I know I don't have a crazy amount of hours in the game, but as someone who's played the first two over and over as well as stealth genres being a favorite of mine, I feel like I can justifiably give a true review.

The game is unpolished. Point blank period. I genuinely can see this game getting withdrawn and reworked on then re released. I've seen some of the devs replies to the reviews and they're cut and dry with a lot of dodging in terms of certain issues being brought up repeatedly. Their main response seems to just always be "keep playing the game, it gets better after awhile!" But that's an overlook of real feedback your players have. These are all Styx veterans leaving these critical reviews, we've played the pure gold that is the previous games. You can't expect a response like that to get us to entertain this clearly forced sequel. It's like you saw how good the last game was and wanted to make another, but somewhere down the line you got lost trying to improve upon and add to the greatness that already was the Styx series, therefore ruining it in the end.

The gameplay feels extremely janky.
Difficulty? Never heard of it. There's no punishment for getting spotted and no rewarding feeling for getting through undetected.
Oh! And did you know this is essentially now just an action RPG? Yea, there's literal REAL combat now, so no more hardcore stealth. Just run into the room of 4 enemies and start swinging that dagger while dodging around and using the Force. Don't worry about getting hit, a guy slices your 4'5 frame 4 times with his sword longer than your body and you're still alive and kicking!

The kills feel...null? now. The people you kill literally make ZERO noise when you get them. The only sound is Styx's dagger, that's all. The previous games would have them cry out on a standard kill because, hey, you were just minding your business and now there's a knife getting plunged into your kidney! When Styx would do a silent kill, he'd cover their mouth to muffle the screams but they'd still obviously be screaming as they just got surprised with a dagger to the back. I don't want to sound like a sadistic creep, but the kills feel less intimate now. Just a super fast stab or slash and keep it moving because guess what, there's 10 more enemies you need to deal with in this hallway due to the enlarged maps in this very open world needing to be filled with more enemies.

The "skill tree" is a joke now. Just a bunch of stuff you could already do automatically in the previous games now removed and put into a category that you have to unlock.

Graphics are terrible compared to Shards of Darkness, oh and the lighting looks like you're in a WWII tape.

There's a dozen other things to nitpick at as well but you'll already see them in the other reviews. All in all the game is severely disappointing. I really was looking forward to this game (that they delayed for 3 MONTHS by the way.) and it's sad to see it like this. Someone who's new to the series i can understand enjoying this, but for the veteran Styx players, it's a far cry from the former glory that the series was.

This is my first time ever really writing a review on a game so sorry if it wasn't super coherent or anything, the Styx series is just a big deal to me.

1. The difficulty feels almost ceremonial. You can casually jog through
corridors, and if someone spots you, they patiently wait while you remember
which button lets you fight back. Tension never really shows up — it must
have missed the meeting.

2. The experience is strangely empty. No sharp humor, no memorable ideas,
no moments that make you think or even smile. It feels less like a finished
vision and more like a checklist that was quietly completed and submitted.

3. Facial animations are painfully stiff and unnatural. Characters speak about
dramatic events, yet their faces barely react, as if emotions were patched
in at the last minute. Instead of supporting immersion, the animations
constantly remind you that you’re watching unfinished puppets rather than
living characters.

4. The character design feels like it was created in a brainstorming session
where consistency was optional. A gnome with a clearly male appearance and
name but a female voice doesn’t feel bold — it feels careless. Instead of
enriching the world, it turns basic character identity into a distraction.
If confusion was the goal, congratulations — mission accomplished.

This "review" is more a TL;DR as I kept running into Steam's character limit. Its also a more preliminary review as I admit I sitll need to finish the game. But I feel with my 12 hours thus far (and having completed Act II) I still have enough time in the game to offer an informed opinion.

For anyone interested in a comprehensive dissection of Styx: Blades of Greed, looking at both its strengths and weaknesses, please follow the link below;

https://pastebin.com/eF5QE2eK

For those still here, I hope I can still break it down in a satisfactory way.


Styx III still offers the same focused core experience as the previous Styx games do that helped carry them. A focus on capital S stealth, de-emphasised combat, vertical levels and a host of magical powers. Styx is as much a joy to control at a basic mechanical level as he was in previous games, and the wall dash and double jump abilities are nice.

Also nice to return to Akenash from Styx I, as well as see how the Dark Elves from Styx II are holding up. Nice to see the previous games clearly had some weight overall here.


Progression feels grindy, with how multiple currencies are needed for different upgrades vs. the prior games more unified system of XP for most, if not all, upgrades.

Exploration as a Metroidvania also feels half-baked and repetitive. I'd have liked to see whole new areas when unlocking new skills, not just different segments of the same wider maps.

I feel Cyanide should have studied other games in this categories more closely to get a sense of what makes them work, cause this is just a Meh-troidvania at best.

Also, general signposting can be iffy with helping the player know where to go. Getting lost and stuck can happen often given the sheer size of the maps.

Game also lets you walk headfirst into traps like not warning you which enemies mind control does or does not work on, which can make for a frustrating experience to say the least.

The characters all feel very underdeveloped thus far. Styx's crew basically falls into his lap out of convenience and then stick around for no real reason. The crew is a motley one and I honestly can't really clock why anyone is here or how they all get along with no issue.

Voice performances for everyone, barring Styx, are also bad. Delivery is flat and lacks emotion, and it all takes the weight out of otherwise important scenes.

Writing is also mediocre at best. Not much of a plot so far, its villain is cartoonish and clichéd, and frankly barely feels much like a real threat thus far, even after the airship attack.


The game is hampered by a barely functional stealth system (I've been caught whilst invisible for example), AI that barely functions, and aggravating enemy design (like blind bugs that can somehow snipe you) that just drives you straight up mad.

Its also unoptimized, so much so even my 3090 struggles to keep the frame rate up without me dropping quality or using upscalers, which I don't want to do. I see why everyone hates UE5 games now. This doesn't even look better than Styx II does, so what's the point?

Its also buggy as hell, even for a Styx game.

Worst of all, the games system for managing tools and powers is just atrocious and hostile design, and a drop off a cliff in terms of quality vs. Styx II. And it, so far, also fails to explain why Styx starts off this game with none of his skills and powers from Korranger.

Lastly breaks one of his signature powers, cloning, nerfing it to the point of uselessness.

There truly aren't enough words in the English language to express how much I hate these changes and how badly they hurt the experience of playing this game. Just trust me when I say they really do have a negative impact, and are large parts of why I don't recommend this game as it currently stands.


Blades of Greed feels like a very underbaked game, even by Styx standards. I think it should have been left in the oven longer to iron out its (unfortunately numerous) bugs, and several of its changes, like how you assign powers, need to be totally redone.

Im a veteran Styx player with 250+ hours combined in the previous games, right, and I was so excited for this game I even pre-ordered it, purchasing the Deluxe Edition and honestly... I think regret it. I hope Cyanide can polish it up so it can reach the heights of its predecessors.

Until then, I do not recommend unless you're either a die-hard Styx fan like myself and can overlook its flaws, or you just have the patience of a saint to help you put up with them.