Hello, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. I am here because I wish to share with you this written piece I have made critiquing the Myst franchise's worldbuilding:

https://medium.com/p/my-gripes-with-myst-426dafbee686

Steam is running a sale on all Cyan games, but I'm confused with the many versions/remakes/etc.

I played the original Myst as a kid a long time ago, and never played any other game in the franchise.

I would appreciate modern graphics, so I'm thinking about getting realMyst and Riven (2024). Are those good choices, or should I go for Exile or Revelations? Or different versions of Myst and Riven?

The Ps1 version is available on Ps+, but I don't want to spoil myself on the full version with it unless they're nearly the same game

Has anyone played Uncharted 1: Drakes Fortune and thought this page was a Myst reference? I know I did.

Im streaming the Myst series and have made my way through Myst I-III. So far as I can tell, the game runs well enough (Ive only messed with main menu and credits page so as to avoid any spoilers what-so-ever). The issue is that the game launches in full screen mode and messes up my computer(?). Meaning, the resolution for my other two monitors (3 in total) go all out of whack, and I cannot interact with other programs like OBS, because their resolution is effected as well. Too big and out of the screen.
I need Myst IV in window mode, but nothing I do works. Ive tried the following.
- Tried within the game. No window option, just resolution.
- Steams Modification Launch options including -sw and -windowed
- Tried the game.bin approach {graphic full_screen( false )}
- Tried using the Universal Resolution Changer packet you add to Myst4.exe folder
- Tried changing the compatibility mode in Myst4.exe properties to Win 98, min xp, and even win vista. Though I'm under the impression this one wont help get into windowed mode, just addressing issues that might arise in the game itself.

Nothing is working. Id really like to continue the series if possible. I was even willing to play through XBox, but I cant find it in the xbox store.

So I'm replaying Myst (the OG) and I am hopelessly stuck in Chanelwood, and I can't figure out if the graphics are making it difficult to see of if there's something big I'm missing.

So I got the water figured out, made it to the linking book, but need to get the pages before I leave. I am on the second level and facing the locked stairs. I know I have to go down the stairs and route water to the above-ground elevator, but I am majorly blanking on how to unlock the stairs on the second level. It looks like there may be a lever in the shadows, but I can't click on it.

If it's just a matter of "there's something else I need to find," let me know. I don't want any details. I just need to know if I "can" open the stairs from here.

I did read the book in the library on Channelwood, but don't remember finding anything about unlocking the stairs.

Thanks for the help!

Got my Moiety dagger today. My favorite feature is the incorporation of the fissure in the stand, and the black bricks make it a bit hard to see, so of course I had to add some starlight with the help of a spare Light My Bricks light I had lying around (yes, it is being temporarily powered by my Project Hail Mary set! 😆) A nice addition to my lit Myst book and mag-lev.

A few other things I added since that previous post:

1. Had a spare iPad lying around. Vibe-coded a video gallery app that has a D'ni clock you can optionally enable (Claude used this Javascript clock). Currently, I have it set to cycle through all the remake flyovers. My newly (re)- acquired squee is in the corner.

2. Added an Age 233- themed sensor panel to the PC.

3. Myst calendar + Myst V pin.

This might seem like a dumb question, idk. But I’ve been reading that there’s an in-game notebook feature that allows you to take screenshots and log them in a journal. Which I’m assuming is primarily used for taking screenshots of the glowing images in the lens.

I realize that on PS5 there’s the obvious “Share” button that takes a screenshot on the console itself, but is there an actual in-game feature that allows you to take screenshots and log them in a journal? So far, my bag only contains the first book you start with, and the lens, and I haven’t noticed any additional info being logged in the book, so am I overlooking something? This game is dense and pretty confusing at times, and I do love it but I’m feeling like I’m missing something lol

Should it be a classic console or pc release? Or re release? Should I go realmyst? Please help me out

I just finished Riven 2024 today after playing for A YEAR (I'm studying so don't have time to play often). I'll start with my first impressions, go through some specifics and finish on the two major puzzles.

