Sequel Styx: Blades of Greed from Nacon and Cyanide Studio brings us a new stealth action experience set in the Of Orcs and Men universe, now on PS5. Learn more in our Styx: Blades of Greed review!
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Sequel Styx: Blades of Greed from Nacon and Cyanide Studio brings us a new stealth action experience set in the Of Orcs and Men universe, now on PlayStation 5. You’ll be placed in the role of the titular character, a dastardly, cunning goblin with a very deadly sense of humor. Your task? To use the shadows in your favor, as you aim to get your hands on Quartz, a very important and valuable resource. With the world around you in the brink of war, and orcs, elves, humans, and goblins ready to slash each other’s throats, it’s now up to you to… well, save yourself, really. This is the start of the Great War, and what happens in this one will lead up to the events in Of Orc and Men. The game is the follow-up to Styx: Shards of Darkness from 2017, which is the sequel to Styx: Master of Shadows from 2014 – both on PlayStation 4 – which are prequels to 2012’s Of Orcs and Men on PlayStation 3.
The good news is that you won’t be doing this on your own, as you’ll have an unlikely group of allies by your side and even a zeppelin to get things done. Unfortunately, the Inquisition is more than ready to put a stop to your plan, so you’ll have to outsmart them as you avoid their traps. This journey will allow you to explore three large locations: The Wall, Turquoise Dawn, and Akenash. The Wall marks the boundary of the human world. Turquoise Dawn is an orc village. As for Akenash, it used to be the elven capital, but now there’s nothing more than ruins of a once lush kingdom.
Once the intro cutscene is over, you’ll be taking control of Styx by using the left analog stick, as you move the camera around you by using the right analog stick. You can press in on the right analog stick to lock onto a target, so that you can then use the right analog stick to switch between targets as needed. Attack your enemies by pressing the square button, as you try to dodge incoming attacks by pressing the R1 button to dash. This can also be used to dash up walls after a jump. If you press and hold down the Square button to attack an enemy that has not spotted you, you’ll get a chance to perform a silent kill that is still a bit messy but makes almost zero noise.
You can jump and double jump by pressing the X button. Crouch by pressing the Circle button, so that you can get through tight spots or remain unseen. Crouching will be important for when you want to take things a bit more slowly, as well as for when you’re going to go down a ledge, so as not to fall to your death. Press the L2 button to take cover, which will make you a bit less perceptible to your opponents.
As you progress further in this new adventure, you’ll get to unlock special skills that will allow you to reach new areas and take care of business in style. These include, for example, a hand glider that will, as expected, allow you to glide for a bit after jumping, a spectral dash, a sharp and quick grappling hook, or claws for climbing. These abilities will be mapped to the X, R1, L2, and L1 buttons, respectively.
Speaking of that, you can use a health flask to heal some of your wounds by pressing left on the D-Pad, and also have an amber flask that will be used by pressing right on the D-Pad. The amber flask can be used to replenish your amber. There’s also the Amber Vision, which is used by pressing down on the D-Pad. Amber Vision will make it a lot easier to spot items and enemies in each area, helping to make them pop in your field of view. You’ll also gain a Quartz compass, which you can use to track down additional pieces of Quartz.
There are also special abilities for you to use. You can press and hold down the R2 button to enter Ability Mode. Once this happens, you activate abilities by pressing the X, Square, Circle, or Triangle buttons, depending on which ones you have currently equipped. You can even gain access to a deadly grapple kill while Ability Mode is active! Use the D-Pad to change the ability wheel, so that you can cycle between the different sets of abilities. You can unlock new ability wheels by collecting crystalized amber. Clone yourself to trick your enemies. Use a short window of invisibility to try to move around more crowded areas. Shift time in your favor. Control the weak minds of your opponents. Oh, and poison is always a fun option!
The game offers four difficulty settings for you to choose from: Easy, Normal, Hard, and Goblin. The Easy difficulty setting is the one recommended for those of you who might be new to stealth games, with an experience that is still challenging but a bit more forgiving. The Normal difficulty setting offers the standard experience, balanced to keep you on your toes without making you feel overwhelmed. The Hard difficulty setting bumps up the challenge, with enemies that are ready to punish you if you make a mistake. As for the Goblin difficulty setting, it’s one best reserved for those experts, since it disables manual saves!
Pressing in on the TouchPad on the DualSense will open up the crafting menu. From there, you’ll be able to use the resources you’ve collected so far to craft useful weapons and items for your mission. You can craft a lockpick so that you can open some of the pesky locks you’ll run into, or a very sharp bolt that can prove to be quite deadly. You might need to get your hands on an acid vial to dissolve a corpse. A very useful one is the cocoon, which you can deploy to save your life should you fail.
As you defeat enemies and complete objectives, you’ll be rewarded with experience points. You can also collect Quartz to receive additional experience points. Once you’ve obtained enough experience points, you’ll get to level up. When this happens, you’ll gain talent points, which you can then use in the upgrades tab of the menu to, well, upgrade your amber skills, Quartz skills, as well as your items.
Trophy-wise, this release features a full trophy list with a Platinum trophy for you to add to your collection. The list is split into 30 Bronze trophies, 11 Silver trophies, and 3 Gold trophies for you to work on. What will you need to do for that shiny Platinum trophy? Some of the objectives to complete include defeating 100 enemies, mind controlling an enemy who is dying from poison, defeating all types of orcs, defeating all types of goblins, defeating an enemy with a glass bottle throw, performing 25 perfect dodges, collecting all runes, collecting all relics, acquiring every upgrade in the game, defeating 5 enemies with poison, pushing 10 enemies into the void, or barely surviving a fall, to name some examples.
Sequel Styx: Blades of Greed brings us a new stealth action experience set in the Of Orcs and Men universe, now on PlayStation 5. You’ll be placed in the role of the titular character, a dastardly, cunning goblin with a very deadly sense of humor. Your task? To use the shadows in your favor, as you aim to get your hands on Quartz, a very important and valuable resource. With the world around you in the brink of war, and orcs, elves, humans, and goblins ready to slash each other’s throats, it’s now up to you to… well, save yourself, really. This is the start of the Great War, and what happens in this one will lead up to the events in Of Orc and Men. The game is the follow-up to Styx: Shards of Darkness from 2017, which is the sequel to Styx: Master of Shadows from 2014 – both on PlayStation 4 – which are prequels to 2012’s Of Orcs and Men on PlayStation 3.
Since your enemies will have a harder time spotting you while you move around the cold embrace of darkness, it would be a good idea to turn off any light sources that you run into… by any means neccessary. That way, enemies will see you from a lesser distance and will be slower when trying to detect you. Should you manage to defeat an enemy, it would be wise to pick them up and try to hide them as quickly as possible, so that you don’t end up alerting others.
Styx: Blades of Greed launches on February 19 with a $49.99 price tag. You can also get the Styx: Blades of Greed – Quartz Edition for $59.99, which, along with the base game, also includes the following:
Master of Shadows Skin
48 hour early access
Greedy Skin Pack
Legacy Skin Pack
Weapon Pack
Or you could go all-in and get the Styx: Master of Stealth Collection for $69.99, which includes all of the above, as well as Styx: Master of Shadows and Styx: Shards of Darkness, both on PlayStation 4.
Disclaimer
This Styx: Blades of Greed review is based on a PlayStation 5 copy provided by Nacon.
