Styx: Shards of Darkness Reviews
What's worse than dying in a game... dying and being heckled for doing so.
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.
Styx: Shards of Darkness is everything you could expect this game to be and more. It offers hardcore stealth gameplay for those who are interested in it while simultaneously lowering the skill cap for those who just want to finish the game and do not shy away from a messy slaughter or alarm or two. It is hard to resist Styx’s wits and cockiness even in the middle of situation he gets into. If you were waiting for a sign that Styx: Shards of Darkness is an amazing game worthy of your time, consider this to be just it.
Despite its frustrations, Styx’s stealth mechanics and Deus Ex-ian level design will continue to drive you forward in a game that is longer than you’d think.
A dark, challenging stealth game undermined by an unimaginative and rambling story littered with crude gags and lazy pop culture references.
What it may lack in narrative development, Styx: Shards of Darkness more than makes up for in its near-faultless gameplay that stands out as a prime example of stealth design done right.
Styx: Shards of Darkness is an excellent purist stealth game, which is let down by stupid AI.
Styx may not be the most anticipated stealth adventure of the year, but it’s definitely one you should be checking out If you’re a fan of the genre. Gameplay can unfortunately start to feel repetitive after a string of deaths, but those happy to take their time will find an adventure to enjoy.
A surprisingly old-school and well-crafted stealth game, Styx: Shards of Darkness is a welcome sneaky outlet in a world so often focused on open combat.
Styx's good story, interesting world, great stealth mechanics, lots of humor, and engaging atmosphere overcomes its poor AI, moderate visuals, unbalanced controls and repetitive levels. If you are a stealth fan, you'll enjoy Styx: Shards of Darkness.
Review in Persian | Read full review
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 improves upon its predecessor in nearly every way, but still leaves room for a deeper, more thought-out stealth experience.
Styx: Shards of Darkness offers an excellent and varied style of gameplay with massive and beautiful fantasy world, but suffers from repetitive level design and awful jokes and commentary, in addition to weak indoor graphics that lack detail.
Review in Arabic | Read full review
Styx: Shards of Darkness sometimes feels like it's the purposely edgy teenager who doesn't want you to like it. It's, by all means, a game any stealth fan should try, but it's not going to grab and keep you coming back for more. Instead, it feels like wading through mud, and the payoff you're receiving is too small to really gloat about. There's potential here, but behind buggy AI, clumsy controls and a lead character who is more annoying than likable, it all feels for naught.
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.
In the end, Styx: Shards of Darkness is a solid stealth title. The lack of real combat puts your ability to go undetected to the test, and the breadth of each level means that your solutions to each problem are wide open, giving you some flexibility to your approach. While your abilities are fun to use, it would've been nice to see them make a difference, especially since the game reuses some environments instead of going for new ones. Shards of Darkness is an improvement over the first game, and it's worth checking out if you're a stealth fan.
Styx: Shards of Darkness One of the few titles that provided stealth in a great form, all the elements were designed to serve the player in his adventure away from action and direct clashes as much as possible, but on other hand you feel the limited budget the game have or it's safe more to say it didn't have much time in development especially at second half of the game, which represents weak story and limited graphical level.
Review in Arabic | Read full review
Cyanide continues to build its own dark fantasy world, step by step. And Shards of Darkness is a step in a right direction. Story is richer, gameplay is better than in its predecessor. And we only hope developers will stay on track for a few games more.
Review in Russian | Read full review
Styx: Shards of Darkness improves from Master of Shadows on many fronts and introduced a lot of new features that adds more depth to the franchise. But the failure to completely address control issues from the previous game prevents me from enjoying the game to its fullest.
Styx: Shards of Darkness is a promising stealth experience with massive stages and an interesting blend of genres.