Graphically I was blown away, the golden dome looked as real as reality itself, I couldn't help but feel that I was on holiday in some exotic location. However as every pundit has already pointed out, the character graphics are very distracting. I don't know why for those few interactions, we couldn't have just had still shots with FMV overlays. It adds nothing to be able to look around the prison you're in or to look around Kveer in the opening scene. As for Catherine, and Ghen, some of the scenes with them we're already forced into a certain perspective where looking around isn't an option. Anyway I digress, someone with game design knowledge can probably explain why I'm wrong here.

One of the first things I did was access the starry expanse, this felt like a complete accident, I didn't know what I was doing with the telescopic clicker or how it related to the spinning dome, but within minutes of playing there I was, stood on a stairway in space. Quite the evocative vision, and an absolutely mind bending addition to the game and to the lore that really adds so much deapth, intrigue and excitement, quite literally traversing the unknown!

Speking of unknown, it was at this point that I had the feeling that I had no idea what I was doing, I'm in space, I've made a beam of light hit a ball, and now I'm on another island that I recognise as the stump of the great tree from the Book of Atrus. I was beggining to wonder whether I had somehow accidentally skipped ahead and by entering the expanse with no context I had somehow cheated and spoiled natural progression for myself.

With that in mind, I returned to Temple Island to see what else could be done there. Having played Riven as a teen and seen the tracks from the cliff top, I assumed I could get off the island with the MagLev, an easy task surely... not so. The amount of time I spent in the temple and the cave passage looking for a latch to open the door was truly phenomenal. It took me far to long to find Ghen's control room which eventually lead me to Jungle Island the way I had assumed.

From there the rest of the islands were easy enough to get to (barred only by the tricky handle on Boiler Island) which is a challenge in and of itself becuase all of a sudden the explorable area becomes unfathomably large; cliff tops, shorelines, pipelines, passageways, mines, workshops, aquariums, execution pools, survey decks and subterranean lava lakes are all open for exploration and interpretation and my word is there a lot to interpret. If I thought I'd skipped ahead by entering the expanse, that was nothing compared to the tsunami of information that comes from the other islands.

Herein lies my central thesis, the puzzles are not really the puzzles, traversing Riven itself is the puzzle. I'll get to the animal puzzle and the fire marble puzzle but so far as I could tell, these were minor isolated checkpoints in a sprawling mystery that begins the moment you arrive on Riven.

Once you have access to Jungle, you start piecing together the juxtaposition between Ghen's Riven and the Rivenese's Riven, it's clear that you need to access the village but how to do that is another puzzling non-puzzle, which again, to me was a far more challenging than the final "puzzle" itself, deceptively simple as it is, spinning the MagLev on Survey Island around to get back to Jungle from a different direction, it took me the best part of a day to work it out. Incredibly satisfying as it is, once again it opens up a new suite of clues and and interactive parts of the village, some of which are more relevant that other but not overly obvious. I hope I'm not alone in saying that working out what function was severd by the Whark steam chimney was not at all clear for a while, and even when I linked it to the obscure underwater door, it still took a while to work out how to get in there! All these little connections you have to make are far more satisfying once understood and executed than the final puzzles themselves. Of course by this point I had found the lens and worked out 1 - 9 in D'ni and essentially the entire Rivenese number system which is much simpler really, I'd established a connection between the totems and the numbers but was still unaware of the animal connection. The only one I had seen was the plesiosaur looking thing on the back side of the giant leaves in the jungle. I knew there was something going on in the cave but hadn't quite worked out the angle and the butterflies on the stump didn't seem to be making any pattern whatsoever. However on figuring out the water in the cave I went back to Prison Island to look through the telescope to see fish and from there on in it all became quite clear despite the time it took to get into that underwater door. I wasted a lot of time trying to get into the village houses or trying to see if someone would come back for the cooking meat if I went and came back. Again all of this means to say, the hardest part of Riven is knowing what is something worth your time and what isn't. To wrap up the animal puzzle, getting the book to Tay was actually quite simple and to tell the truth, its not likely that you'd be able to get to the cave without first having some understanding of the puzzle logic, but if you were to, the symbols would point you in the direction of where to look next, likewise the "reset

