One of the most beloved franchises in the history of video games is the Myst franchise from Cyan. The developers have been making a comeback in recent years with the crowdfunded title Obduction. And now fans of the series will be able to experience a quarter of a century worth of content in the complete Myst franchise package.
The news was actually posted on the official Myst website, and the team recounts how the studio made history back in 1993 with the release of the original Myst. The surreal puzzle game pushed computer graphics to new heights back then and offered gamers a tantalizing brain tease of epic proportions. The follow-up, Riven, went on to do big numbers, too.
After 25 years of counting the success of the original, as well as reviving the puzzle-exploration sub-genre with Obduction, Cyan decided to celebrate the 25th anniversary in 2018 with something special, specifically a re-release of the updated Myst games for Windows 10. The package is set to arrive at some point later in 2018.
The digital release will also be accompanied by a physical release, which will be available as a limited collector's edition. Pricing and dates haven't been unveiled just yet, but those are expected to come soon.
The original Myst was a groundbreaking game at the time, selling millions of copies and introducing players to a completely different kind of puzzle adventure.
The game was chock full of logic puzzles and plenty of challenges for players to overcome. It was interesting because, at the time, there weren't other games out quite like it, save for The Return to Zork, which was a full-motion video game featuring real people and actual dialogue.
Myst elevated the concept by having pre-rendered 3D background images with -- at the time -- high quality render-rates. You could say that Myst was the 1990s version of Crysis, as many hardcore PC gamers went out to upgrade their PCs in order to run the game decently enough. Back then getting games to run at 25fps through 30fps was the standard as opposed to getting games to run at 4K and 120fps these days.
The boon of Myst back then in the realm of PC gaming spawned multiple sequels, remastered versions, re-releases, and a variety of ports that eventually found their way to home consoles years later, including a port to the original PlayStation One, and Panasonic 3DO.
Cyan and Red Storm Entertainment followed up four years later with Riven for home consoles and PC, and it, too, went on to sale like crazy. The series ended up trailing off by the time Myst III came along, but the legend of the series was already cemented into the history books of gaming by that point.
For gamers who may have missed out on the franchise all those years ago, or gamers interested in experiencing a re-released version of the classic Myst from the original creators of the property, you can look forward to the 25th anniversary edition of the game, which is set to release at some point later in 2018 for Windows 10.
