Styx: Master of Shadows is arriving on next gen consoles in a little over a week. The game is one of GameNGuide's most anticipated titles this Broketober, a cunning little RPG-esque infiltration game that will force players to avoid rather than confront. In anticipation of the upcoming release, developer Cyanide Studio has unveiled four new making-of videos that let you in on the process of designing a crafty, stealthy world.
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The first video, seen at the bottom, focuses on the general game design. "Commented by Julien Desourteaux (Game Director & Level Designer), Guillaume Blanchard (Project Manager) et Mathias Chataignier (Game Designer) from Cyanide Studio, this 5 minutes video lets us learn more about the game, its mechanics, its level design, as well as the intentions of the developers when they designed its infiltration gameplay."
It is your standard behind the scenes look at the philosophy and inspiration: Styx is a tiny, lightly armored goblin so his mindset is to avoid confrontation at all costs. He's not going to go up against the heavily armored guards without a plan. That's the focus of the game: planning, and the dev team will give you plenty of options on how to tackle each level. Do you stick to the rafters? Do you subdue the enemy or do you wait patiently for the cracks in their patterns and slip by undetected? You can even poison guards, should you like.
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The second video on sound design is the real gem. Sound is an oft overlooked mechanic in virtually everything; even though half, if not more, of the experience of moving media is aural. Since Styx is an infiltration game, sound is key. The goblin's footfalls will sound different depending on a surface, you have to pay attention to the ambient noise from the very in-depth level design. Guards could be anywhere.
Needless to say, I hope you have a good surround sound system. The level of immersion we can hopefully expect in Styx: Master of Shadows is quite high and we're looking forward to experiencing it.
The other two videos highlight the Dev team and the Music in the game.
Styx is out for Xbox One, PS4 and PC on October 7.