Riven: The Sequel to Myst is a 1997 adventure game. It was developed by Cyan Productions and published by Red Orb Entertainment for Mac OS and Microsoft Windows. It is the sequel to the 1993 game Myst and the second game in the Myst series. The story takes place after the events of Myst. After rescuing Atrus, who was trapped by his sons, the player helps him save his wife from Gehn, who wants power. The game mostly takes place on the Age of Riven, a world that is falling apart because of Gehn’s harsh rule.
The development of Riven started soon after Myst became successful and took more than three years. To create a visual style different from Myst, director Robyn Miller and his brother, producer Rand Miller, hired Richard Vander Wende as a co-director. Broderbund used a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign to promote the game’s release. Riven was later released on the PlayStation, Sega Saturn, Pocket PC, iOS, and Android.
Reviewers praised Riven. Salon magazine said the game reaches the level of art. Critics liked the puzzles and the engaging experience of playing the game. However, some publications, like Edge, said the point-and-click gameplay limited the game’s potential. Riven was the best-selling game of 1997, selling 1.5 million copies in one year. After the game was released, Robyn Miller left Cyan to start his own studio, ending his partnership with his brother. Rand stayed at Cyan and continued working on Myst-related projects, such as The Myst Reader and the real-time game Uru: Ages Beyond Myst. The next game in the Myst series, Myst III: Exile, was made by Presto Studios and published by Ubisoft. A remake of Riven, which allows players to explore the world in 3D and supports both flatscreen and virtual reality, was released in June 2024.
Gameplay
Riven is a point-and-click adventure game played from a first-person perspective, similar to its predecessor. Players explore detailed worlds made up of many computer-generated still images. They use the mouse to move or interact with objects in their surroundings. By operating machines and solving puzzles that involve codes and symbols found in the environment, players can eventually achieve the game's goal.
To move around, players click where they want to walk or turn. The cursor changes shape depending on where it is on the screen and what it is pointing at, showing what action will happen if the player clicks. For example, if the cursor is near the edge of the screen, it might look like a pointing finger, meaning a click will turn the view in that direction. The cursor also changes to indicate when players can drag items, toggle switches, or pick up objects. These items can be examined anytime, offering clues to puzzles or information about the game's story and setting. Like Myst, Riven includes an optional feature called Zip Mode, which lets players skip to already visited areas, though this might cause them to miss important clues.
Riven has more puzzles and a larger world to explore than its predecessor. While Myst involves traveling to different Ages to solve puzzles and return to a central hub, Riven takes place on five islands within the Age of Riven. Much of the gameplay involves solving puzzles to unlock new areas, though players can also explore freely. The game's setting features a volcanic landscape with steep cliffs and crater lakes filled with mechanical devices like elevators, pipes, levers, and roller coaster-like transports. To complete the game, players must understand how these devices work and their role in the game's fictional culture.
Plot
The story of Riven begins where the game Myst and its companion book, The Book of Atrus, ended. Atrus knows how to create "linking books," which are special books that act as portals to other worlds called "Ages." Atrus needs the player's help to rescue his wife, Catherine, who is being held in the Age of Riven. This Age is slowly falling apart, and her captor is Gehn, Atrus's controlling father and self-proclaimed ruler of Riven. Thirty years earlier, Atrus and Catherine trapped Gehn on Riven by removing all the linking books that allowed travel out of the Age. The last linking book they used to escape Riven and reach the Age of Myst fell into the Star Fissure, a tear in the damaged Age of Riven that leads to a mysterious, space-like void. The linking book was not destroyed but was found by the player, leading to the events of Myst. Later, Catherine was tricked into returning to Riven by her sons, Sirrus and Achenar, where she was taken hostage by Gehn.
At the start of Riven, Atrus gives the player a trap book, which looks like a linking book but acts as a one-person prison, and his personal diary that explains the events leading to the current situation. Atrus cannot explain everything in detail because he is working on rewriting the descriptive book of Riven to slow its destruction. The player must enter Riven without a way to leave, as Atrus cannot send a real linking book to Riven until Gehn is safely imprisoned. If he did, Gehn might use it to escape. The player's tasks are to trap Gehn, free Catherine, and signal Atrus. With these instructions, the player uses a linking book to enter Riven.
