The world’s most obnoxious goblin is coming back. Cyanide Studio and publisher Nacon just confirmed that Styx: Blades of Greed launches February 19, 2026, for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC via Steam and Epic Games Store. This marks the third entry in the hardcore stealth series and the first since 2017’s Shards of Darkness hit shelves almost nine years ago.
The announcement comes with a slight delay from the original fall 2025 target window. According to Nacon, the extra time gives the development team breathing room to polish everything up before launch. Considering the franchise’s reputation for punishing stealth gameplay where one mistake can mean instant death, taking time to refine the experience sounds like a smart move.
What Makes This Styx Different
Blades of Greed isn’t just more of the same. Cyanide Studio redesigned the core formula around freedom and creativity, moving away from the more linear approach of previous games. You still play as Styx, the caustic goblin master thief, but now you’re exploring three massive open environments with actual vertical scale.
The game takes place across three distinct regions: The Wall that marks the boundary of the human world, the lush orc village of Turquoise Dawn, and the Ruins of Akenash, the former elven capital. Each area offers vertical playground design where you can approach objectives from multiple angles, not just predetermined paths.
New tools expand your mobility options significantly. Styx now has a glider for soaring through the skies, a grappling hook to reach previously inaccessible spots, and claws for scaling massive walls. These tools unlock areas with Metroidvania-style progression, meaning early locations might have secrets you can’t reach until you’ve acquired certain abilities later.
The Quartz Powers
The story centers on Quartz, described as the most precious and dangerous resource in a world teetering on the edge of war between elves, humans, and orcs. Naturally, Styx wants to get his grubby hands on as much of it as possible because that’s what goblins do.
Quartz grants Styx new supernatural abilities including Mind Control and Time Shift powers. These join his existing toolkit of invisibility, clone creation, and environmental manipulation. The Mind Control ability lets you take direct control of enemies, while Time Shift mechanics add tactical options for getting past tight security or repositioning without being spotted.
The clone ability returns from previous games, letting you create duplicates of yourself to distract guards, scout ahead, or complete tasks in multiple locations simultaneously. Combined with the new powers, the tactical possibilities expand significantly beyond just sneaking from shadow to shadow.
How It Compares to Previous Games
The Styx series has always split its fanbase. Master of Shadows, the 2014 original, earned praise as an outstanding hardcore stealth game that punished mistakes severely. Combat was deliberately clunky to discourage direct confrontation, forcing players to think creatively about avoiding detection entirely.
Shards of Darkness, the 2017 sequel, took a different direction. It introduced boss fights and more action-oriented sequences that many fans felt strayed from what made the original special. The sequel did improve load times, crafting mechanics, and skill trees, but the awkwardly implemented boss encounters divided the community. Some players appreciated the variety while others wanted pure stealth without forced combat scenarios.
Blades of Greed appears to be splitting the difference. Preview coverage from Gamescom 2025 emphasized the stealth-first design philosophy while noting that some guards require armor removal before assassination, adding puzzle elements to encounters. Environmental traps like sabotaged cranes and chandeliers return, letting you eliminate targets without direct confrontation.
The Stealth Philosophy
Styx remains a hardcore stealth experience where your limited health means you can’t take more than a few hits before dying. The game actively discourages combat through its intentionally awkward fighting mechanics. If you get spotted, your best option is still to run and hide rather than fight your way out.
This design philosophy puts the series in a specific niche. While games like Dishonored or the recent Hitman trilogy let you choose between stealth and combat, Styx forces you to commit to sneaking. There are limited resources for items like sand to extinguish lamps, darts for silent kills, and other consumables, so you can’t just spam abilities to solve every problem.
The verticality of the new environments plays directly into this. You can slip through doorways, climb over balconies, exit through windows, and use elevation differences to avoid sight lines entirely. Pushing guards off ledges from great heights remains a viable and satisfying strategy for removing threats without alerting nearby enemies.
Who Is Styx Anyway
For newcomers, Styx is a deeply unpleasant protagonist with a caustic sense of humor. He’s a centuries-old goblin with mysterious origins tied to the World Tree and its magical amber substance. The original game revealed he was once an orc scholar transformed by the tree’s magic into the first goblin, gaining abilities like invisibility and clone creation.
His personality is deliberately abrasive. He constantly makes sarcastic remarks, delivers dark jokes, and reminds you when you’re playing poorly. Some players find his commentary entertaining while others consider him genuinely irritating. Either way, he’s not designed to be likable, which is unusual for a protagonist you spend 20-plus hours controlling.
The lore spans multiple games including Of Orcs and Men, where Styx first appeared as a side character before getting his own prequel series. Blades of Greed continues his story in a world where three major factions are on the brink of war over valuable resources, with Styx perfectly positioned to profit from the chaos.
FAQs
When does Styx: Blades of Greed come out?
Styx: Blades of Greed releases February 19, 2026, for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC via Steam and Epic Games Store. The game was delayed from its original fall 2025 release window to give developers time for additional polish.
Is Styx: Blades of Greed a sequel?
Yes. It’s the third game in the Styx series, following Master of Shadows from 2014 and Shards of Darkness from 2017. This marks the first new Styx game in nearly nine years since the last entry.
What are the new features in Blades of Greed?
Major new features include a glider for aerial traversal, a grappling hook for quick vertical movement, wall-climbing claws, and Quartz-powered abilities like Mind Control and Time Shift. The game also features three massive open environments with Metroidvania-style progression instead of linear levels.
Do I need to play previous Styx games first?
Not necessarily. While Blades of Greed continues Styx’s story, Cyanide Studio designed it to be accessible to newcomers. The game refines the formula of earlier entries with improved mechanics, so you can jump in without prior knowledge of the series lore.
Is Styx a combat game or pure stealth?
Styx is a hardcore stealth game that actively discourages combat through deliberately clunky fighting mechanics and limited health. Getting spotted usually means death, so the game design forces you to avoid detection and use creative tactics rather than fighting enemies directly.
What is Quartz in the game?
Quartz is the most precious and dangerous resource in the game world, triggering a war between elves, humans, and orcs. It grants Styx supernatural powers like Mind Control and Time Shift abilities, expanding his tactical options beyond the standard invisibility and clone creation from previous games.
Who develops the Styx games?
Cyanide Studio, a French developer based in Paris founded in 2000, creates the Styx series. The studio was acquired by publisher Nacon (formerly Bigben Interactive) in 2018 for approximately 20 million euros and employs around 110 staff members.
Will Blades of Greed have boss fights like Shards of Darkness?
This hasn’t been officially confirmed yet. The second game’s boss fights divided fans because they felt disconnected from the stealth-focused gameplay. Preview coverage suggests Blades of Greed returns to stealth-first design philosophy, but specific details about boss encounters haven’t been revealed.
Conclusion
After nearly nine years away, Styx returns with his biggest adventure yet. Blades of Greed promises to refine everything the series has learned across two previous games while adding new tools and massive environments that give players genuine freedom in how they approach objectives. The delay to February 2026 suggests Cyanide Studio is taking the extra time to polish the experience properly, which matters tremendously for a hardcore stealth game where precise controls and fair enemy AI make the difference between satisfaction and frustration. Whether you’re discovering Styx for the first time or you’ve been waiting since 2017 for the next entry, the sneaky goblin’s return is shaping up to deliver the creative stealth sandbox the franchise has been building toward all along. Just prepare yourself for his terrible sense of humor along the way.