Eet" function of the stones informs you that there are six animals to find. It's getting to that point in the first place which is hard! It requires you to truly immerse yourself in the world, explore without direction, make inferences that may or may not be correct, and understand the mechanisms of this essentially alien world! Getting to the puzzle is more of an achievement than solving it as far as I'm aware.

I loved Tay, while I wish there was some more to do there, the design of the Moiety outfits and the design of the hive they live in is brilliant. I spent ages there just looking around. I do wish that the Ages you visit in Riven were more interactive and self contained as opposed to outposts but they are beautiful to look at and explore all the same.

Catherine's journal gave me a lot of direction that I felt I was hitherto sorely lacking. Everything was falling into place, I'd already found the fire marble and placed it on the striking device, I'd been to the Whark viewing window and made the connection between island symbols and colours. Where to go from here however was not at all obvious. I spent ages trying to make the Whark do something, after it smashed the window, surely that was a sign that it serves a function other than world building, surely it would be similarly enraged by a colour similar to Red and knock over one the sacrificial pillars like it did the violet one, revealing another clue! No. So I spent another age trying to make the survey puzzle do something else, mayhaps there's a second underground level, if I arrange these islands into a different order! No.

The problem here was, I had assumed that I had sent all the marbles through the pneumatic tubes to the golden dome, I remember doing it every time I entered the expanse from a new dome. But apparently I had forgotten once so the empty marble spot in the centre of the dome suggested to me that I needed to somehow activate the marble with the strike device, polish it up and take it to the expanse, hand delivering it to the golden dome. It was a stroke of luck that made me realise the error of my ways and quick trip back to the dome told me all I needed to know. As soon as I saw the fire marbe puzzle I knew how to solve it straight away. Id been writing down the answer for days, thinking that it was just somehow a clue. Green, ((○)), Jungle, etc. It was all there on the page, I barley had to double check the placement I'd been up and down in that Survey Island lift so often!

The end game was a little disappointing, I thought there might be some more fan fare than the original. Maybe something more concrete about how the expanse worked and how it lead back to earth.

My head cannon here is that it's something to do with where it was written from. Catherine was writing the fissure into Riven from K'veer or the cleft I believe. Given the cleft strongly resembles the fissure I feel there is some quantum entanglement between the two.

Anyway, Riven 2024 is a wonderful game, it adds so much depth to to the original story without detracting from it. It honestly could have been a play for play, 3D free motion remake and I would have been happy, but the additions and changes are profoundly enrich the world and add to the mystery of it all.

Here’s what I know: I’ve got access to the light tower, and I can turn on the electricity temporarily about a minute or two. The umbrella mechanism controls water level for 3 different sections.

Left side controls the water level to a room on the back side of the boat. I believe powering this room to be the goal of the age, but that’s just a theory to help me work backwards.

The middle switch for the control panel opens up the two entry ways on the main rock. Going down leads to two rooms. Both of which have been utterly useless. There is a ripped piece of paper in one drawer of the map room. Of what I could read I think is not even relevant to completing the age, but regardless whatever it’s for I clearly am not able to discern its true purpose till I get the other half.

The bedroom on the other hand I have no clue for its purpose, I have searched every nook. Potentially there could be a hidden compartment in the drawer at the syringe desk but i’m not sure. maybe it has the other half of the paper i probably don’t need. or maybe it doesn’t.