Once in Riven, the player travels across the islands and meets Catherine, Gehn, and the Moeity, a group of rebels fighting against Gehn's rule. Because Riven is decaying, the only way to clearly signal Atrus is to further damage the Age by reopening the Star Fissure, which Gehn had previously closed. When the fissure is opened, Atrus uses a linking book to travel to Riven and meets the player near the fissure. The ending of the game depends on the player's choices. In the best ending (which is considered the official one), the player tricks Gehn into the trap book, frees Catherine, and helps the people of Riven escape to another Age. Atrus and Catherine thank the player before returning to Myst. The player then falls into the Star Fissure and is sent back to their world. The worst ending happens if the player signals Atrus without capturing Gehn or freeing Catherine. This allows Gehn to kill Atrus and the player, take Atrus's linking book to Myst, and leave the people of Riven to die as the Age collapses. Other possible endings include capturing Gehn without saving Catherine, being trapped in the trap book, or being killed by Gehn after angering him.
Development
Cyan Productions started working on Riven in 1993, after Myst was released. Before development began, the name of the game was not decided. Robyn and Rand Miller, the game’s creators, wanted a smooth connection between Myst and its sequel. Because Myst became a hit and made a lot of money, the two developers expanded their team from four people to a much larger group of designers, artists, programmers, and sound designers. Development took more than four years and was much bigger than Myst’s creation. Riven had a budget between $5 million and $10 million, more than ten times the cost of making Myst.
The design for Riven came from a desire to create something different and more active than the romantic style of Myst. At first, the game’s world was to be called Equiquay. The first step was to create puzzles, fitting them into the game areas as smoothly as possible. Robyn and Rand Miller met their co-designer, Richard Vander Wende, at a demonstration of Myst at the Digital World Expo in Los Angeles. Vander Wende had previously worked for ILM and Walt Disney Feature Animation, where he designed parts of the movie Aladdin. As the third member of Riven’s conceptual team, Vander Wende added an “edgier” and complementary vision, making the game dramatically different from its predecessor.
Like Myst, the islands’ topography was first created as black-and-white images, where brightness showed how high or low the land was. These maps were turned into 3D models using Softimage. Large island objects were broken into smaller parts to make rendering faster, requiring them to be created with polygonal geometry. All other objects were modeled using B-splines and NURBS.
Many textures were gathered during a three-day trip to Santa Fe, New Mexico. Artists took hundreds of photos of wood, adobe, sand, stucco, and other materials, which were edited in Photoshop before being mapped onto 3D models. Unlike many computer-generated environments of the time, which looked smooth and plastic-like, the Millers and Vander Wende designed a more rough and aged look, with corroded and worn elements to suggest realism. Artists considered how real objects would look and function, where and how they would be worn, and created matching details. While bump maps were sometimes used to simulate geometry, even small details like screws were often individually modeled.
Rendering was done in Mental Ray, using many custom-made tools to create realistic lighting, water, and landscapes. Wireframes were used as guides to model the backgrounds. In total, Riven has over three hours of video and almost five thousand images. Rendering was a big problem in production, even with 18 special computers. Some scenes had tens of thousands of individual models and textures and more than a hundred virtual light sources. Loading a single island model could take two hours. Runtime animation effects, like flying insects and simple water ripples, were created by Mark DeForest.
Riven combined pre-made backgrounds with live action footage to increase the player’s sense of immersion. Riven was the first game in which any of its designers directed real people, and Vander Wende was nervous about using live actors. Rand Miller had to reprise his role as Atrus from Myst, even though he disliked acting. All actors were filmed with a blue screen as a backdrop, which was removed in post-production
Release
At the time Riven was being developed, its original publisher, Broderbund, faced dropping money as the cost to make the game increased. Two years into the project, Cyan Productions had not yet created a working version of the game. Broderbund’s stock price fell from $60 per share to $22 in the year 1996 because of delays in releasing Riven, which was originally planned for the holiday season of 1996. Riven was finally released in North America and the United Kingdom on October 31, 1997, by Red Orb Entertainment, a brand owned by Broderbund. Although Riven was expected to sell more copies than other games that holiday season, Broderbund launched a large marketing campaign and partnered with Toshiba America for retail sales. Interest in the game was high, even among people who did not usually play video games, due to online discussions and media coverage.
Sunsoft, which had previously created and published Myst for the Sega Saturn, was originally planned to publish the Saturn version of Riven in certain regions, but later, Acclaim Entertainment took over the rights. A version of Riven for the Atari Jaguar was never made.
The game was first sold on five compact discs. A version that used a single digital video disc was released in 1998.
PC Data reported that Riven was the best-selling computer game in the United States in 1997, even though it had only been available for less than three months. From June 1997 until January 1998, either Myst or Riven was ranked first or second on PC Data’s sales charts. By April 1998, Riven had sold over 1 million copies and generated $46.2 million in revenue in the United States. This led PC Data to name it the fifth-best-selling computer game in the United States between January 1993 and April 1998. Sales reached more than 1.5 million copies within a year of its release. By 2001, over 4.5 million copies had been sold. Acclaim Entertainment listed Riven as one of their most successful PlayStation games up to that time.
