Styx: Shards of Darkness Reviews
Cyanide Studios returns after three years with Shards of Darkness to offer us a new adventure of Styx. A game with a weak plot and full of light and dark sides, where the absence of light will accompany us throughout the adventure along with fantastic game mechanics and a good cooperative mode although with some flaws.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Despite being so similar compared to Master of Shadows in terms of gameplay, Shards of Darkness improves in visuals and level desing, but still has deficiencies in terms of AI and narrative.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
In the end Styx: Shards of Darkness isn’t a terrible game. Sadly several elements stop it from reaching the greatness it could have had, like bad platforming, AI getting stuck during patrols, a story that doesn’t engage and wobbly voice acting all keep Styx in the firmly good section
And really, pleasant surprises are what we're talking about with Styx: Shards of Darkness. Don't let the reduced price tag or the fact that Styx's previous titles aren't exactly household names fool you. 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).
A decent stealth experience, but the AI tends to sour the experience, as does the occasional camera angle issue.
Styx: Shards of Darkness is an enormous improvement over its predecessor. The gameplay has seen a large amount of refinement to the point where it's actually a fun game to play, and Styx himself steals the show with his charismatic performance. It's not without its own set of returning and new defects, but Styx's second adventure is something we can confidently recommend. This is everything the first game should have been.
Styx: Shards of Darkness is an interesting development of the ideas of the original game with an amusing humour and a charismatic main character that suffers from many errors, deficiencies and other problems that will be partly fixed with updates. But this is unlikely change our opinion about the game. I put a rating based on atmosphere, diversity and stealth, but you really have to love the genre to get pleasure from this game.
Review in Russian | Read full review
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.
Review in French | Read full review
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.
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'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
Styx: Shards of Darkness is a pleasant stealth game. Just be aware that it's not a AAA title. It looks fine on the surface, but some mechanics are a bit too old-fashioned. However, if you like stealth games or the previous Styx game, you'll not make a mistake picking this title.
Review in Slovak | 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.
A notable improvement over Master of Shadows only held back by some uninspired mechanics and skill tree.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
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.
In short, Styx: Shards of Darkness, is a massive improvement, not only upon its predecessor, but also the AA category as a whole. It is a title which offers the variety of gameplay which even some AAA games lack these days, and the inclusion of the co-op mode only further promotes it up the ladder of desirability. However, despite its strong technical and artistic foundation, Styx: Shards of Darkness, is not a perfect game by any stretch of the imagination. And what prevents it from reaching the upper echelons of the grading scale, is the fact that at its core, Styx: Shards of Darkness, is a title which suffers deeply from its mechanical shortcomings, which are so brazen at times, that they take all the joy away from the title
By no means a perfect game, Styx: Shards of Darkness is still an improvement on the first. As the series continues to progress we can hope to see some better storytelling, world building and crisper graphics and sound, but for now at least we have an enjoyable experience with some interesting ideas to experiment with
Styx is a solid game with polished mechanics that simply fails to justify its higher asking price. Combine that with its release date being sandwiched between so many 'must-have' titles and it doesn't even fill a void of having nothing to play. Still, it is a solid stealth game, and one that provides plenty of entertainment in its solid campaign. I just cannot justify the steeper price for what still feels like a lower-budget title.
Amid an overcrowded season full of newly launched triple-A titles, Shards of Darkness, at its very best, works as an inconsistent but serviceable stealth experience.