What Chasing Styx is
Chasing Styx is a run 'n' gun bullet-hell platformer where you play as Cerberus, the three-headed guardian of the Underworld. While you were asleep on the job, a herd of woodland rabbits hopped into the kingdom of the dead, and Hades is not pleased — the bunnies are distracting the inhabitants from their endless torment. Your job is to find the floppy-eared friends and get them back across the River Styx before hell freezes over. The run takes you through the far reaches of the Underworld, including a forest bathed in darkness and a cursed bell tower. Levels can be approached in any order, and each one has multiple routes packed with disgruntled dead, tricky traps, hidden treasures, and screen-covering waves of bullets. The whole thing is rendered in 2D pixel graphics.
Playing it with friends
Two-player local co-op is supported, so one friend can sit next to you and help conquer the fast-paced action and frenetic boss battles. The game also carries the Remote Play Together feature, which lets someone join over a connection instead of sharing a couch. Either way, you split the work of pushing through dense bullet patterns and bosses that fill the screen. Along the way you defeat armies of the dead and collect their souls, which you spend to level up and equip powerful attacks and abilities — 18 unique abilities in total, used to upgrade your hellhound. There are also challenges that unlock silly dog costumes, so there is something to chase between runs.
Before you start
Expect a lot of bullets: the game leans hard into bullet-hell patterns, so dodging is as much of the skill as shooting. Multiple difficulties change things up with unique enemy spawns and boss attacks, which gives you a reason to replay once you have the routes down. Alternate modes of play include a boss rush and survival maps, useful when a group wants a shorter session instead of a full exploration run. Since levels open in any order, you are free to pick a route that suits the group rather than following a fixed path.