Reception
Riven was generally well-received by critics. The PC version received an average score of 83 out of 100 on Metacritic. Jeff Segstack of GameSpot praised the game, saying it is "a leisurely paced, all-encompassing, mentally challenging experience. If you enjoyed Myst, you'll thoroughly enjoy Riven." Computer Gaming World noted that the graphics were the best seen in any adventure game. GamePro stated that Riven keeps the atmosphere of Myst but adds new features, such as more animation and live action footage, to create more realistic environments. The reviewer gave it a 4.5 out of 5 for graphics and a perfect 5.0 for sound, controls, and fun, predicting it would meet the expectations of Myst fans and attract new players. Laura Miller of Salon said Riven "approaches the level of art" and praised its gameplay as having "a graceful elegance similar to a masterfully written novel." The game's sound and graphics were consistently praised. Macworld's Michael Gowan highlighted the game's "rich, mysterious world" and said its storytelling made it "more like a good novel than a computer game."
However, some publications pointed out issues with Riven. Computer Gaming World felt the gameplay was too similar to the original Myst, calling it "the same game with a new title," and criticized the limited character interaction. Edge magazine said Riven was a good game but noted that its solitary atmosphere and lack of mobility were becoming outdated, as games like Super Mario 64 offered more freedom. They asked if Cyan could use its world-building skills in a more modern game next time. Long-time Myst players, such as Heidi Fournier of Adventure Gamers, said some puzzles were too difficult. Computer and Video Games believed the story clues were too symbolic and sparse, making the plot hard to follow. Next Generation praised Riven for being accessible to general audiences, not just experienced gamers, but said the puzzles, while better than Myst's, were still not well-integrated into the story, making them feel like obstacles.
Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM) and GamePro both praised the PlayStation version of Riven, noting it is tailored to a player's taste with a slow pace, complex story, large world, and challenging puzzles that might frustrate action gamers but engage patient players. EGM's Kelly Rickards and Shawn Smith said Riven is similar to Myst but has more interaction and better puzzles, suggesting it is worth trying for open-minded players. GamePro gave it the same scores as the PC version, except for graphics, which dropped to 4.0 out of 5. John Broady of GameSpot said the PlayStation version had limitations, such as blurred images, unclear video, and long load times, and compared playing it to watching Star Wars on a small TV: "You'll get the point but you're definitely missing something."
Despite its success, the Miller brothers eventually moved on to other projects. Robyn Miller said, "I think it would be a detriment to always create Myst-like projects. We're going to change, evolve, and grow." Robyn left Cyan to start a new company called Land of Point, and Vander Wende also left to pursue other work. The next game in the Myst series was 2001's Myst III: Exile, developed by Presto Studios and published by Ubisoft, not by Cyan or Broderbund.
A reviewer from Pyramid #29 (Jan./Feb., 1998) said, "Myst, and now Riven, are worlds to be explored, with complex puzzles to solve, and without time limits or enemies to worry about. Take all the time you like; the basic problems of the game will still be there, waiting for you to solve them."
At the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences' first Interactive Achievement Awards, Riven won the award for "Outstanding Achievement in Art/Graphics" and was nominated for "Interactive Title of the Year" and console and PC awards for "Adventure Game of the Year."
Remake
Cyan announced plans to release a remake of the game Riven to celebrate its 25th anniversary on October 31, 2022. Similar to the 3D remake of Myst, this version of Riven includes fully explorable 3D environments. Cyan initially tried using the original Riven models but found them too low-resolution. Instead, they recreated the game’s world using Unreal Engine 5. About a year before the announcement, Cyan contacted The Starry Expanse, a fan-driven project aiming to recreate Riven, and worked with its team to incorporate their efforts into the remake. Some scenes featuring characters from the original game, which used full-motion video, were remade with computer-generated characters and motion capture. This was done because the original video quality was poor and did not show characters clearly on screen. While Miller returned to voice Atrus in new audio, the game retains the original audio performance by John Keston, who passed away in 2022. An actor was used to replicate Keston’s mannerisms for the character Gehn. The islands of Riven were recreated to match the original game, but some interactive elements used for point-and-click movement were adjusted to better suit a fully 3D environment. Some puzzles now have random solutions that change with each new game, making it impossible to skip ahead using prior knowledge. Other puzzles were redesigned to be easier for new players.
The game was released on June 25, 2024, for Windows, macOS, and Meta Quest platforms. According to Metacritic, the remake received "generally favorable" reviews, with an aggregate score of 86/100 from 32 reviews. The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences nominated the Riven remake for "Outstanding Achievement in Game Direction" at the 28th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards.