To celebrate the imminent launch of a new Styx adventure, Epic is giving away Cyanide's last two goblin-flavoured stealth games for free

Remember Styx? Cyanide Studios' horrible goblin was the hottest stealth game protagonist of the early 2010s. By this I mean he was the only stealth game protagonist of the early 2010s, as bona-fide sneaking games were vanishingly rare.

Then Hitman returned from the dead, and everybody forgot about Styx for a while. But the fast-talking, backstabbing gobbo is returning in a new game in February. To celebrate his reappearance, Epic is giving away the first two Styx games on Steam.

From now until January 22^, both Styx: Master of Shadows and Styx: Shards of Darkness are free to keep on Epic. Both games are pretty good sneak-a-thons, worthy of respect simply for how seriously they take stealth. While Styx can technically fight enemies face to face, he is utterly terrible at it and will almost certainly get killed. Hence, evasion, trickery, and shanking guards in the back are the best ways to progress.

Master of Shadows set the template for Cyanide, in which Styx embarks on a series of infiltration and assassination missions across extravagant fantasy locations. Indeed, Cynanide deliver some impressively grand environments that let you take advantage of verticality in fun ways. The sequel, Shards of Darkness, opened up those environments for better nonlinear exploration, while generally juicing up everything else about the original and letting you play through the whole experience in coop.

To be clear, neither game is a masterpiece. Styx himself is a tough hang, putting the "gob" in goblin due to the fact he never shuts up. But they are fundamentally decent stealth games, and for the price of nothing are well worth picking up.

The new game, Blades of Greed, promises to open things up even further, swapping out separate levels for three massive fantasy environments that you can explore at your own pace, using new tools like a Breath of the Wild-style glider. Styx is also master of his own fate in Blades of Greed, assembling a ragtag crew of ne'er do wells to execute fantasy heists from the safety of his own personal airship.

Blades of Greed releases on February 19, which gives you just enough time to finish the first two games if you're up for that. There's also a demo for Blades of Greed available on Steam, so you can check out how the third game compares to the previous two before handing over your cash.