Styx: Master of Shadows

A game with brilliant ideas which are unfortunately not so properly realized and an unexpectedly great psychological story which at first look kinda stereotipical and not so intriguing - until you complete the mission number five. This makes the plot twist very unexpected and astonishing, but at the same time a lot of people were drawn off because of this, unable to find anything worth their attention at the beginning of the game. Fortunately, I wasn't among those people and thus I enjoyed the plot at full. The protagonist and the antagonist both are very well written characters with understandable motivation. If you started to play this game and find it boring, I recommend you to endure just until the end of the fifth mission - it'll be worth it, I assure you.

4/10 It's a very mediocre stealth game, but it tried its best and it deserves some recognition for that. I feel like this one had alot of potential, but it became apparent very quickly after picking it up that it missed several crucial marks when it comes to designing good stealth gameplay: The first and most consistently annoying one is how the lighting system works, and especially with how poorly it is communicated to the player. The key to good stealth games is consistent detection mechanics that are clearly communicated to the player, such as knowing when an area is bright enough to be spotted in, or dark enough to hide in. The oldest stealth game, the Thief series, first implemented this mechanic with the light gem, a single jewel always visible at the bottom of the screen that got progressively brighter and darker as you moved from lighter to more shadowy areas. Styx tries to do this as well by re-flavoring it as a tattoo on his arm, which is only visible while looking at the character from ONE angle of his body. Meaning that you have to constantly keep repositioning the camera just so you can see if the tattoo is glowing to know if you're visible. They could have easily fixed this by painting his entire character model all over with tattoos that glow, but no. It's such a simple fix that would mend such a careless mistake. Light detection systems are THE MOST IMPORTANT mechanic in ANY stealth game; one that the player utilizes literally every five seconds while playing, and here it's been reduced to a "bells-and-whistles" type thing. This is the biggest flaw with the tattoo, but it's not the only one. The second problem with the tattoo is more of an issue with general level design: every map has areas of inconsistent lighting that make it impossible to tell whether or not you will be hidden. Sometimes I will step into a bright area right under a lamp and I'll be totally invisible, other times I'll be in an area that appears to be pitch darkness and enemies can see me plain as day. It's not a bug in a handful of areas either, its common enough that I can literally never tell whether or not a shadow will hide me... in a stealth game. Did I mention that there is no sliding-scale between being completely invisible and being a Christmas-tree? When it comes to enemy sight and lighting, there is no "corner-of-your-eye" brief momentary sightings; there is just "I can't see anything" and "ha! There you are!" This inherent lack of subtly is bad in any stealth game, but it's just ANNOYING in one where you literally cannot tell which shadows will and won't actually hide you. A more minor but still annoying issue is that sometimes while descending from a parkour jump or jumping onto a ledge the game fails to auto-lock you onto the target like it's supposed to, so you'd better hope you aim it just right or else you're gonna fall and take alot of damage. Styx is small, so even relatively short heights hurt him alot, which I could find more immersive if it weren't for the fact that the majority of fall damage you take is just a gamble on whether or not the climbing mechanic will work properly. For a game about feeling like a nimble infiltrator, it makes you feel... limited. Still, the game had alot of effort put into it, and it shows. You can tell the devs were really passionate about making it good, just a little inexperienced. The sound design in particular is very good and they implemented the mechanics of your footstep sounds across different surfaces (like carpet, stone, wood, and metal) very well. The climbing and infiltration mechanics are fun (barring the terrible lighting system) and you really do feel like a sneaky little goblin by crawling along ledges, parkour up walls, and ducking into little holes and crawlspaces that bigger creatures couldn't normally fit in. The combat system is simple and its easy to get overpowered, but I feel like that's better in a stealth game. You're not meant to be a warrior, you're not supposed to rush into combat and kill 20 guys. You're an infiltrator, a thief, a ninja, an assassin. You're meant to be a sneaky and nimble little trickster, not a mighty Dragonborn; this game nails that feeling really well. The characters and world are also interesting. Styx is rude, crude, and scrappy, which normally I'm not a fan of but his character makes sense for the world and fits well into it. This is one of those settings where EVERYONE is a jerk, but still has to get along and form mutual alliances (which they frequently betray each other in, Styx for example pickpockets one of his own friends shortly after he helps him) it really makes you feel immersed in a world of "no one's a good guy, and you're no exception; keep your friends close, and your enemies closer." and the writers are very good in making you feel the suspense of this reality. Styx feels like the kind of person who's constantly worried that everyone is gonna betray him, probably because they will, and so he feels compelled to betray them first. It's interesting and makes the crudeness of his character feel earned. Overall I'm extremely disappointed to see how this game turned out. It pains me to give it such a low rating. It really feels like it had a lot of potential. I've heard the second game is a lot better and fixes a lot of these problems I've mentioned, and I might decide to give it a try one day but for now I've been unimpressed with this series so I'll give it a pass but if you wanna try any game I'd say start with the second. 4/10

