---
title: 'Stygian: Outer Gods - Review After 100%'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=S9dwphg3TAI'
video_id: 'S9dwphg3TAI'
date: 2026-10-27
duration_sec: 989
channel: 'Mortismal Gaming'
---

# Stygian: Outer Gods - Review After 100%

> Source: [Stygian: Outer Gods - Review After 100%](https://youtube.com/watch?v=S9dwphg3TAI)

## Summary

This is a review of Stygian: Outer Gods, a Lovecraftian survival horror game that recently launched out of early access. The reviewer covers the game's technical issues, combat, exploration, and overall value, concluding it's a decent but unremarkable title priced appropriately at $25.

### Key Points

- **Sudden 1.0 Release** [00:08] — The game launched out of early access into 1.0 with little buildup, announced on October 19th and released on the 26th. The reviewer received a beta key for the 1.0 version.
- **Game Overview and Price** [01:30] — Stygian: Outer Gods is a mix of lite immersive sim and survival horror, inspired by Resident Evil. It's priced at $25 full price, with a 20% launch discount bringing it to $20. The reviewer believes this is an appropriate price point.
- **Connection to Stygian: Reign of the Old Ones** [02:49] — The game is a prequel to Stygian: Reign of the Old Ones, but playing one is not necessary to understand the other.
- **Technical Issues** [03:04] — The reviewer experienced voice acting cutting out completely, stuttering (common in Unreal Engine games), and occasional stuck shader compilation messages. Reloading seemed to fix the latter.
- **Difficulty and Character Creation** [04:14] — Three difficulty levels: adventure, survival, and nightmare. Character creation involves answering questions that determine baseline stats for health, sanity, cold, fire, occult, lockpicking, and speech. These stats matter for skill checks.
- **Tarot Card Progression** [05:23] — Progression is driven by tarot cards, divided into seers (major abilities like stealth master, leverage, speak with the dead) and sinners (minor stat boosts). Seers are game-changing perks.
- **Story and Setting** [07:09] — The story is standard Lovecraftian fare: haunted by visions, a letter from a lost friend, and a search for a missing father. It hits genre tropes without doing much new, but is not bad.
- **Gameplay and Exploration** [08:44] — The game is short, divided into three acts: village, mansion, and endgame. The village is the largest area. Exploration is enjoyable, with puzzles, resource gathering, and a good feedback loop.
- **Combat Weaknesses** [11:06] — Combat is the worst part of the game. Melee is janky, enemies are slow and easy to kill, and it's easy to get enemies stuck on objects. Boss fights are underwhelming.
- **Steam Deck and Steam Machine** [13:39] — The game is unsupported on Steam Deck and Steam Machine; it locks up when trying to load a save. This may be fixed in the future.
- **Overall Verdict** [14:19] — The game has a great atmosphere and enjoyable exploration, but is let down by weak combat and bosses. It's a decent experience for $20-25, but unlikely to wow anyone.

### Conclusion

Stygian: Outer Gods is a short, atmospheric Lovecraftian survival horror game that is priced appropriately for its scope. While exploration and setting are strong, the combat and boss fights are underwhelming, making it a decent but not essential purchase for fans of the genre.

