Styx: Blades of Greed Demo Preview: Snitches get Styxes

It feels like it has been a while since we've had some proper stealth games. Hitman hits us with the odd celebrity special level every so often, but where once we had stealth games coming out of our ears with the likes of Dishonored, Thief, Metal Gear Solid V, and more. I think we also need more games where we play as a goblin, which is an even more sparse subgenre, so it's safe to say I'm very glad Cyanide Studio is back with Styx: Blades of Greed.

Actually, I have a confession to make. I never got round to playing the first two Styx games. They're free on Epic right now, and I have picked them up, but to me Blades of Greed was entirely new. There's some story context I'm missing, but the demo offered on Steam for the game is a great way to get stuck in. A tutorial sees us take down a massive golem from the inside, and from there we see the mix of fantasy action and parkour stealth that made Styx a goblin icon in his own right. The demo includes a couple of hours of content, and while at first I was just going to stream it (as you can see below), I found even after wrapping up the latest edition of GR Live I couldn't really put Styx down.

Styx: Blades of Greed might kick things off like an action movie, but it is a stealth game first and foremost. Styx can survive a combat encounter with perhaps one or two guards, but two hits are often enough to make you load into the last checkpoint. We're encouraged to be stealthy not because it'll give us bonus points at the end of a level, but because it makes sense to the game's narrative and the world. That already wins some bonus points in my book, where often stealth games feel like they let you go guns blazing far too easily.

What sticks lacks in health he more than makes up for in mobility, and it feels like Styx: Blades of Greed really bumps up a sense of verticality in the level design. Larger, more open spaces in the levels we played give a Batman: Arkham sense to some areas, giving you the chance to pick off enemies at your leisure, rather than commit to a pre-determined solution to the stealth puzzle of a narrow corridor.

Clambering up rooftops and shimmying around window ledges to get better angles is a lot of fun, and there's a good responsiveness to Styx's movements. Leaping from foe to foe, silently killing them to then take out their friend next door gives a satisfying gratification when you manage to wipe out an entire area without once being spotted. The tools you get do help out some, like bolts used to snipe targets from afar or sand that can put out a nearby torch and help you traverse the level unseen, but I found that Styx doesn't need them to be a master of stealth. After all, so long as he has some of his amber bar, he can turn invisible and sneak past any obstacle you may otherwise have to get a bit creative with.

We didn't get to glimpse too much of the story, but from what we played it seems an intriguing enough tale around Styx essentially becoming a fiend for the magical stones known as Quartz. Our protagonist being a magic addict rather than a goblin with a heart of gold is a nice touch, and one that should be interesting to explore further in the full release next month. Sadly, I'm not sure we'll be seeing Styx's return as soon as February.

In the demo, we did encounter some bugs. After one cutscene where Styx proved his stealth capabilities by being entirely invisible, we were launched mid-air to our death and had to restart from the latest checkpoint. Visual popping in environments was all over during cutscenes, and enemy death animations seemed particularly lifeless. These weren't major problems, and they didn't ruin the overall experience of the Styx demo, but they are issues that you'd expect to see in a game at least a few months away from release. If they persist throughout the full launch, it might be to the chagrin of many players, who don't want their latest Styx adventure to appear like it's from a decade prior.

From our early impressions, Styx: Blades of Greed appears a simple but effective stealth game. It's not trying to reinvent the wheel, but the new elements that it adds provide a bunch of additional tools for your living Swiss army knife of a goblin. Traversing around the massive world, made up of linear areas stitched together to make an impressive whole, is a lot of fun, and while it doesn't look like this goblin is up for carrying the weight of the stealth genre on his back, his latest adventure is a grand example of why these games need more love.