Welcome Back to the Shadows
Styx has returned after eight long years, and the foul-mouthed goblin remains just as fragile as ever. Styx: Blades of Greed throws you into a brutal stealth experience where one wrong move means instant death. Forget everything you learned from forgiving action games. Here, you survive by staying invisible, exploiting every environmental trap, and knowing exactly when to run. This guide covers everything you need to stop dying and start thriving across the Iserian Continent.
Why Does Styx Die So Quickly?
If you walked into Blades of Greed expecting to parry your way through guard patrols like some medieval action hero, reality hit hard. Styx is not built for direct confrontation. His health pool is tiny, enemies deal massive damage, and the combat system punishes anyone who tries to stand and fight.
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Drawing your dagger in a face-to-face encounter is almost always a death sentence. Treat combat as your absolute last resort.
The detection system works on a color-coded alert meter above enemy heads. White means they noticed something. Yellow indicates suspicion. Orange signals active hunting. Red means combat has started and you are probably about to die.
Styx: Blades of Greed Ultimate Beginner's Guide
How Should You Approach Saving?
Embracing quick saves transforms your experience from frustrating to manageable. The game essentially functions as a trial-and-error puzzle where you experiment with patrol routes, test assassination angles, and occasionally discover an archer you never spotted was watching the whole time.
On controller, click Left Stick to quick save. On keyboard, hit F7. Do this constantly. Save after clearing a room. Save before attempting a risky jump. Save whenever you feel even slightly comfortable with your position.
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Unlock the Cocoon Crafting Recipe early by spending one Talent point. Crafting a Cocoon costs four Solid Ambers and four Roabies Larvae, but placing one creates a physical respawn point. When you die, you pop right back out instead of reloading a distant checkpoint.
What Makes Combat So Dangerous?
The combat system wants you to lock on by clicking Right Stick on controller, which makes Styx draw his blade. The problem is that fighting works nothing like action games you might be familiar with. You are weak, slow, and surrounded by enemies who hit like freight trains.
When spotted by multiple guards, turn around and run. Styx excels at escaping through crawlspaces, scaling chimneys, and diving through windows. Breaking line of sight resets the encounter and keeps you alive.
For brutes and armored enemies, look up. Chandeliers and suspended cargo crates litter the environments. Wait for a tough enemy to walk underneath, cut the rope, and let gravity solve your problem. You can also poison food plates and grog sacks by pressing Y (Xbox) to make Styx vomit on them. Guards who eat the poisoned food drop dead seconds later.
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Frightened guards lose their appetite. If you trigger an alert before they eat, they will ignore poisoned food entirely. Prioritize poisoning before engaging other enemies in the area.
How to Use Goblin Vision
Goblin Vision is your most critical navigation tool. Activating it highlights enemy sightlines and shows exactly which direction guards are facing. Hostile enemies glow red, while non-lethal targets glow pink.
More importantly, interactable objects glow blue and key items glow purple. That purple glow marks blueprints, money bags, quest items, and collectibles. When you see purple, grab it.
Styx: Blades of Greed Ultimate Beginner's Guide
Equip the Dee Rune as soon as Wren gives it to you. This rune lets you spot hidden runes through solid walls, saving hours of aimless searching.
What Are the Best Tools for Stealth?
Your inventory becomes essential when brute force fails. Unlock new items by finding blueprints scattered throughout maps, then craft them whenever resources allow.
Throwing Sand extinguishes torches and forces guards to investigate the darkness. Glass Bottles create noise distractions to lure enemies into traps. Darts provide ranged instant kills on standard enemies.
The Acid Trap stands above everything else. Large enemies cannot be carried and hidden after death. If another guard spots a corpse, the entire base goes on high alert. Placing an Acid Trap dissolves any enemy who steps on it into a puddle of goo. No body, no evidence, no alert. It handles cleanup better than anything else in your arsenal.
Styx: Blades of Greed Ultimate Beginner's Guide
Which Quartz Powers Should You Prioritize?
As you progress, collecting key objectives unlocks powerful Quartz abilities that break standard stealth rules. You can unlock them in any order, but three stand out as essential.
Goblin Reflex provides a reliable dodge during active combat. The real benefit comes from projectile deflection. When an archer fires at you, pressing the button at the right moment bounces the arrow back into their skull. This removes enormous frustration from ranged encounters.
Mind Control lets you possess guards for two Amber points. Use possessed guards to walk into restricted areas and scout layouts without risking your own skin. Upgrading with the Suicidal Impulse talent forces heavily armored enemies to throw themselves off cliffs. Dark, effective, and deeply satisfying.
Time Shift slows the world for roughly four seconds while you move at normal speed. If you accidentally walk into a room with three guards facing the door, pop Time Shift and sprint back to shadows before detection meters fill. The Slowdown Exploit upgrade lets you rip armor off brutes before they can react.
Where Are All the Emblems Hidden?
Emblems serve as the main collectibles in Blades of Greed. They appear as glowing scarab beetles and provide 20 experience points each. You need this experience to unlock the Talent tree, so skipping them leaves you underleveled.
There are 100 Emblems total: 50 in The Wall and 50 in Turquoise Dawn. The Akenash Ruins contain zero Emblems.
Grab the Raven Rune from the Harlow Shop in The Wall as early as possible. This rune makes Emblems glow purple through walls when using Goblin Vision. The shop is located at the balloon station in Wall Market, and the rune sits on a table immediately inside.
Styx: Blades of Greed Ultimate Beginner's Guide
Why Should You Complete Side Quests?
Between missions, you return to your Zeppelin base where crew members offer side quests. These quests involve finding items in levels you are visiting anyway, and the rewards prove essential.
Helledryn's quests grant experience points and display items for your cabinet. Djarax's quests provide crystallized pure amber that unlocks new ability slots, eventually letting you equip up to 16 items and abilities simultaneously. Wren's quests help you locate runes that boost exploration and combat capabilities.
Check the Side Activities tab in the main menu to track active quests.
What Is the Point of No Return?
Act 5 contains a hard point of no return that the game explicitly warns you about before traveling to the Akenash Ruins. Do not ignore this warning.
Once you travel to Akenash, you are locked into the endgame sequence. You permanently lose access to The Wall, Turquoise Dawn, all side quests, and any uncollected Emblems. Clear your checklist before boarding that Zeppelin.
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This is not a soft lock that reverses after credits. If you proceed to Akenash with incomplete objectives, you must start a new game to finish them.
Navigate Tricky Traversal
Styx's climbing can feel inconsistent until you learn what surfaces actually work. Look for cracks in walls, which appear as thicker cuts you can grab. On structures, watch for grey metal railings that serve as reliable handholds.
The game eventually provides traversal tools that open previously inaccessible areas:
- Quartz Compass (press Up on D-Pad) highlights quartz locations and balloon fast travel stations
- Glider lets you cross wide gaps and ride jetstreams upward
- Spectral Dash passes through thin barriers like metal grates
- Crystal Claws enable climbing on crystal walls
Styx: Blades of Greed Ultimate Beginner's Guide
Key Takeaways for New Players
Surviving Styx: Blades of Greed requires abandoning action game instincts entirely. Save constantly, avoid direct combat, and exploit every environmental trap available. Prioritize unlocking Goblin Reflex for combat safety, hunt Emblems religiously for experience, and never proceed to Akenash until you have finished everything else. The shadows are your home now.