Cyanide Studio announces, shares screens of Styx: Master of Shadows

Would you climb a multimile-high tower for a chance at wealth and learning your own origin story? Yeah? Alright, how about if it was filled with puzzles and tons of guards ready to grind your bones into the spaces of the stone floor? That's the peril the goblin Styx will face in Styx: Master of Shadows, a PC game with RPG elements from Cyanide Studios due sometime this year.

In the world of Styx, a sprawling tower protects the Tree, a source of a mysterious, powerful substance called Amber. Players will face humans, orcs and magic-savvy elves as they try to clear levels and various objectives. The press release notes "murder, information recovery" and "thefts of precious artifacts" among the hurdles awaiting Styx. Levels will also be open to multiple methods of completion, leaving it up to players to sneak by stealthily or charge into all battles without reservation.

As players ascend the tower, the experience they earn can be used to unlock skills, moves and weapons spread across six talent trees. That Amber substance won't be entirely useless in its mystery, either – players will gain power from the Amber, which can "help you out of a tight spot, make you invisible to the eyes of your enemies and ... generate 'disposable' clones of yourself!"

We wonder if "disposable" is meant in the same way that Pikmin are "disposable," where you feel like the world's worst person as they're killed off.