The final thing in this area is the wheel with the buttons. I’ve figured out 0 degrees is the lighthouse. Which is important info for translating the telescope which says the light house is 135 degrees. Now this is where my knowledge stops. I remember library book talking about an island that maybe is now submerged but all the rocks look the same. So I’ve tried the button that correlates to the furthest rock and also the tallest. I’ve also tried the button that leads to the direction of the unpowered room and the direction of the wire that leads out of the room. I’m at a loss…i feel like there is a rock that is supposed to be noticed…but i can’t find it.

I reallyyyy hate hints and really wanted to do this totally blind but like i’ve been thinking about it and trying different ideas for. a few days now. So please whatever help or hint you might give, make it as vague as possible

I like collecting various old video game demos but I'm kinda lost on this one.

Everyone here probably knows about myst iv demo that features Atrus' room on Tomahna but I've noticed that Revedit (https://realxcv.com/revedit.html) mentions 2 demos and I can't find anything about a second demo, I've tried searching for ubisoft press kits and magazine demo discs on web archive and redump but I did not find anything.

Does this demo even exist??

On one hand, I’ve loved the MYST series ever since I was young, and it has messages that resonate a lot with me, most notably as of the recent Riven remake being anti-colonialism (cultural and environmental) and understanding a craft instead of half-baking it and calling it an “art,” both of which are very relevant and important issues in the modern day.

But on the other, there’s also been use of A//I in some recent Cyan products (Firmament assets and Riven Fangamer soundtrack cover), and their social media presence doesn’t exactly scream progressiveness despite the aforementioned lessons (no awareness or celebration of diversity despite such in both the staff and fanbase, following persons who advocate for A//I and ”conservative values” in gaming).

I wanna support them because this series means a lot not just to me but to a lot of people in a lot of ways, and indie companies need what help they can get (not that I can do much, but actions don’t exist in a bubble), but I really don’t want to enable bad practices when we already have so much to deal with, even if I can see why someone might pursue these financially otherwise (I say “otherwise” because the themes of the MYST series itself fly against what’s being done around them). I’m not perfect, either, but that shouldn’t stop me from trying to help things get better.

Apologies for a bit of a off-Myst-topic but I'm at a bit of a loss

Long story short I have contributed to the kickstarter for Firmament (back when the crowdfunding was hosted on fangamer I believe). Because I chose to have the game in a PS5 variety, and because that release happening a long time after the crowdfunding has completed, I have missed the "click here to claim your download code" email in my mailbox when it arrived a many many months later (over a year? two years?).

And guess what. When I did eventually find it (after actively searching my inbox because I just remembered that I ordered it so long ago) it turns out that the link to claim my download code is expired. So there is no way for me to download this code.

Their kickstarter update says that the deadline for redemption of digital rewards will be in 2028 and that ppl should contact [email protected] if they are missing anything. Except... they seem to ignore the emails I send there.

I sent one 2 months ago and a month ago - both are left unanswered. So are all the messages I sent them over 2 months ago on various social media platforms where they have any presence.

Has anyone had any similar problems?

Getting into the games and lore for the first time. Just long-played Myst and Rime, am working on a companion notebook, and will soon be on to Riven.

In the revised (2025) Rime Journal of Atrus that appears in the library, I notice Atrus quotes Catherine as saying “hold infinity in a bottle.” This made me think of William Blake’s “hold infinity in the palm of your hand.” This phrase wasn’t known until well into the 19th century, and wasn’t popular until the 20th.

The quotes around Catherine’s words suggest they weren’t her original words, but this was only my assumption. Maybe Catherine just landed on a phrase around the same time as Blake!

It was also notable in the journals of Sirrus and Achenar the use of phrases like “Okay,” which wasn’t around until 1839 and popularized a year later. This one is easier to chalk up to a translation issue—assuming the boys are writing in D’ni (but are they?).

There’s always a willful suspension of disbelief here, but so far it has seemed to me like setting The pre-Uru games so early in Earth history has just made things difficulty and harder to believe. A late 19th or early 20th century timeline might have solved a lot of problems before they began.

