Thankfully, no knowledge of the original is needed to enjoy this sequel. Styx has the unique ability to actually speak, not a typical goblin trait but all that backstory is told through the first game and to go into it would just be spoiler hell. Styx is of course a goblin, but in this world goblins are fairly dumb creatures treated like vermin. The world is fairly rich with many of your standard fancy tropes on display. Where Styx: Shards of Darkness really shines is in the level design. These skills are unlocked with a kind of XP that is earned with each mission completion and bonus granted for certain objectives. There are 5 areas of skills and two branches in each area, but some pretty standard abilities like ledge kills and silent moving while invisible don't come for free. Most abilities have to be learned from a rather linear skill tree. What is not so generous is the relatively paltry list of skills you begin with. But mostly every time you tick off some mission objective there will be an autosave initiated. There is also a quick save mapped to the right d-pad to manually bookmark your progress. Speaking of which, for a stealth game the saves are fairly generous. There is a nice parry mechanic in play if facing off against a lone antagonist, but when faced with a group, might be better just to load the last save. You do not have the health bar, or the moves, to do much against any sort of odds. Be warned though, one alarm raised will send every opponent in the area on your head. Bobby trap alarms first, poison food and water caches, use the environment as opportunity presents itself or else pick off guards one by one up close and personal. It's not all about sneaking, you can opt to unsheathe your knife and leave a trail of the dead in your wake, but do so quietly. This is a game where patience is a virtue and carefully plodding through levels, studying patrol patterns, and painstakingly scouting each turn before rounding the corner are all well rewarded.
It doesn't really try to be anything else.
Styx is, first and foremost, a stealth game. So fans of the original should be encouraged by that news. I was happy, therefore, to finally jump into this world with the sequel, Styx: Shards of Darkness. I'm told this game is very much like the first, but does well to build off the strengths of the original, expanding abilities, crafting, and tightening up the gameplay. I never did get around to it and eventually need the disk space back. I had every intention of giving it a go and there it sat, downloaded on my hard drive waiting to be played for months.
The original Styx game, Master of Shadows, was a PS Plus monthly freebie a while back.
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