I had a good bit of fun with this game! Especially on sale for $2, this game offers a solid stealth experience that does a lot right. That said, it has some issues, so keep your expectations tempered. What Styx does best is take the best aspects of other stealth games and incorporate it into one game. You've got hiding bodies in cabinets like Hitman, controlling speed and turning out lights like in Splinter Cell, movement from Assassin's Creed and Batman Arkham games, etc. While all those games do their respective aspects better, Styx knows what works and uses it to its advantage. When it works, it's incredibly fun to sneak around in the shadows and stab people. On top of that, Styx offers a really fun and unique world to explore, with some good lore and world-building to boot. That said, there are issues here. Enemies are just plain dumb half the time. They'll completely miss a dead body not 5 feet away if it's "in shadow", and it was almost comical how much they were oblivious to. That said, they'd all come running if a dead body clipped through the floor and made a sound when you killed them, which happened frequently but inconsistently. This made getting through levels somewhat of an unintentional challenge, as I wasn't always sure what would and wouldn't get me caught. Some enemies are more frustrating than others, and by the end I found the difficulty got a little unfair at times. Speaking of, the back half of the game just reuses the same levels from the first half of the game, just with harder enemies. It made finishing the game a bit of a chore since nothing was new at that point. Also, Styx seemed to take inspiration from the worst aspects of Deadpool in terms of dialogue and wit. At best it was lame, but more often than not his crude nature just rubbed me the wrong way. Not a deal breaker, but definitely annoying. That all said, this is a good time for $2, but there's enough issues here for me not to recommend buying it at full price. Fans of the stealth genre will likely have a good time with this though so I'd say check it out.

[h1] I have 100% completed in this game 3 times now on Xbox One, PS5, & Steam. [/h1] if that doesn't show how much i recommend it, i don't know what will. this is my favorite game of all time. This masterpiece is a Prequel to Of Orcs And Men & Predecessor to Styx: Shards of Darkness & The Upcoming Styx: Blades of Greed [list] Pros: [*] Unique art style [*] Immersive atmosphere [*] Intriguing level design that rewards exploration [*] Fantastic addition to the stealth genre [*] Distinctive mechanics (Cloning, Amber Vision, Invisibility) [*] Very well priced & often on sale. [/list] [list] Cons: [*] minor bugs/glitches [*] clunky movement & combat (wall climbing & parrying) [*] outdated by its successors [*] outdated graphics [/list] ---{ Graphics }--- ☐ You forget what reality is ☐ Beautiful ☐ Good ☑ Decent ☐ Bad ☐ Don‘t look too long at it ☐ MS-DOS ---{ Gameplay }--- ☑ Very good ☐ Good ☐ It's just gameplay ☐ Meh ☐ Watch paint dry instead ☐ Just don't ---{ Audio }--- ☑ Eargasm ☐ Very good ☐ Good ☐ Not too bad ☐ Bad ☐ I'm now deaf ---{ Audience }--- ☐ Kids ☑ Teens ☑ Adults ☐ Grandma ---{ PC Requirements }--- ☑ Check if you can run paint ☐ Potato ☐ Decent ☐ Fast ☐ Rich boi ☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer ---{ Difficulty }--- ☐ Just press 'W' ☐ Easy ☑ Easy to learn / Hard to master ☐ Significant brain usage ☐ Difficult ☐ Dark Souls ---{ Grind }--- ☐ Nothing to grind ☑ Only if u care about achievements ☑ Isn't necessary to progress ☐ Average grind level ☐ Too much grind ☐ You'll need a second life for grinding ---{ Story }--- ☐ No Story ☐ Some lore ☐ Average ☐ Good ☑ Lovely ☐ It'll replace your life ---{ Game Time }--- ☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee ☑ Short ☐ Average ☐ Long ☐ To infinity and beyond ---{ Price }--- ☐ It's free! ☑ Worth the price ☐ If it's on sale ☐ If u have some spare money left ☐ Not recommended ☐ You could also just burn your money ---{ Bugs }--- ☐ Never heard of ☑ Minor bugs ☐ Can get annoying ☐ ARK: Survival Evolved ☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs ---{ ? / 10 }--- ☐ 1 ☐ 2 ☐ 3 ☐ 4 ☐ 5 ☐ 6 ☐ 7 ☐ 8 ☑ 9 ☐ 10

Styx has some cool ideas, but it's held back by its clunky mechanics and outdated visuals (compared to another games from 2014). The stealth gameplay can be fun at times, and the world-building has potential, but the controls feel a bit stiff and the game can get frustrating.

very fun and exiting game another very good detailed assassin type game

An old game with an interesting story and protagonist that is marred by its janky combat mechanics and it's poorly-crafted stealth system. Fun for those with nostalgia or curiosity for stealth-combat games, but something that is better off passed over by most others.

its not a bad game for what it is. its a bad game for what it tried to do and failed. granted its old, but it tried to be a open world stealth game where you could choose your path to your obj. except its not. the map is incredibly linear and make no effort to reward you for exploring it nor gives you the tools to stealthily explore it.

