Styx: Master of Shadows

The game is a spin-off of Orcs and Men and tells the story of a goblin named Styx, the very first and oldest of the goblin family. Styx has been living for more than two hundred years. Its main purpose is knowledge, but not simple, but concerning its origin. ^[four]

In the forgotten Tower of Akenash, where the People and the Elves protect the World Tree, the secret of the creation of the Goblin race is hidden. While the magic of Amber comes from the World Tree, and the Elves and the People are mired in political wars, Styx has a chance to learn about his origin ... And at the same time to earn extra money ... ^[5]

History

The game takes place in the Atrium Tower, (also called Akenash) where humans and elves coexist and where the Tree of Peace is located, which is the source of the magical substance called amber. The storyline begins with the fact that the goblin Stix is ​​arrested at the moment when he plans to reach the Tree of Peace and steal his most important part - the Heart. He is then interrogated by the ruler of Akenash, Lord Barimen, along with his son Aaron. Styx does not hesitate to tell them about his plans. Barimen and Aaron express suspicions that it was the elves who sent Styx to steal the Heart of the Tree to take it away from humans. The goblin, in turn, does not confirm or deny their suspicions.

Then the gameplay begins. The main character wakes up in one of the places in the Akenash Tower. He doesn’t remember what happened before, he has a bad headache, but he firmly knows that he needs to get to the Tree of Peace. He recalls how to get there, and tells himself that he needs to release his friend from prison, who can be of great help in this matter. Then the main character decides that before doing anything, he needs to get to a secluded place in order to once again carefully consider the whole plan. Getting out of the place where he was, the main character faces a man named Ozkan. The goblin is familiar with his name, although he does not remember any particular details. He tells the main character that he has found refuge for him, as he requested (which the goblin also does not remember), and tells him how to get there.

Then the action returns to the interrogation. Barimen tells Styx that an imminent death is waiting for him, after which his body will be handed over to the laboratory for examination. Then he continues to interrogate the goblin regarding his plan. Styx says that first of all he needed to get the plans of the Akenash Tower, drawn up by its architect Kerber, who is now considered to be missing.

The gameplay part begins again. The main character gets to the shelter, where he again meets Ozkan. He consults with him on how to get the plans of the Atrium, and also asks for advice on how he can leave the Akenash Tower after everything is done. Ozkan tells him that the plans can be obtained in the Library, and in the Embassy one can find documents giving the right to board the airship and leave Akenash. After completing both tasks, the protagonist returns to the shelter, after which once again they show the interrogation of Styx. Barimen is surprised at how Styx was able to learn about the existence of the Tower’s plans, to which Styx boastfully informs us that he can hear the thoughts of those people that have ever tried amber — in this way he can learn about many things. Also, according to Styx, this ability is also available to elves. The indignant Barimen tells Aaron that he should talk to the elf ambassador and find out if this is true or not. He then asks Styx about the next stage of his plan. He replies that he needed to get the key from the bridge to the Tree, which was located in the residence of Barimen himself. In the gameplay part, the protagonist again discusses the upcoming actions with Ozkan, after which he goes to work. On the advice of Ozkan, he sneaks into one of the boxes in the docks, which are then delivered to the residence of the Lord. There, making his way through the guards and traps, he takes possession of the cherished key, and also discovers a spyware installation that allows you to eavesdrop on everything that happens near the Tree of Peace. Then the main character returns to the shelter, where he reports his find to Ozkan.

Lord Barimen does not believe the words of Styx, that he managed to steal the key from his own apartment. When asked where he did this key, once he was not found, Styx responds that he gave it to someone who is trustworthy. Barimen decides to check whether the key is really stolen, and leaves the interrogation to his son. He confidently declares to Styx that he has a sure way to prevent anyone from accessing the Heart of the Tree, and then orders the guard to destroy the bridge leading to him. Styx warns Aaron that this may lead to war with the elves, but he is confident that this will happen sooner or later. Then he continues to interrogate Stix about his plan. He says that, as far as he knows, Styx wanted to free someone who would be useful to him for abduction of the Heart, and demanded that Styx should give him a name. He answers that we are talking about a prisoner from cell number 5, which leaves Aaron completely bewildered.

Then the action returns to the shelter, where the main character recalls that he needs to free his friend from prison, but when trying to remember the name of this friend, he begins to have a severe headache. He goes to prison and, after long and hard efforts, finally gets to cell number 5. He unlocks the door and comes face to face with the creature, almost like two drops of water similar to himself. A goblin prisoner holds a hooded man by the throat, telling him “You should thank me, executioner. You will no longer hear any voices in your head, ”after which he drops dead. The prisoner turns to the protagonist and gives him unexpected and unpleasant information - he himself is the Styx, while the protagonist is just his clone, completely subordinate to his remote orders and not having free will. The protagonist vehemently denies all this, but Styx only grins, and then thrusts the dagger into the protagonist and leaves the camera in search of Aaron, to knock out an alternative way to get to the Heart of the Tree.

