2019’s Stygian: Reign of the Old Gods was a promising CRPG that featured some neat madness mechanics and a tone and atmosphere that perfectly suited its Lovecraftian influences. It did, however, suffer from some difficulty spikes and a few terrible bugs that have never been fixed. I was therefore surprised to see another game in the series appear, especially given that it comes from a completely different developer and takes on an entirely new gameplay style and perspective. The old-school top down approach has been replaced in Stygian: Outer Gods by a first-person view that provides a more immersive and, dare I say, modern experience.
My time with the demo – which will be available as part of Steam Next Fest from Monday 24th February – began with a mysterious vision in a strange otherworldly environment before reverting to the familiar setting of an office stacked with esoteric items. This is textbook Lovecraft and reminded me of the likes of Call of Cthulhu and The Sinking City. Similar to those titles you soon find yourself stranded in a coastal town with a mystery to solve and dangers to overcome.
Before you set out on your investigation, however, you can customise your character by interacting with the mirror in your bathroom. A series of questions are posed and your answers affect various character stats, from your occult knowledge to your lockpicking skills. The latter proved a little unhelpful in my playthrough as every attempt to pick a lock failed, despite that being my chosen skill. Hopefully these aspects will be refined for the final build although I quite liked how the effects of the dialogue choices weren’t spelled out for you.
The atmosphere of Stygian: Outer Gods is on point with derelict buildings and a stark coastline setting the scene and items that are clearly visible for the most part. There wasn’t a lot of variety in enemy design in this, but this isn’t surprising for what amounts to the game’s prologue. Audio design is also good and the otherworldly noises disturb and unsettle you.
The section contained in this build featured a mixture of stealth and combat, but it is clear that the final game is not going to be all-out action. Even single enemies will quickly kill you if you try and take them on toe to toe. Sneaking around them or using thrown bottles to distract them is far more effective, whilst manipulating the scenery is important to survive any unavoidable fights. Fortunately the AI is pretty easy to abuse, with knee high fences coming in clutch to protect you from damage. The demo features a few different melee weapons, with firearms being seen in preview footage of later areas.
Exploring the town is made necessary as you must find three panels for a locked gate in order to gain access a large mansion which seems to be the source of the mystery. This is a standard survival horror puzzle but feel somewhat out of place here given the game’s adoption of some immersive sim elements. Whilst exploring the town you’ll be blocked by a series of fences, but stacking boxes against them can create steps that allow you to bypass them. I was never entirely sure how intentional these moments were, although more traditional area blocking is achieved through boards that you can only break once you find an axe. The question remains, why couldn’t I just prop some boxes up against the gate and climb over it?
That kind of interior logic breaking aside, Stygian: Outer Gods is a promising stealth horror title that showed enough in the demo to both pique my interest and leave me wondering what other gameplay elements it’ll introduce. If Lovecraftian horrors are your bag of tentacles then make sure to wishlist this particular cosmic horror ready for its release – first with PC early access this year, and a full release in 2026.
