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 Drakness is developing the predecessor's ideas, but there is no breakthrough here. We are returning at one's old place in a slightly better, nicer and more friendly way. The game perfectly implements characteristics of stealth games, but because of bugs it misses AAA games quality.
Review in Polish | Read full review
Styx: Shards Of Darkness is a unique beast. In a time where every game seems to be committed to diversifying their gameplay as much as possible, and appealing to as wide an audience as possible, Styx: Shards Of Darkness is unconventionally pure in its approach.
All in all, Styx: Shards of Darkness is a game you won't want to miss.
Shards of Darkness could have been an amazing stealth game, thanks to a witty and cynical main character, a wonderful level design and a lot of skills and perks. Unfortunately, the experience is partially ruined by a sub-par AI and some flaws in the control system.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Despite some flaws still present from its predecessor, Styx : Shards of Darkness is a solid sequel. Even if it doesn't reinvent the wheel, and borrows its mechanics to the biggest stealth games or adventurous ones like Assassin�s Creed, this opus does things well. With its high dosed difficulty that will encourage the player to be discreet and explore the verticality of the great level design, this entry will fulfill players from the outset.
Review in French | Read full review
In some ways, Styx: Shards of Darkness felt as Stockholm-Syndrome-inducingly difficult as Dark Souls, with the frequent deaths, taunts, and preference for evasion over confrontation. But that made me like it even more.
A wisecracking goblin assassin may seem like an odd choice for a protagonist, but the titular character of Styx: Shards of Darkness is enjoyable to control.
It's safe to say Styx: Shards of Darkness is 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.
Depending on what you're looking for in your next third person stealth game, Styx may fit the bill. It gets a lot right and is a noticeable improvement from the first game, which itself was pretty good to begin with. It may not carry the history or prestige of some of stealth's bigger franchises, but if you like the genre at all, Cyanide Studios' latest effort deserves your attention.
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.
Clearly, a lot of money and skill has gone into making Shards Of Darkness, which only makes the fact that you have to battle past this woeful characterisation to get to the strong stealth meat below all the more tragic.
Unlike the original game, this version now has a quick save function by pressing right on the d-pad. This makes the game a lot more forgiving than the original and the level design has been improved with multiple routes though the levels giving the player choice how to approach each situation. The A.I. is hit and miss, when it's good it's fantastic, but this is spoilt when you see the guards glitching out.