However, the main character survives and comes to his senses. He decides to follow the Styx. Meanwhile, the entire prison is turned upside down by Stix and his clones: the corpses of clones, guards and watchdogs orcs are lying here and there, and the surviving guards are intensely searching for unexpected guests. Finally, the main character finds Styx and watches as he tortures caught Aaron. He refuses to tell Styx anything, but the goblin pours amber on his face and, thus, Aaron’s thoughts become heard to him. Styx learns that the missing Kerber was abducted by Aaron and is contained in his secret laboratories, and that he knows the other way to the Tree. He also becomes aware of exactly where the laboratory is located - not far from the sewage system, where the main character’s shelter is located. He overhears everything and decides to find Kerber before Styx.

When the main character reaches a refuge, he takes Ozkan by surprise and realizes that he was in collusion with Styx. Ozkan justifies that Styx paid him good money and that he never personally had anything against the main character. The player can decide to kill Ozkan or leave him alive. Then the protagonist sees a crowd of guards burst into the shelter, most likely, incited by Styx. The player can kill them all (which is one of the additional tasks), and can quietly sneak past and immediately go in search of Kerber. Finally, the main character enters the refuge of smugglers with amber, in which is located the laboratory where Kerber sits. Grabbing and interrogating one of the guards, and then covertly following the other, the main character finds this laboratory and frees Kerber. Kerber is a sweet and amiable old man who cannot remember what he ate for breakfast, but he knows by heart all the formulas and drawings related to his work. However, he recognizes the main character and says that he saw him this morning. This meant that Styx had already been here. Meanwhile, one of the guards, approaching the lab door, notices the main character and raises the alarm. Nevertheless, he and Kerber manage to get out of the laboratory and reach the shelter. Styx again tries to invade the consciousness of the main character and force him to get all the information about how to reach the Heart of the Tree from Kerber. The main character manages to throw other people's orders out of his head, after which he firmly decides to find Styx and get even with him. But at that moment, when he reflects on the fact that the head of Styx on the platter will be a great birthday present in his head, the voice of Styx, ironically congratulating him, is heard in his head, after which he begins to see someone's memories. He sees a father giving a dagger to his young orc, named Styx, after which he sets off on a journey to complete his initiation and become a real shaman. Orc wants to see the World Tree with his own eyes and explore the amber flowing from it. He promises his father that one day he will return home. Then the visions end, and the main character wakes up. At first it seems to him that these are his own memories, but he immediately realizes that this Styx is trying to break into his mind. He hears the request of Styx: he says that he will give freedom to the main character and will stop pursuing him if he takes Kerber to his Styx laboratory. After that, the main character sees the image of the laboratory and understands how to get to it, although he has never been there. But he decides not to lead Cerberus there, but to go alone.

