Ahead of its presentation at E3 in Los Angeles next week, French publisher Focus Home Interactive has released several tasty screenshots of fantasy stealth game, Styx: Master of Shadows.
Taking place in the same fantasy world as developer Cyanide Studios’ 2012 game, Of Orcs and Men, Styx casts the player as the titular anti-hero, a Goblin assassin and thief, who seeks to steal the heart of a rather important sounding World-Tree. There, who hopes to harvest Amber, a substance he is addicted to that grants him his powerful abilities.
The tree is located in the Tower of Akenash, a miles-high fortress that the game will take place in. Being a prequel to Of Orcs and Men, Styx will contain narrative references, with the player encountering moments that spark important events in Of Orcs and Men.
Styx‘s gameplay brings games like Thief and Dishonored to mind. Levels are large and open ended, allowing for a diverse array of approaches and tactics. The player can dispatch of enemies with deadly or non-lethal force, and, in true Hitman fashion, stage deaths to look like freak accidents. As one might expect from a game subtitled Master of Shadows, head-on combat is a difficult, if brave, proposition.
Unique to Styx is the ability for the player to create temporary clones of himself, which opens up a variety of strategies, such as using a clone to distract a guard while the player sneaks past.
There will also be RPG elements, as the player can gain experience points which will be used to unlock skills and improve six different talent trees.
The game’s developer, Cyanide Studios, was formed in 2000 and is based in Paris, with another facility in Montreal, Canada. Originally known for its Pro Cycling Manager series, the studio branched out into the fantasy world with of Orcs and Men, Blood Bowl, Game of Thrones, and now, Styx: Master of Shadows.
Styx is being developed for the PC and is anticipated to be released later this year. It will be featured at the Focus Home Interactive booth at E3 next week. Check out the game’s development blog for more details.