So, readers here would most likely know about my natural affinity to goblins, and my penchant for stealthy games and all things sneaky. Well imagine my delightful surprise when i logged into steam to see THIS:

so I go, “Okay, calm down, you’ve seen misleading splash pages that show a random monster from the game.”
“right” I answered myself and took a breath.

*click*

I quickly skim the side summary while the video begins to load. I’m not really reading so much as scanning the words for something that hooks me, and BAM! Three words popped out.

Infiltration
RPG
(as Styx, a) Goblin

Then, the video begins to load. a voice begins to slip through the speakers talking about a world tree like an awestruck Danny Devito, a small but gravel-y voice that all is a perfect match for a creature that is brooding jam-packed into a green three-foot frame. The sheer character of this voice has me again doubting that this is our “hero” and more likely a shifty seer or merchant recounting a tale. The camera pulls out and our goblin turns to look at us, perched like Rikimaru or the blood lines of assassin’s creed.

My interest is Piqued, usually I’d be let down by now.

“do you believe in goblins?” – oooo! Our boy is one of a kind! This is getting better than I even first thought! Styx here is a bogey man! a myth! Lets keep watching.
the Little sneak drinks some liquid, throws it up, and- a clone springs to life from the liquid?! he sends the clone running off as a distraction that explodes into smoke while Styx has bypassed all the guards of that floor.

I was piqued before, now I am at ATTENTION.

Lastly, we get a psychic moment of flying through the castle to a destination door and a hulking monster of an orc(?)

end of trailer.

Wow. It’s like a game custom tailored to me. I later watched all the videos of this game and am super impressed with the movement and style of the sneaking and optional killing. While I often compare stealth games to my favorite of the style, ‘tenchu’, Rikimaru could go a whole level just sword fighting. Even ‘assassins creed’ devolved into just that, fight like 20 guys and then just walk away. It was a way to vent frustrations of getting caught I guess, but it seemed like a lazy way out, and is not really very sneaky.
When you’re a 3 foot goblin, fighting openly should be a huge risk, and I’m getting the feeling this development team knows and embraces it, and I couldn’t be happier.

Out of all of this praise there is just one thing that bugs me from an art point of view, and it’s just a personal nitpick really. but…
I hate those wristless Popeye arms. I hated them when I first saw the style in the Warcraft series and I don’t know why anyone thinks it looks good. every male character in WoW has these Ham clubs for arms and it drove me crazy. it’s like they have thighs for forearms and suddenly a fist is grafted where the knee would be. from the trailers of Styx: Master of shadows, it looks like only the goblin and orcs(?) have the ham hands. so- it’s better, but I’d rather have hands with a range of motion.
again, it’s probably just me.

here’s the trailer:

OH! I’m certainly not opposed to someone gifting this to me
-Slinky

the composition of this is just great. H.Hogan is only playing like 2 chords, but they make sure to make it look like this was a lifetime investment via old home movies.
also the majority of who he is giving the “smackdown” to is a “russian” who wasn’t from russia. but it’s okay.. any non american will do. also a good neck chop of fellow foreigner; Andre the giant
aaaand he left out the HGH and steroids in his speech at the end.

now it’s true that i loathe commercials, and marketing in general as they are sociopathic liars with no souls.. however!
public service announcements don’t count cause they (generally) aren’t motivated by greed. i could watch these little dead bean-people dance all day. the animation is brilliant