Reaching the laboratory, he sees Styx, who examines the corpse of an elf. Styx is outraged that the protagonist did not bring Kerber, and asks him why he tries to do everything in his own way, if he has no memories, no past, or, in fact, his own personality, while he spent two hundred years wandering around Akenash trying to reach his goal. To this the protagonist, in turn, asks Styx why he continues all this, if he is so tired, and adds that Styx should have left the future to him, the main character. Styx asks him why he is trying to kill his own creator, to which the protagonist replies that this, at least, would be his own idea, independent from any decision. Nevertheless, Styx contributes a shadow of doubt to the thoughts of the protagonist, stating that this decision could have been dictated to the protagonist by him, since he was tired of his hard, full of adversity life. “Yes, it could be considered almost a good idea - to ask you to finish me off,” says Styx to the main character, “But you can't even do it.” This is followed by a fight between Styx and the main character, during which Styx says that amber in his veins will not allow anyone to kill him, even if he himself wished to die. In the end, Styx again defeats the main character, striking him with a knife and escapes. The wounded protagonist again sees the memories of Styx, where he, transformed by amber from an orc to a goblin, looks at his reflection with horror and says that he really does not deserve to be an orc, adding: "May my ancestors forgive me." The main character is saved by an elf who drags him to the shelter. The elf appears to be the ambassador and says that the Styx should be prevented from obtaining the Heart of the Tree, since without it the Tree will perish, which will lead to the destruction of the whole Akenash. The protagonist objects that he is not strong enough to resist Styx, to which the elven ambassador replies that he saw in amber a prediction that it was the main character who was destined to stop Styx. To do this, he first of all needs to get into one of the empty cocoons of elves - this will help the main character to be reborn and become a clone of a full-fledged personality, free from the control of Styx. But he also adds that there are more urgent matters on the agenda - it is necessary to stop the impending war between elves and people, and for this the ambassador needs to arrange negotiations with Lord Barimen. The main character, in turn, needs to find documents proving Aaron’s involvement in attempts to unleash a war, as well as in secret experiments with amber on people. He finds not only these documents, but also a fake letter signed by the elven ambassador, who allegedly speaks of the plans of the elves to start a war that night. The ambassador and the main character agree on the fact that Styx is behind this letter, since bickering between people and elves will be in his hand - this will distract attention from his attempts to steal the Heart. Finally, Lord Barimen is at the talks, however, before the elf managed to tell him at least something, Styx appears and kills the lord, after which he disappears. The main character helps the elf to get out unnoticed, then goes in search of Kerber. However, he finds him already dying - Styx found him before the main character, got all the necessary information about the Tree, and then dealt with it. Kerber manages to inform the protagonist that the path to the Tree lies through the very espionage installation that he found even when he went to steal the key in Lord Barimen’s residence, after which he dies. The main character returns to the shelter, where the ambassador also hid. He asks the protagonist to free the elves, whom Aaron, who took power in his hands after his father’s death, locked up in their own incubator, where the empty cocoon gives the protagonist the opportunity to be reborn. The goblin manages to free the elves, but they are not friendly towards him - their leader declares that the ambassador misinterpreted his visions in amber, and that it was the main character who would be the cause of Akenash’s destruction. Elves seize the main character and lock him up in an incubator, where they themselves sat before. The main character finds an empty cocoon in him, after which he climbs into it and is reborn. Now he is independent, free from the control of Styx, and, most importantly, the Styx cannot follow his every movement, as it was before. The main character manages to get out of the incubator and, making his way through the men and elves fighting among themselves, reach the residence of Lord Barimen, where he breaks into the espionage installation and eventually reaches the World Tree.

Styx had already arrived there earlier, and now he is trying to extract the Heart from the Tree. Styx is unpleasantly struck by the fact that the main character managed to free himself from his power. Nevertheless, he offers him to go away and live his life, without interfering with Styx to achieve his goal. To this, the main character declares that now that his independent life has begun, no one has the right to tell him what to do and how. He adds that he is going, in spite of everything, and also to prove that now he is his own master, to destroy the Heart of the Tree. Styx tries to dissuade him in horror, scaring him that it will completely erase his memory. But the main character reminds Styx that he has almost no memories. After this, Styx tries to stop the main character by sending clones at him, while he himself extracts the Heart. Finally, he manages to destroy the threads that bind the Heart to the Tree of the World, but at this moment he is attacked by the spirits of the dead elves who guard the Heart. While Styx bounces off of them, the main character throws a dagger and cuts off the last thread of the Heart, then catches it before it falls down. Stix manages to cope with the elves, after which he approaches the main character, trying to take away his Heart. He says that this is his last hope to become an orc again. To his words about how he hates his present appearance, the protagonist mockingly replies that, on the contrary, their bodies are perfectly adapted for survival in this world, that they, though small, but fast and agile, and that he really like to be goblin. Styx threatens that he will kill him if he does not give him the Heart, but the main character only laughs and says that he doesn’t care about death, it is only important for him that no one gives him orders. Then, with the words "Look, Styx! Take a look at how I choose my own destiny. ”He squeezes the Heart in his fist, thereby destroying him. Enraged, Styx is trying to kill the main character, but he jumps into the lake of amber, which spills around the Tree. With this he creates hundreds of clones of himself, who pounce on Styx and tear him apart.

The main character wakes up. It is located in a dried-up lake near the dead Tree. All his memories of what happened before were erased. He sees around him many copies of himself, who shout “Styx! Styx!". The same word spins in his brain, so he decides that this is his own name. Thus, in this world there is a race of goblins, but at the same time among them only the main character, who now calls himself Styx, has a mind. He realizes that he is one-of-a-kind, but, by his own admission, he does not know whether it causes pride or pain in his stomach. At this game ends.

Continuation of the game, called Styx: Shards of Darkness , was announced on October 14, 2015. It is developed on a more modern Unreal Engine 4 engine and will have a higher budget than the original. The new game was released on March 14, 2017 ^[6] on Microsoft Windows , PlayStation 4 and Xbox One ^[7] platforms.

• Official game site