has been replaced by Family Guy-level cultural references and fourth wall-breaking guff that swings from insulting the player’s intelligence to downright offensive. Shards of Darkness could have easily been Cyanide’s best game ever if the writer was locked in a cupboard.

A drab, low-budget, clumsy product which we have come to expect from Cyanide.