Cyan Worlds’ remake of their 1997-released Myst sequel Riven launches in the present day on Steam. Phrase on the reviewvine is that it is jolly first rate, providing free motion round a real-time 3D reinvention of the unique point-and-clicker’s shimmering archipelago, with its many murals of crushed and scattered civilisations. There’s nonetheless a demo on Steam on the time of writing, a relic of long-ago Subsequent Fest 2024. Demos are typically eliminated as soon as the sport hits cabinets, so I assumed I’d rush you a fast publish primarily based on half-hour with the remake over lunch.
Riven’s world feels odder in the present day than it did once I laid eyes on it as a teen. I believe that’s partly as a result of it’s a fossilised imaginative and prescient of the web from earlier than the broadband period, a Narnian panegyric to the standard hyperlink. The Myst video games unfold in a universe of pocket dimensions or “Ages” – accessed by diving into the pages of magic books and made up of obscure, half-real mechanisms, the place generations of artisanal explorers and inventors vie to reclaim misplaced data whereas prosecuting grudges and giving into their megalomaniacal tendencies.
You’re a anonymous Stranger, requested by Myst’s benevolent patriarch Atrus to rescue his spouse, Catherine, from an Age created by his wayward father. Play is about exploring the archipelago and poking at beautiful, weather-worn brass devices to open doorways and attain totally different islands. It is a mesmerising place, however a irritating one to unravel: one of many first belongings you uncover is a damaged lever.
The opposite motive the Riven remake demo feels odd is that one thing in me rebels in opposition to the interpretation of the unique’s static atmosphere artwork into real-time 3D. The remake is gorgeous, and furthermore, true to the ethereal pristine dessication of the 1997 sport’s Softimage-produced and Hypercard-mounted landscapes, however – maybe as a result of I used to dabble with making video games in Hypercard myself – I felt a weird unease about failing to match my perspective to the previous frozen vistas. Exploring the demo panorama felt like making an attempt to align a choose with the innards of a lock. Most likely that’s particular to me, and possibly it’s a sense I’ve amplified right into a Take for need of pondering time. This is not the primary Myst sport to bear such beauty surgical procedure – Myst V: Finish Of Ages and Uru had been additionally given the real-time 3D remedy.
If it’s prolonged evaluation of the Myst collection you’re after, I’ll refer you initially to John Walker (RPS in peace), who in 2020 declared that the unique Myst is without doubt one of the worst video games ever. Under that article there’s a remark from Doomsayer who anxiously urges John to play Riven, as a result of he’ll hate it much more.
“Here is the key: There’s just one actual puzzle in Riven,” Doomsayer explains. “You may realize it whenever you see it. (And you’ll despair.) It is a puzzle that you’re going to want to collect clues for over all the sport; one that can ship you going backwards and forwards time and again throughout all the world. Even diehard followers hate it. It is sensible: Your entire sport all for the one puzzle. There is not any sport on this Earth fairly prefer it.” That is the type of empathic viewers participation you solely ever get on Rock Paper Shotgun. We do not have the headcount to assessment the brand new Riven on the minute, however I’d circle again to it on the finish of the 12 months.