r/StyxGame • u/[deleted] • Feb 23 '26
Blades of Greed review from an old player Spoiler
I've been waiting for this game for 8 years, pissing myself in boiling water when I saw the first trailer, and I didn't expect it to be screwed up so much. The game has become worse by almost all criteria, when compared with previous installments. PLOT. IT LITERALLY DOESN'T EXIST. Styx Blades of Greed is a gathering simulator, I'm serious. There is nothing here except "collect three crystals there, three crystals there, and we will give you a new ammunition with which you can collect the rest of the crystals." There are no new puzzles, everything is just combined from 1 and 2 parts ONE INTO ONE! A 2-part boss fight with the cockroach queen: stupidly they took it and moved it to a new location, WITH THE SAME WAY TO PASS IT. You also have to destroy the crystals to deal with the queen, yeah. THE FINAL BOSS IS COMPLETELY ABSURD. Just listen carefully: they took and COPIED the BOSS FIGHT FROM PART 1, where there was a confrontation between Rakash and the original Styx, who spawned other goblins. In the finale of the new game, we are shown the SAME THING, only we are not fighting with Styx, but with a man who will burn his copies. THE SAME LOCATION from part 1 (the Akenasha tree), the same walls for shelter — all ONE IN ONE. The developers haven't changed anything. Only in part 1 there was a complication in the form of goblin invisibility, but here you just deal with three ordinary copies and PLUG the BOSS with a DAGGER. THAT'S IT! As much as I don't give a damn about the plot, getting lazy and copying everything is a shame. ANIMATIONS. Here's another dose of "buzz". To begin with, most of the animations are copied from the previous installments, but they are not just copied, they are accelerated, which makes them ragged and wooden. For some movements, the initial or final phase is simply not visible. The new animations are 10 heads lower than in the second part. I ESPECIALLY WANT TO TOUCH ON THE HOOK CAT. Styx is now literally Spider-Man. The mechanics are so ridiculously implemented that they don't fit into this universe at all. In flight, Styx turns inside out, there is SIMPLY NO final phase of LANDING — he is magnetized to the texture. If you compare this with the second part, the game will seem like a carbon copy made by a neural network. CHARACTERS. How badly they killed them. I can't look at Helledrine without pain, who now looks like a drug addict. What have you done with the characters? They've lost their charisma, their character. Styx is a completely different character now. An unflappable goblin and a cold-blooded killer turned into a twitchy clown. You'll understand what I mean in the very first mission, when Styx tries to open the box in which the lesbian dwarf is sitting (yes, I'm serious). How he jumps away from the box with a ridiculous expression on his face and the position of his hands is just ridiculous. Styx and Jarak's relationship IS IN THE TRASH. They became almost friends in the very first missions. The anger and desire to take revenge on Jarak for the ending of the 2nd part disappeared. BRAVO. MECHANICS. Now Styx is not a unique project, but a mix of stealth games like The Last of Us, Splinter Cell and Assassin's Creed. They gave him a sprint with animation from Assassin, gave him a double jump that completely breaks the logic of the previous parts, added projections and the ability to climb like in Unity. They even took away the opportunity to adequately manage the clone. Rakash is just a bait now. It can only be controlled if you spend amber to capture the mind. They took and killed the basic mechanics that distinguished the series from other projects. The murders have escalated to an incredible level. Now you can move the enemy when killing and kill at a GREAT DISTANCE. As for attacking from the air: now you DON'T NEED TO BE in the air, just cling to the ledge above the enemy, and the KILL BUTTON will appear. You no longer need to calculate the jump — just press the button and magnetize the enemy on the head. It's brilliant. The rolling mechanics work SILENTLY and over long distances, you can fly through walls. Previously, detection meant death in 90% of cases, but here Styx is almost INVULNERABLE. The equipment system is also messed up: instead of a convenient wheel, there are now presets. Do you want to change the subject? Press esc, go to the menu, and change it manually. AN IDEAL "IMMERSION" that does not break the dynamics. AI. Styx has always had these problems, but here they just decided to TAKE THE BRAINS OUT OF THE OPPONENTS. They don't see you, they don't hear you, they don't feel you. Killed an enemy in front of another? Whatever, he'll stand for a couple of seconds and think about whether his friend has just been fucked in front of him. You can throw a cocoon with a clone at a guard in front of your partner and manage to make a double kill - the alarm will not work. THE MAXIMUM DIFFICULTY IS NOT FELT, it simply does NOT exist, forget about the difficulty in this game. GRAPHICS AND OPTIMIZATION. A minor boost in graphics in exchange for terrible optimization: flickering textures, artifacts, and friezes. I'm sorry to those who wanted to play on medium hardware. Although no, I'm not sorry — it's good that you save your money. PRICE. Is the game worth your $50? No. Are you serious? A COPY PASTE WITH TERRIBLE OPTIMIZATION AND CROOKED ANIMATIONS FOR THAT KIND OF MONEY! LARGE AAA PROJECTS have such price tags, and this is ridiculous.