## Transcript

unscheduled stop on my review schedule, which is Stigian: Outer Gods, which somewhat suddenly uh launched out of early access into its 1.0 version. And relatively short, I decided to just jump in and get this done. A few things to
beginning here. I'm sure most people know about the reviews by now. There's a everything I go over and my Steam profile is public and linked down below as well. And in the case of Stigian here, a couple of other things to note.
One, I received a review key for this when it first launched into early access back in April of 2025, I believe. So, I've had access to it through that. However, this game was very recently announced to be launching, and that was
on October 19th. On like October 20th, they reached out and asked if I wanted access to the beta branch for the 1.0 no version, which I obviously agreed to. And so I've been able to play the finalized version for about the last
relatively short. My first full that was on top of some time I already had with the early access version. it's going to take you a few playthroughs for different endings and
whatnot. But from there, let's get into a general overview. So, what is this game? Stigian Outer Gods is an interesting mix of like light msim elements with some survival horror stuff. It's definitely inspired by
Resident Evil in places. However, the thing to know right away is that this is doesn't necessarily mean it's bad, and we'll get into that. But understanding the scope of this title is important. Right now, for the launch of The Thing,
they have it on a small discount of 20% bringing it down to $20 US, and the full price is like 25. So, it's not exactly an expensive endeavor, but I really want to drive that home simply because there are parts of this game that make it feel
like it punches above its weight a little bit, but it is still ultimately a relatively tame project in terms of like size and scope, which is probably a good sense, I do think this game is worth about 20 $25, but I don't think it would
do well at like a $40 price point even. And yet, it simply must be said the suddeness with which this released was a bit strange. This is one of those early access titles I've been keeping an eye on. And again, they announced its
release date on the 19th and it launched yesterday from the time of this video on the 26th. So, there was not a lot of buildup there. It was just kind of a sudden release. And I do have to wonder if that wasn't like a budget thing,
honestly, because as we move into the technical section here, I did have significant problems with like the voice acting just completely cutting out after say the very least. However, before we go full tilt into the technical stuff, I
do need to mention one other thing. Uh you may have noticed by the name, this actually is related to Stigy and Reign of the Old Ones. However, an important prequel to that game. So, this the events of this happen before that game
you see in that title, but it's not like necessary to play this one or vice versa. Now, from there, let's dive into that technical section. As I mentioned, was the stuff with the voice acting. So, most of this game is fully voiced, but
consistently would stop working on me. And I don't know if that's a bug or if that's just like not voice acted after that point, which would be awkward, but guess as more people play this and reports come in, we'll find out if that
is just me or if it's a more widespread problem, etc. But looking beyond that, I had a couple of other small problems, namely with uh stutters. This game is built in Unreal Engine and so pretty par for the course to expect some stuttering
there, especially on area transitions. And then finally, every once in a while, screen. Like for instance, the shader compilation message would get stuck on screen in a couple places, but reloading it seemed to always fix this kind of
a huge deal, but just a slight annoyance. Moving on though, let's next up talk about difficulty and I guess what you could call character creation, difficulty-wise, you have three: adventure, survival, and nightmare. This
basically just determines like the type of enemies you run into, how much danger you have to deal with, how easily things can kill you, that kind of stuff. So, choose whichever one you are comfortable with, I would say. Though, I will say
exploring, you should have plenty of pretty much everything. And as we'll get into in the combat section, it's pretty easy to mess with the enemies in the some great challenge. Now, we're going to talk about character creation and a
slightly out of order from my normal stuff, just because it's easier to do so here. So, once you get into the game and you run through the starting sequence, mirror and you ask some questions about yourself to determine some of your
baseline stats. You will answer questions that increase one thing and then decrease another, including your base stats for health and sanity alongside cold and fire, though those two rarely come up. and more importantly
your starting stats for occult lockpicking and speech. So each of these uh perform skill checks throughout the game. And your choices here do matter as you're not going to be able to like max out these things unless you put points
the beginning. However, it's those three stats alongside uh the tarot card system that gives you the bulk of your progression. So, right at the beginning of the game, you will pick your first seer card. Your tarot cards are divided
