Stygian: Outer Gods Early Access Review – A solid take on Lovecraftian survival horror

Fans of Lovecraftian horror haven’t always been eating well when it comes to video game adaptations – while there are indeed a handful of classics and a few newer attempts that successfully capture the feel of the renowned author’s works with plenty of care, there are just as many titles that simply come off as derivative and pointless. In fact, we’ve even reviewed some of them. Thankfully, Stygian: Outer Gods can be comfortably placed into the former category: with its haunting visuals, fantastic level design and engaging survival horror gameplay, it’s a title that I simply couldn’t get enough of, and was genuinely bummed out when I finally reached the conclusion of its current Early Access build.

Count your bullets

First off, it might be worth clarifying what you can expect in terms of gameplay. If you’re wondering if this is a story-focused “walking simulator” type of game, the answer is actually… no. While I personally have nothing against that aforementioned genre, it was refreshing to realize that Stygian is actually a proper survival horror game with light RPG elements and a focus on (somewhat) non-linear exploration. You have a small selection of weapons at your disposal, ammo is relatively scarce, there’s some inventory management and you even get to craft stuff, provided you discover the right recipes. Combat itself is far removed from the non-stop action spectacles of games like the semi-recent Resident Evil 4 remake; Stygian is slower and much more methodical, with hard-hitting enemies that can very easily take you out if you’re not careful. In short, you really need to make every swing and bullet count if you don’t want to be torn to shreds, especially if you’re fighting multiple baddies at once.

It's not perfect, though. Melee combat does admittedly have a bit of clunkiness to it, and you do sort of have to cheese enemies to not get overwhelmed, but it’s hardly what I would call a deal breaker – you just need to learn how to manage your stamina (as each swing costs a hefty amount) and block or avoid incoming attacks before launching a well-timed counterattack of your own. It does take a bit of getting used to, and I may or may not have died to the very first enemy in the game at least five times in a row, but still. Gunplay, thankfully, is a much more straightforward affair: you point, shoot, and pray that whatever you’re aiming at dies after a few shots. The Early Access build of the game gives you access to a revolver, a shotgun and a rifle, although the latter two can be easily missed; ammunition, while not plentiful, can be found in the world or crafted using raw materials. That said, you never really get to a point where you’re positively swimming in ammo: having a measly 15 revolver bullets in your inventory counts as a lot in this game, just to put things into perspective, and there are indeed a few instances in the game where it’s generally a better option to simply run past the monsters instead of trying to engage them in combat.

Haunted streets

Earlier, I noted non-linear exploration as a key part of Stygian’s gameplay. This is not an open-world game, mind you, but the central hub of the gloomy fishing town you get dropped into has tons of interesting nooks and crannies to explore, houses to break into and disturbing secrets to uncover – if you enjoyed the main village area of Resident Evil: Village, you’ll feel right at home here. There’s some environmental storytelling, as well as plenty of journal entries to read that explain the horrific events that befell the town, including a few stereotypically Lovecraftian scenarios that feel like they were straight up inspired by some of his works. You also open shortcuts here and there, occasionally revisit previous areas after acquiring certain key items or abilities, and can even engage with a few optional side quests if you so desire, which lent the game a mildly metroidvania-esque flavor at times.

I will note, however, that despite me labeling Stygian as a survival horror game, it isn’t particularly scary at all, and it’s probably not going to make your palms sweat or your heartbeat escalate. But it is endlessly gloomy and fairly disturbing at times, which is pretty much perfect for a Lovecraftian game, if you ask me. As for the story, I feel it’s too early to draw any definitive conclusions. For now, I’ll just say that it serves its purpose by providing the bare minimum, but it didn’t exactly have me on the edge of my seat. It’s sort of just… there, but unlike all the exploration in the game, it wasn’t really the focal point of the experience. Which was slightly disappointing, admittedly, but I’ll have to wait and see how the full game unfolds before saying any more than that.

Options and opportunities

I was also a big fan of how the game allowed me to solve certain situations in different ways: for example, this one time, I didn’t have a high enough Lockpicking skill to break into a house, but after looking around the area some more, I realized I could use a nearby crate to climb up the back of the building and make my way in through the second-floor window. That said, things like that don’t happen tremendously often, so don’t expect this to be like Deus Ex in terms of player freedom, but I did really appreciate the game occasionally giving me multiple ways to approach an obstacle.

I do feel like the implementation of the RPG elements could use a bit more work, though. More specifically, I felt like certain talents were clearly more useful than others. To give you one quick example: in my infinite wisdom, I opted to go all-in on my character’s Occult abilities, assuming that such a specialization would come in handy in a game dealing with, you know… the occult. Turns out this skill is largely just used to locate optional treasure chests in the world. Oops. I also picked up a skill that allowed me to converse with the dead, but other than being able to chat up a few specific corpses, I never really felt like this helped me much, either. Speech checks do occasionally pop up during dialogue, which was a nice touch, and Lockpicking outright feels like it’s the best skill in the game – I completely ignored it during my run, and ended up missing out on numerous locked chests and doors that I would’ve really liked to open, but couldn’t. So, to sum it up: the RPG system is decent, but hopefully the full version implements it better, with more opportunities to make use of your character’s specializations, whatever they may be. Realizing that your build is objectively inferior to another is one of the worst feelings to have in any game with RPG-like elements, so I really do hope this gets ironed out to make everything feel equally useful.

Madness beckons

As a side note, there is a sanity mechanic as well. Yes. You’re probably very surprised right now. It’s not tremendously complicated, though: when you see and experience disturbing events, your sanity bar gets drained, resulting in distorted vision, otherworldly whispers and eventually a complete inability to function as a human being. Yup, if your sanity runs out, you’re pretty much screwed. Thankfully, it can be replenished with items or by returning to one of the few designated safe rooms in the village, but it does create some amusing situations, like when your character starts muttering eldritch phrases to himself while in the presence of a creepy, otherworldly shrine. It’s not exactly on the same level as Dark Corners of the Earth’s sanity system that literally made your character shoot himself in the head if he witnessed too much of the supernatural, but it certainly adds a bit of extra Lovecraftian flavor to your adventures.

Side note #2: being in Early Access, the game comes with its fair share of technical issues as well. Optimization seemed less than stellar, as I had to turn the graphical options down a notch even on a decently powerful PC in order to maintain a smooth and steady framerate; similarly, the game suffered from constant micro-stuttering when I loaded up a save after dying – the only way to remedy this issue was to go back to the main menu, and load up the save from there. It was… odd, to say the least.

To be continued…

Overall, though, I’m extremely happy with the current state of Stygian: Outer Gods. A few minor gripes and technical issues aside, what I got was a meaty Lovecraftian survival horror/RPG hybrid whose Early Access version managed to keep me busy for a fairly decent amount of time – I finished the current build of the game after roughly 8 hours of play time, which included plenty of exploration, backtracking and a few side objectives as well. And even then, I still ended up missing a few things, believe it or not. To cut a long story short, this is one of the better Lovecraftian games currently out there, and once its rough edges are ironed out, and provided the storyline manages to get its act together and culminate in something sufficiently satisfying, it could even become a modern classic of its genre. Needless to say, I can’t wait to see more.