ATTENTION RIVEN FANS!!!

We have a LIMITED number of LEGO® Riven Dagger sets BACK IN STOCK!

Our morning batch is almost sold out, and another batch will be on sale at 2PM PDT! These are selling out fast, so be ready!

http://store.cyan.com/s/rdr0726soc

No information seems to be out there yet of what the 1.88 gb update to Myst 2021 on PS5 today was for. Did I miss something? Is anyone else aware?

Just got into my first real age in the game (Spire) and yeah I think I hate this game. I could beat around the bush and try to give a full assessment of my first impressions but I'll just cut to the chase: So far myst 4 has betrayed the fundamental design principles that made myst 1 so interesting right of the bat. Specificslly the way both games handle player feedback and how the visual design guides players through the level.

Specifically in Myst 1 and Riven pretty much every contraption the player comes across demonstratably does something when the player interacts with it even if it's specific purpose or the correct way to use it remains hidden from the player until they can put all the pieces together.

In myst 4 so far it seems the theme is none of the contraptions you come across will do anything at all or give the player any sort of feedback until they stumble across the one puzzle that allows them to restore power to all the other ones making the whole affair an incredibly frustrating experience until the player finds that location.

Furthermore myst 1 tended to visually guide the player to the locations of the puzzles by putting them (or at least key aspects to them) at easy to spot landmarks. No such luck with myst 4. I've been wandering around spire for 45 minutes and while i've found plenty of clues and story I've yet to find the location of any of the puzzles except the chair which I can't do anything with because it doesn't have power and thus nothing works on it and I can't figure out where I even need to go to start working on that.

I was told to prepare for difficult puzzles. I wasn't told to prepare for not being able to find the puzzles at all and that's a problem i can't solve with a hint guide because they all assume you've already found the puzzles in the first place.

Maybe my brain is broken but I can't even begin to engage with the game's puzzle solving mechanics because I physically can't find the locations in the game world where i'm supposed to do that, making it, for someone whose brain works like mine, functionally unplayable. Like what am I even supposed to do about a problem like that?

I grew up knowing about Myst, and tried playing the first game when I was a young'un, but couldn't get into it, and honestly, never played it or the series since, but I knew of its importance to PC gaming.

I saw a post for used games, and this copy of Riven Exile showed up. German big box, good condition, reasonable price. Then I noticed two signatures on the front cover, dated 9.2001, with "Enjoy" written above them.

Some digging turned up a Gameswelt article from 28 August 2001 announcing a promotional event: Saturday 8 September 2001, Karstadt department store, Schadowstraße, Düsseldorf. Signed by Michel Kripalani (President/CEO, Presto Studios) and Greg Uhler (the game's producer). The article described it as the only developer appearance planned for Germany. First 250 attendees got a signed soundtrack CD.

Then I found a Wayback Machine archive of a fan site documenting the European tour. It turns out Rand Miller was on the same trip but split off mid-tour to visit his parents in Budapest, while the Presto crew continued to Düsseldorf alone. The archive has photos of Michel and Greg inside the Karstadt store, at the signing table, with stacks of copies identical to mine in front of them. The promotional banner behind them literally has their names on it.

So the signatures are confirmed beyond any doubt.

But the thing that still has me puzzled: the box came with a fifth disc. A press kit CD. The kind sent to journalists, which should contain trailers, a Making Of video, creator bios, headshots of the Presto team, print-ready press assets. It has no business being in a consumer copy and I have no explanation for how it got there. My best guess is it was handed out at the event itself, but I genuinely don't know.