up between seers and sinners. Seers are like major abilities. There's eight of these throughout the game. You can get a handful of them depending on how many golden skulls you find and turn into the sear once you get access to him as an
NPC. But these are really gamechanging perks. Basically, like stealth master here lets you completely bypass one type of enemy that's blind because it muffles silent, you can just walk right by those guys. Leverage allows you to pick up
bigger objects. Speak with the dead is a big one. This gives you access to like a have access to normally because you have to talk to the dead to get them. It has its own little thing going on. There's several combat perks that allow you to
do things like, you know, perfectly block or perform backstabs, do like a heavy melee attack, but outside of those major perks, you then have your center cards. You will find these typically just through like exploration and the
your stats like increasing your speech, lockpicking or a cult. Increasing your resistances, that sort of stuff, and just generally being helpful. That is the bulk of your character progression. Unsurprisingly, having higher speech,
pass the checks associated with those things, which can open up some different avenues. I will say lockpicking was really helpful for resources, but not much else. Speech is great if you want to get extra out of characters and for
is the better way to go. Whereas a cult is good for finding secrets. So you'll thing on them and then it will like show you the location of a secret that you may or may not be able to access given your skill set. So honestly, if you were
only going to play through this game once, I would pick speech. But the rest weapons and the like. As you get more of those, obviously your life becomes a you'll need to find recipes for, and that's a sort of indirect progression
pretty much all you're looking at progression-wise. So, let's move on to the story setup and my thoughts on it. Honestly, the story is fine. It's your pretty typical Lovecrafty and stuff. So, you start the game being haunted by a
bunch of visions and nightmares, only to receive a letter from a long-lost friend about returning to a place called King's Port and the search for your father, who you presume dead. And in typical fashion, on the way there, you have a
way through all sorts of elder monstrosities as you uncover what is going on at the bottom of this town. It is very standard Lovecraft stuff, as I mentioned. Uh, pretty much hits all the highlights and doesn't do too much else.
It's not bad. I think some characters like Victoria, your friend, get better don't think it's really going to move the needle for people story-wise because it just clings a little too closely to the tropes and stuff of the genre. And
while it's not bad, it's just very stock standard for what this kind of thing is. different endings based on your actions. Um, as you do things throughout the that the eyes are watching, that kind of thing, and that will kind of give you a
hint as to what the endings are and what to do about them. But again, nothing to standard stuff. Though, I do like that they gave you some choices in how to deal with certain situations. Next up, let's talk about the gameplay world and
the combat as it's all kind of one and the same here. Now, as I mentioned, the game is short. However, we do have access to a few explorable areas. The game can be divided up into three acts. Basically, the village, the mansion, and
the endgame. Now, you are going to go to the mansion relatively early in the of it on first meeting, and then you won't go back there until a little bit later after you've done everything in the village. The village area is by far
the largest part of the game. That said, the village and the mansion combined are the bulk of the game itself, as the in-game area is very short. You can run like 30 minutes to an hour. And that's assuming you're actually looking around
and doing some extra stuff. But in all of those areas, you will find like little checkpoint rest areas, if you will, that all have a mirror, which is So, it acts as your safe room. Usually gives you access to a crafting bench as
won't be able to take everything along with you as your inventory is limited. And that is some of where crafting comes in as well. As you will craft all sorts of the resources you need as you learn various recipes, namely around things
like crafting ammo for the various weapons you'll find or bandages, healing items. Later on, you get some potions that refine buff items you get. So, a lot of the buff items are like injectables have a negative half to them
and you can find recipes later on that purify those and so you only get the benefit. But the rest of the game really is exploring these individual areas, doing quests, finding NPCs, helping or not helping them, and working your way
around the various denisens and enemies within the game's confines. Now, on the exploration side of things, I think the game is very enjoyable. The village and especially in the early game when
that does go away by the midame when you're able to kill most everything you But trying to navigate all these enemies, solving little puzzles, getting access to resources, getting yourself kitted out and feeling better and more