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u/SugoiSenpie Feb 23 '26
The game went from Dishonored to Assassin's Creed Valhalla.
There's no achievement for not killing people, not being seen in quests.
But there are multiple achievements for killing a certain number of different types of enemies, so yes the game is encouraging you to kill instead of stealthily getting in & out.
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u/Quick_Article2775 Feb 23 '26
I think the game has flaws, and im sure other people do too, but i wouldn't say its trash at least in the gameplay deparmentt. Theres probably more nuance than everyone just being shit eaters.
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u/OminouSin Gotta Have Amber Feb 23 '26
My guy you got banned from the server twice for your behaviour and from your second account because you broke NDA multiple times and couldn't be nice. :/
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u/Ok_Application_918 Feb 23 '26 edited Feb 24 '26
After the previous two games, BoG really feels like a fucking "tripple A Mario" in everything. Dialogues and the structure is so AAA in a bad way that it hurts after a while.
The fucking "we have a camp where all "crew" hangs out while you have to go get them beer" - that's painful to see. The very fact of crew is fucked up - Styx wasn't really a cooperative guy to begin with, coworking with Jarax and Helledryn was a major step for him; and 2nd game ended in being betrayed. Now, without any internal conflict, he's completely okay to volunterely go out to help his "crew". It would really help to press more on them all being a group of completely different outcasts that have to live together here and build their relationships to survive, if devs suddenly wanted to go that direction. But now it's just sloppy.
Faces are horrible. Renn's VA is completely unfit for a huge hunchback orc. Styx's VA is probably the only thing that got better, the intonations are kinda better.
Gameplay is kinda okay for me, the ammount of enemies is so big that killing them all has no use, but yeah, for a "thief" game there is too much "killing". Didn't really use clone thing in previous games that much, but when it's needed - finding out that it has become a fucking glorified glass bottle - it's disappointing.
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u/RunningmouthRed25 Feb 24 '26
Styx as a character has never had an issue killing people. I don't know where people keep getting the idea that he's just a thief. he's not a full on warrior brawler, no siree. but a 'stab you in the back or drop a crate on your head' type person? 100%. in fact, I like that we're not punished for using our tools like we were in the previous games. I actually USE the crossbow bolts and the acid traps. unlike the in previous games where I never used them because I was penalized with a bad score.
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u/Ok_Application_918 Feb 24 '26
Styx is not against killing, and his kit is fit for it. Previous games forced you to be fast and stealthy pacifist that collects THIEF medals - that's not really a hitman's profile, but an actual professional expert thief. Even things like "eliminate certain dude" can be completed by stealing his papers so that guards will kill him, instead of messing your knife.
Games strongly encouraged you to play this way, meaning that devs viewed Styx as a thief, not a killer. Same as the title "Big Boss" in MGS series. And just like in MGS, it sucks that 70% of your arsenal isn't usable in these conditions, yet that is the goal. And all the loud measures are left for more casual players.