Presto Studios is long gone. These photos are 25 years old. And this box is in remarkable condition.

https://i.imgur.com/YjvTKs0.jpeg
https://i.imgur.com/pniUU5D.jpeg
https://i.imgur.com/W0qhDOs.jpeg
https://i.imgur.com/qOSEKCA.jpeg

Photos from the event in Dusseldorf:
https://i.imgur.com/LPYBJfl.jpeg
https://i.imgur.com/znRXffa.jpeg
https://i.imgur.com/pvOT2SV.jpeg
https://i.imgur.com/StoBGeA.jpeg

And, although this doesn't really mean much in terms of the game itself, the event was on September 8th, just 3 days before 9/11.

Full archive of the European tour is on the Wayback Machine here if anyone wants to go down the same rabbit hole: https://web.archive.org/web/20021008040608/http://members.aol.com/hcheaven/mystsequel/europe/europe3.html

Has anyone else got a signed copy from this event? And has anyone ever seen one of the signed soundtrack CDs surface anywhere?

Trying to get through the game with as little help as possible but I'm pretty stumped fairly early on. I'm playing the newer version of the game.

I've mapped out everything and I've been taking notes. I've discovered the classroom, and worked out the number system. There's also some shapes (circles with triangles) that correspond to certain numbers on a sheet. Those shapes appear to resemble what I see when viewing those... effigies or tribal statues? Not sure what to call them. I have found 4 so far.

I've also discovered the lens, and I've discovered the animals near the effigies, including in the water (and one that resembles a hunk of meat in the cone-grill?). I cannot interact with the grill in any meaningful way though, though I can peer inside to see the meat and nothing else (Who put that meat there? People still live here? I also see fresh fish strung about on near the houses I cannot access due to drawbridges being raised). There was one effigy that has a tree nearby with some flowers that glow when viewed through the lens, but I could not get it to reveal any animal or hunk of meat but I guess I need to view it from a higher vantage point. Speaking of which, there's a water line feeding the tree but none is coming out, the line leads to a water tower up on the cliff in the village. How do I get up there!

And, I've been to the Boiler Island and have discovered a burnt book that I cannot get anything from, and the boiler building itself which I have managed to lower the water level and raise the platform but cannot get the door to open. The door has the same "markings" on it that were present on the temple door which I opened via a fancy chair, so I assume there's another fancy chair somewhere I need to find to open that door. It looks like the (what I assume to be a gas line) also powers a woodchipper that processes wood from Jungle Island (explains all the cut trees near the minecart on the jungle island).

On the way down to the classroom I think it is there's also a cave with some blue bioluminescent kelp that I can interact with to make glow. It looks like the same kelp that's in the water, telling me this place floods and the water level might can change. In that cave also is a drawing on the wall viewed through the lens, that shows Ghen or Atrus feeding people to crocodile creatures? Very much resembles the statue that is near a tree with a catwalk on top, making me think that maybe the statues mouth opens and I can access the higher area. But, the statue's mouth does not open when I (a person) approach it's mouth, so not sure what that solution is.

I think that's most of my notable discoveries. I told myself I wasn't going to ask for help but it's been 3 days of no progress and I'm getting tired of walking these same areas over and over trying to see if there's some leaf I should have clicked on. It took me about 4 hours on temple island to realize I needed to click the door hinge to undo it, so I feel like there's some loose nail somewhere I need to pluck to access more.

Any gentle hints that can nudge me in a direction?

Hey folks,

I wanted to share a support update post for our Myst remake patch that we just published on Steam here. We're pushing a patch update for Riven out soon that will share similar information, in addition to Riven-relevant patch notes at that time (which will be quite beefy!). Some of you may like our "behind-the-scenes" technical details of future support for our games, so hopefully you find that post interesting at the very least!

Text of the post pasted below:

---

Hello, Myst fans!

First off, we’re happy to celebrate nearly 5 years since our remake of Myst was released on PC/Mac. Thank you so much to everyone who has purchased, played, and reviewed Myst over the last five years, and a special thanks to those who played our Rime update to Myst that we shipped in 2025. Your support enables us to keep doing what we do.