able to deal with combat is a good little feedback loop that I think is what carries most of this game. It doesn't last a super long time cuz the all that, you know, uncovering shortcuts, opening up more and more of
the little town you're in and then the mansion itself is overall a pretty good time. However, there does come a point where things start to fall off. And I gets a little too powerful. Once you start getting upgrades and weapons and
stuff, it becomes relatively easy to kill most enemies and they just kind of when you're going to notice that their combat system is [snorts] uh rough to say the very least. So combat is basically melee attacks, your guns, and
then slightly more creative things like your ability to throw and pick up items weapons if you're creative about it. But the melee system in particular is really really janky. There is like a block and stamina mechanic and all this, but it's
basically just you timing your swings to hit very slow basic enemies, and it's just not, you know, uh, scary or tension building in any way. So, that's pretty easy. Obviously, guns make that even easier as most enemies die in just a
out of ammo in places, even if you do, the melee is pretty easy. So, unless you you're just not going to die. And then that runs into a few other problems. Uh, for starters, it's really easy to get enemies stuck on things. Like, painfully
easy. Most enemies uh don't have a ranged option. Like, a couple of them really easy to get them stuck on something, unable to reach you, and then something. And that even works for a couple of the bosses. Though, there are
spoil them for you. However, the boss fights themselves are also very underwhelming, and that's probably where you'll notice how uh lackluster the combat system itself is. And so, when it comes to the game play, the exploration,
the combat, it really kind of feels like the exploration is carrying the falls off a bit after the first like 5 or 6 hours, I think. And what you're exploration and how much you are enjoying that which for me at least was
enough to carry the rest of the experience as there's some fun stuff and really interesting and I liked interacting with the game in that sense. Beyond that, which honestly isn't much, is basically the enemy types you'll be
them, but there are not so many across this relatively short game to give you a lot of variety. And so you will be fighting a lot of the same enemies once you figured out the solution to fighting them, that's pretty much it.
Like I mentioned, there's a sort of like blind trog type enemy that uh if you need to fight. You can just walk right by them. I would say that's one of the more numerous enemies you run into actually. So long story short, after a
few hours, I think the combat really, really starts to fall off and it's overall the worst thing about this game on the whole. However, let's move on a Steam Deck and Steam Machine before we move on and wrap this thing up. So,
Steam Deck is a very easy thing to relate to people because it is unsupported. And the reason for that, I imagine, is because while the menu and load up a save, the game just will not do that. It completely locks up. Uh this
Steam Machine, which given the game's unsupported rating, I have to assume would probably be the reason why. So, uh, there may well be a fix for this at some point in the future or they may well add support for it, etc. This might
change basically is what I am saying. But as of right now, the time of this does not load on either of those positives and negatives. So, on the positive side of things, basically, as I
atmospheric. I really enjoyed the setting and the exploration side of things was genuinely fun. figuring out these little puzzles. All of it having that sort of occult arcane backdrop that feels really mysterious. Uh that's kind
of part of the Lovecraft setting as a whole was a good time and I think it's the main reason to stick with this game honestly. Combine that with a few approach various situations, etc. And you can certainly have some fun with it.
But the negative is really that the combat and the bosses are uh just really underwhelming. They're slow and easy to deal with, which kind of removes all the tension that the game is trying to build up, and I think it really hurts the
experience overall. So, as for a conclusion, uh this game is $25 US full launch sale for about $20, and I think that's the appropriate price for this grace really. It is priced appropriately for what it is. It is a relatively short
and simple craftian inspired survival horror type experience. And if that sounds like something you would enjoy, this game provides a decent experience in that regard. But it is ultimately a lowerbudget title that I sincerely doubt
is going to wow anybody, but it's a fine little game to play over like the which I imagine is probably why they pushed for the release so quickly. But as for an official recommendation, I would say if you've got $20 burning a
a little Lovecraftian game, this game is not a bad way to spend it. But I doubt it's going to wow you. And that is where we are going to leave this review. So going to play this one for yourself or if you have any thoughts about it, I'd
section below, which naturally means to like, comment, subscribe, all that YouTube jazz. But regardless of any of that, truly just thank you so much for watching. I really do appreciate it. May you wander in wisdom and have an amazing
you wander in wisdom and have an amazing day.