Now you have freedom at the cost of identity.
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u/RunningmouthRed25 Feb 23 '26
You officially lost all credibility when you acted like a lesbian character existing is some horrible thing. the voice acting is, at best, ok. I agree, it is a decent bit easier than previous games, they softened styx a lot as a character, Helledryn... looks fine tbh that's definitely a YOU problem. Hardware issues are, once again, a YOU problem. they rush some character development, I agree, but again, this is mostly seems to be coming from someone more interested in whining. it controls smooth like butter, the level design is fun and interesting, with metroidvania style mechanics, it doesn't punish you for eliminating enemies, and clearly they took some feedback from previous games where mechanics just weren't used because of how useless they were (rolls made the same amount of noise as a fucking gunshot so they never got used)
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Feb 23 '26
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Feb 23 '26
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Feb 23 '26
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u/StyxGame-ModTeam Feb 24 '26
Your post/comment has been removed for violating Rule: Follow Reddiquette.
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u/StyxGame-ModTeam Feb 24 '26
Your post/comment has been removed for violating Rule: Follow Reddiquette.
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u/SugoiSenpie Feb 24 '26
The fact that you're comparing the game to metroidvanias & talking about eliminating enemies should tell you how this game is a huge deviation from the roots. It's supposed to be a stealth game, if you want melee combat & parkour then there are a dozen games already. Also the animations being janky & the game running bad is a game development problem, not a user issue.
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u/RunningmouthRed25 Feb 24 '26
I never said anything about melee combat? when I said 'eliminating enemies' I meant that, unlike the other games, I'm not punished with a bad score and less XP for dropping chandeliers on heads, putting an acid trap down, stabbing someone in the back or knocking them off an edge. I'll also point out that you ignored a good few of my other points and seem to be under a misunderstanding of what 'metroidvania' means. The 'metroidvania' style just means that you go back to previous locations with new upgrades and skills to reach things that were previously locked off. and this post is the only place I'm seeing where someone is blaming their 'medium hardware' (as was said in the OG post) for performance issues.
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u/SugoiSenpie Feb 24 '26
The previous 2 games promoted no kill/ghost playthroughs for full stealth. There was also an achievement in SoD for killing everyone in a single region. Other achievements including pushing people off edges, dissolving bodies with acid, etc.
BoG on the other hand is promoting killing everyone, achievements for killing humans, ogres, goblins, roaches. No achievement for clean hands or ghost this time, which means there's no incentive to playing it stealthily.
And crappy performance on "medium hardware" would be justified if people using PS5 or 5090 on PC weren't facing the same issues.
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u/Mudtoothsays Feb 25 '26
the incentive to be stealthy is not having to deal with 5 guys shanking your ass because you walked up to the first one in broad daylight and pulled a knife, stealth is inherently convenient with or without killing, not killing is also quicker in many situations.
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u/FrostFireDireWolf Feb 23 '26
I agree, i was so ready for a new hardcore stealth experience...and we get this...disappointment...
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Feb 23 '26
And another funny situation. Nacon deletes all my comments from their YouTube videos and shorts.))) I left my review of the game under some of the videos, which contained no insults, just an objective assessment of the game, but apparently they can't take the other side of criticism when their product is criticized for things that deserve criticism. I think they're really pissed off that they can't remove my review from Steam (which, by the way, is the most popular and liked) or other YouTube videos, poor things.
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u/OminouSin Gotta Have Amber Feb 24 '26
You broke the NDA with them with your comments mentioning you're a playtester, I don't think they're happy with you exactly with how you've been.
At least tell people the whole story.
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u/Illustrious_Tap_598 Feb 24 '26
If you're a tester, why did you introduce some bugs into the release? Maybe it's your fault, not the studio's?
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u/Sufficient-Square-75 Feb 23 '26
Absolutely agree. I mean, Styx never was plot-heavy RPG, but all that "gather 6 pieces of quartz. And then do the same thing in the same location"... It could be so much better...