I'm a big fan of stealth games and with few titles to choose from the genre these days, perhaps I'm way more forgiving of ones that are average in quality but I really enjoyed this game. One of the most important things in a stealth game is the level design and it's pretty good here. There's lots of routes through a level if you seek out nooks and crannies and with Styx having a generous jump, there's always a ledge or rope to climb on giving the spaces a nice vertical feel. There might actually be too many routes through the levels that it becomes overly easy as you can always find away around any guard but it does make it fun to explore.

Styx has a few abilities to help his sneaking. He can turn invisible for a short time which is always useful and a few extra kill moves to make murdering easier. I didn't see much use for the cloning ability at first but once I got into doing the level speedruns, having another body to teleport to was very advantageous. There's also a very basic crafting system.

It is unfortunate that Styx as a character is pretty damn insufferable. His constant self aware fourth wall breaking schtick is neither funny nor charming. I'm glad you can turn off the death videos or I would have lost my mind. In the second half of the game, they start recycling the levels which drags the game down. Going through them again does at least show that there are more routing options to find in the levels but I wouldn't have minded if the game was just shorter.

It's hella fun being a little stealing asshole goblin.
I just wish mine wouldn't spew out Marvel-esque quips and meta pop culture references as the monologue all the time. I did not care for Styx (quite the opposite actually), nor the story, or any characters since none were developed.
I also had no incentive to explore its environment, which in my eyes, is a cardinal crime in the genre of stealth games. It's extremely objective-based with annoying side challenge popups, often appearing on the screen, telling me how I should play the game. After a while, my inventory was packed with crafting ingredients, so I couldn't pick up most of the items. I was either skipping every building or going through every single one, looking for one of the twenty randomly placed tokens on every level. It's boring and feels robotic. Disappointing!

Mechanically speaking the game is a step up from Styx: Master of Shadows. There are less bugs and things are much more intuitive. The levels also feel more free to roam around, in a sense, though at the same time less memorable. Where the game really struggles, however, is the story which is a big step down from the previous installment.

There is no real sense of an overarching narrative and characters are dropped without any real warning or meaning. And the end is so sudden and anti-climactic that I was honestly thinking that I must have missed something and that there was a secred "true ending" or something. But no, the game just ends in a very unsatisfying way.

If you loved the stealth aspects of the previous game, but didn't care about the story, then this game is a strong recommendation.

In short:
Great gameplay mechanics
Weak story

Playtime: 19 Hours
Score: 5/10

Very disappointing game, with its one saving grace being co-op. I played a bit of the first game when I got it as part of my PS Plus membership back in the day, but the game was a bit too hardcore for me as I'm more used to Dishonored, so I just stopped playing. This game I mainly picked up for the co-op option, and I played through the game exclusively with a friend.

The co-op as I said before is the best part, as it gives me what I always wanted in a Dishonored game, with large maps, that allow you and your friend to work on objectives simultaneously. A lot of the gameplay did feel like a war of attrition though, as me and my partner would always take turns taking out enemies, knowing we would be spotted, but wouldn't lose progress since the other one was hiding away. Or we would synchronise kills when there two enemies together, which always felt satisfying.

You gain XP as you complete objectives throughout missions, which you can then go spend at a skills table with the usual skill trees. Some of the upgrades are fun but what sucks is the second player doesn't always get the same payout as you. Some missions my partner got the same amount of points as me, but most of the time they would barely get any points at all, even though they were the one completing most of the objectives we had in missions, which is just utter balloni. Also at the results screen there's an "exclude partner" option? If that does what I think it does, then its going to end a lot of friendships.

Otherwise the stealth is just very frustrating, as you can't really fight the enemies and if your spotted its basically game over as enemies can one hit kill you. Which begs the question as to why this game even has a health bar and potion system? Aside from like one small flying enemy that you can take head on, there really isn't any need for health, and when you respawn during a co-op session, they cut your health down to basically nothing, yet Styx can still be just as agile as he is at full health.

There's also a lot of frustrating enemies, like armoured ones that you can't stab from behind or Dwarves that can sniff you out if your too close. You do get tools later to help you circumvent these enemies, but it just never stopped being frustrating for me.

The story is okay I guess but I just found it to be very generic and forgettable so I just stopped caring after a while. Honestly I would have stopped playing this game long ago, if I wasn't playing in co-op.

All Games I have Played and Reviewed Ranked - https://www.backloggd.com/u/JudgeDredd35/list/all-games-i-have-played-and-reviewed-ranked/