Second, we have a very small patch update to share with you all, followed by a Devlog describing what the future holds for this remake of Myst. Scroll down to see the patch notes and the Devlog below.

Global

Major

• Fixed a bug that would prevent the “It’s Bob!” achievement from occurring under certain circumstances.

Minor

• Fixed an issue where key icons in the menu were not updating properly on Windows handheld devices aside from Steam Deck.

Microsoft Store Only

• Key icons now remain as gamepad icons instead of keyboard icons when touch input is attempted to be used while in the menu.

A Devlog About Future Support for Myst (and Riven)

We’re looking into what it would take to update our remakes of Myst and Riven to the latest version of Unreal (5.8). 

Currently, Myst and Riven are stuck on Unreal Engine 5.3.2. There’s a good reason for this – mainly being that native ray tracing support in the engine on Windows, Mac, PS5, and Xbox Series platforms overall outside of the use of Lumen is basically “locked” to this version of Unreal.

If we update Myst and Riven to a version above 5.3.2, we would lose native-to-the-engine ray-tracing support in the game without fully converting Myst and Riven to using Lumen, which is not feasible at this time (especially for Myst). Yes, there are other possible solutions like using NVIDIA’s tech to bring in their version of ray-tracing… but we’ve historically experienced incompatibilities with building for multiple platforms when you factor in external tech like this, which creates tech debt and more manual exceptions to our engine’s codebase that become hard to maintain over time. Some folks may also suggest “rolling our own” version of ray tracing in the 5.8 engine outside of Lumen, but frankly, that will take up developer resources we simply do not (and will not) have available to create or maintain, especially as it is not an official effort supported by Epic.

Maybe the lack of ray-tracing in the game in the future doesn’t necessarily break anyone’s heart – but we do have to weigh the costs and benefits to any kind of engine upgrade before we proceed. Some of the benefits at this point to an upgrade to Unreal Engine 5.8 would be a much better PSO caching system, which we know has historically been a pain point for some of our users who expect a hitchless experience in Myst and Riven – and many of those PSO micro hitches are unfortunately just not solvable without better engine tech we would need to upgrade to. Additionally, we would see better platform support features roll in, such as better support for the Steam Frame (both for 2D play and VR play) into the game – which at this time, would be a much better experience than the compatibility support we’d be able to offer through our version of Unreal Engine 5.3.2. We would also see better supersampling support become available to help with performance, in addition to other native engine performance gains and improvements that would naturally come with the engine upgrade. That, and as operating systems continue to evolve (especially MacOS, which can have breaking changes to how the OS interacts with our games over time), an engine upgrade almost always immediately addresses those gaps to help maintain compatibility of our game for many years to come. (Pre-emptive clarification in case this comes up from some of y’all inquiring about AI tools in Unreal 5.8: the Myst and Riven remakes were not built using AI tools, and we have no intent to use AI tools in them in the future.)

It is possible that when (or if) we do end up releasing a 5.8 version of Myst and Riven, we will make a “legacy” branch available of the 5.3.2 version of the game for a limited period of time, so folks can still experience ray-tracing. This would be similar to what we did for Myst, which allowed MacOS users on older MacOS versions or hardware to still be able to play the game through a beta branch. It is also possible we will decide NOT to bring this update to platforms where ray-tracing is already supported in the game. The reality is that Myst and Riven currently run and play well on these platforms, and a 5.8 update is currently not mission critical to implement until a compatibility update may force our hand.

In any event… There are plenty of hurdles for us to overcome before we get Myst and Riven running well in Unreal Engine 5.8. We certainly have our work cut out for us in doing so. We cannot give any kind of estimate or timeline as to when this major update will occur, especially as we are now a very small team – other than saying that this will be, at the very least, many months away. What we CAN say though is that, again, your purchase and shared experience of Myst, Riven, and the rest of our catalog is what has supported our team of developers to continue working on our games for both many decades prior, and hopefully many decades to come.