7/10 The stealth gameplay is very fun, but cheeky enemy placement and poor level design killed this game for me. I was stuck in the prison with no obvious way to progress and without enough resources to do anything. I'm in the middle on recommendation but leaning towards not recommending it. If you give it a try just know that the game has no problem wasting your time by soft locking you and requiring that you start the game all over.

Great game, Stealth based, requires a lot of patience and skill. The whole Styx franchise is amazing

There is no way this game came out after skyrim with graphics this bad.

This game is one of the best fantasy and the best stealth game I have ever played. Styx is a comedic main character and some one liners had me bust out in laughter ("If I step into a lions den, its to fuck a lion."). It also has the best atmosphere and level design of any stealth game, with the many vertical areas pairing well with Styx's small size. The graphics do show the games age, but for a 10 year old franchise they still hold up. It is also focused completely on stealth, whereas most "stealth games" are just an action game with a backstabbing and crouching mechanic thrown in. Styx is a short goblin armed with a knife, and the fact that he cant hold his own against more than one guard highlights that. The story and worldbuilding is also great, with an AMAZING plot twist around halfway through that caught me offguard. My only complaint is that sometimes it feels like the arieal kill skill doesnt work sometimes when it should, but that is a very minor flaw. 8/10 would accidentally throw a knife an an inquisitor again.

had me interested in playing for most of the game, however, the stealth part can be annoying. Since, without a knife, unable to kill anything. The Elves, sniff you out, unable to kill them at all. Got bored!

One of the best stealth games I've ever played. Has a great story as well

Brilliant game so far on level 4 now, seems like lot of gameplay I'm only at 12% complete!

Not perfect, but really good stealth. I had a lot of fun playing it on SteamDeck

I am very mildly impressed with this game. It does enough things right to make the journey overall enjoyable. However, the creases that needed to be ironed out were plenty and very noticeable. The story is serviceable. It is nothing to write home about. It does seem through the narrative though that the story itself was written assuming that it will be a masterpiece (I don't know how else to explain it). It isn't. It is a middling story that does nothing wrong, but does nothing particularly right as well. The characters are not worth remembering as they are nothing but plot points on a cardboard cutout. The only positive thing I can say about the story is that at least it isn't annoying to the extent that I skip all cutscenes during my first playthrough itself. The annoying part comes with the dialogue writing. The dialogue is way too wordy. Think Borderlands 4, but somehow it took itself seriously. It really grinds my gears wrong, but thankfully, there aren't any 'pickup dialogues'. That would have made me rage quit (or at least skip story beats). You can see the inspiration it takes and I am going to not state it out outright - it is VERY apparent. The gameplay itself is the draw of the game. The stealth is well designed and pretty tough if you're aiming for all medals during your first playthrough itself - this sweaty gameplay highlights with it a pretty decent amber (mana) and resource management system which won't be experienced in a more casual style of play. Even more appreciated is the fact that there are always at least two routes which are equally the fastest routes - one of which will be more amber-dependant while the other will be pretty well hidden for such a sweaty gameplay - giving you a glimpse of the possibilities the game provides. During my second playthrough, where I played at my own pace and cleaned up the remaining achievements, I was extremely impressed to discover a lot of alternate routes and methods to progress through a section, cool ways to open up paths and do away with guards and what not. The set pieces feel pretty organic and enemy AI is decent enough for the stealth too feel fair yet challenging. The main drawback is the movement system. Dropping off of ledges, and "hold jump button to not lift yourself up automatically" are not good design choices and they do hamper the fluidity of the gameplay immensely. There are also a lot of 'jumpy' textures that might lift you up involuntarily and result in you being detected. My sweaty playthrough actually required me to remember these 'jumpy' spots as well so that I can effectively avoid them, which isn't an organic increase in difficulty. The world is...uh...very bandaid-y. I do not want to call it an asset flip, but a bit of cohesion between levels is lacking. Hence visually, it may seem a bit weird to go from one level to the next. I don't mind disjointed worlds, but unlike say Dark Souls 2 - which depicts a fractured world on the brink of a collapse - this is supposed to be a coherent world. Exploration through the said world thus feels a lot like collecting checkpoints, which are placed mainly to enhance the difficulty of a sweaty playthrough. A missed opportunity I feel is putting these collectibles near alternate routes for progressing an area. These coins hold absolutely no lore value and are just there for the sake of being there. So are the relics, but at least it does provide a minor treasure hunting challenge. The game is optimized well enough, no stutters were encountered. There is a bug with a side quest when we have to escort Querberus to our hideout. Hint - Do NOT complete the smuggler hideout sidequest before speaking with Querberus for the first time. 6/10

I'm crap at stealth games, but I like this one, as it's an actual stealth game..... unlike several other games listed as stealth. Graphics are a bit dated, sounds and voice are the same: the music is fairly decent however. It still nails stealth gameplay very well. It's fun.

spent a decade of my life exited to play this game, I bought it just to be met with a black screen. How do I even begin to try to play it. proper bullshit this!

Styx - both of the 2 Styx games are my favorites of all time in the genre... Great story and a forgiving game play that makes it fun. BUY IT! PLAY IT! 1000/10

Good stealth game with fun story, a bunch of useful skills, and well-designed map that provides a variety of ways to advance. The control is a bit inaccurate where I kept moving to the wrong place and having to reload.

I don't recommend it - Deserves a remake. Unless played for story, which is excellent. There are simply better stealth games to spend your time on in 2025+ Fundamentally a good game with no surprise JANK being the only major flaw. Breaking it down into two areas of very poor gameplay: 1) Poor movement system and bad controls, which is entirely fixed with the (2017) sequel Shards of Darkness. Shame Master of Shadows didn't get a UE4 remake, maybe if the series had found more success but who knows, 2026 Blades of Greed UE5 total series remaster? .. (with co-op pretty please) 2) Very erratic, harsh, and inhuman NPC AI. Frustrating, sometimes completely unreadable, and unchallenging AI. Started off barely touching the load function but about halfway in had sadly begun quickload scumming, not because of mistakes as a player but shitty NPC behaviour. Think 'instant terminator 180'turning & lock on' type stuff - which again was fixed in the sequel. Gotta say the dialogue and voice acting is actually quite good and holds up well, though you wouldn't think so with the opening scenes being as shockingly aged as they first come across

You’re a tiny, sarcastic goblin who pukes up clones and sneaks around stabbing people. What more do you want? Levels are massive, stealth actually matters, and the dialogue is full of goblin grade sass. There is some junkiness every once in a while but that's only to remind you that this game is 10 years old. Highly reccomended tho. 9/10, would backstab again.

Styx is the only game that filled my void after Dishonored series. For a long time I couldn't find anything similar to these games, even though I tried many stealth titles. I tried Hitman and Thief but I just couldn't force myself to play them. I completed both "Styx - Master of Shadows" and "Styx - Shards of Darkness" and I became a fan right a way. The gameplay and level design is very Dishonored-like, but there are some differences. Styx has more stealth options including a really nice climbing system and is less lethal (sometimes you are forced to avoid enemies). Styx is also humorous and less dark - the first thing being something that grabbed my attention and made me buy the game. After playing Dishonored for plenty of hours it was a nice shift for the brain to play as a cocky and rude goblin in a more laidback and funny fantasy setting. Styx - Master of Shadow is the first game in the series and I recommend highly to buy also Styx - Shards of Darkness, which is even better then the first one. Of course, the series are not for everyone, therefore don't take the negative comments too seriously. Everything is a matter of taste. The inventory managment has in fact some flaws (this has been fixed in Shards of Darkness though), climbing is something you need to get used to and becomes easy after a while, but in overall this is a great game and I love it. Can't wait for Styx - Blades of Greed which is coming to be released in fall.

PROS: 1. Unique idea for medieval era 2. Interesting main character 3. Stealth mechanics 4. Medieval enviroment CONS: 1. Story is not interesting 2. After few lvls in, game becomes repetetive 3. Terrible fight mechanics As someone who completed this game 100% and got platinum trophy, I recommend this game, even if it has 3 big flaws mentioned above under CONS section.

fun stealth game, great environment and character designs

I like the story and the graphics work with the style, how the characters behave both in-game and in cut scenes are pretty cool too, I only wish there was more game to play. (btw the game save files have a % next to them like (big ass apartment 34%) and I thought that it meant I was 34% through the game, but it's actually a completion thing, so you might be 98% done with the whole story but it'll say like 58%, it made me think this game was gonna be way longer.) A+ Good Game

i liked the story, game play can get a little repetitive, but, it's the kind of game you can choose to play the way you want, so it balances it out. pretty good game man

A bit janky but it is a good stealth game and we can never have too much of those

it is a fun and intense stealth game that i think many people would enjoy

I just realized I hate this game (ending half and final boss)

Legal, jogo sem besterias, apenas bom.

im a masochist and this games fuel my need. 10/10

This game... is pure trash.

pretty good

nice

nice one!

It's not easy

wow