Myst III: Exile is a 2001 graphic adventure game created by Presto Studios and released by Ubi Soft and Cyan Worlds. It is the third game in the Myst series, which came after the 1997 game Riven. The game was first sold on four compact discs for Mac OS and Microsoft Windows on May 8, 2001. Later, versions for the Xbox and PlayStation 2 were released in late 2002. A single-disc DVD version was also made for Windows and Mac OS. In the game, the player takes the role of a friend of Atrus, a member of the D'ni race. Atrus can create links to other worlds called Ages by writing books. In Exile, Atrus writes a book to help the D'ni rebuild their civilization, but the book is stolen by a mysterious person. The player tries to find the thief and recover Atrus' tablet.
The people who made the Myst series asked Presto Studios, known for creating The Journeyman Project series, to make the third Myst game. Presto aimed to design puzzles and Ages that were varied and logical. They also worked to make the villain complex and understandable. The developers hired Jack Wall to create music for the game. His style was different from the earlier composer, Robyn Miller, but still felt like a Myst game. The project took over two years and millions of U.S. dollars to complete.
Exile was praised by critics, with The Daily Telegraph calling it the best game in the Myst series. Even though it sold more than a million copies in its first year, it did not do as well commercially as Myst and Riven. The next game in the series, Myst IV: Revelation, was made and released only by Ubisoft.
Gameplay
In Myst III: Exile, players explore detailed, pre-made worlds called "Ages" by clicking the mouse or pressing the space bar to move between fixed points within each Age. Unlike earlier games, which used still images, Exile allows players to look around in all directions (360 degrees) at each point. A special "zip" mode lets players quickly move across already explored areas by skipping points. Clicking the mouse lets players interact with objects and pick up items. The on-screen cursor changes to show available actions.
Each Age in the game has a unique appearance and theme. The journey begins on the Age of J'nanin, which serves as a central hub connecting to other Ages and teaches important puzzle-solving skills. Other Ages include Amateria, a mechanical world surrounded by a large ocean; Edanna, a natural world filled with plants and animals; and Voltaic, a dry island with canyons filled with machines.
Players solve puzzles by finding clues and changing the environment. Puzzles are connected by themes. For example, a book leading to Voltaic is found by aligning light beams across a canyon, and similar energy-based puzzles appear in Voltaic itself. In Edanna, puzzles involve working with the environment’s plants and animals. Players often observe how parts of the world interact and then adjust those connections. Journals or pages written by characters can be picked up and read to learn about the story and solve puzzles. A special tool called "Cursor Mode" lets players choose items from their inventory, which appears at the bottom of the screen.
Plot
The game Exile takes place ten years after the events of Riven. The player arrives at Tomahna, the home of Atrus and his wife, Catherine. Atrus is a scientist and explorer who has learned an ancient skill called the Art. This skill allows him to create links to different worlds, or Ages, by writing special books. The Art was developed by the D'ni, an ancient civilization. The D'ni society fell apart after their city was destroyed by a plague. Atrus invites the player to his home to show his newest Age, Releeshahn, which he designed as a new home for the D'ni survivors.
As Atrus and the player prepare to leave for Releeshahn, a mysterious man appears in Atrus’ study and sets it on fire, stealing the Releeshahn book. Following the thief through the book he left behind, the player arrives at J’nanin, an Age Atrus created long ago to teach the Art to his sons. Because the fire damaged the J’nanin book, Atrus cannot join the player on this journey.
The thief is named Saavedro. Twenty years earlier, Atrus’ misbehaving sons, Sirrus and Achenar, destroyed Saavedro’s home Age, Narayan, and trapped him on J’nanin. Saavedro believes his family is dead and promises revenge on Atrus. He does not know that Atrus has imprisoned his sons for their crimes or that Saavedro’s family is still alive. The game has multiple endings based on the player’s choices. In the best outcome, Saavedro returns to Narayan peacefully after returning the Releeshahn book. Other endings include Saavedro destroying Releeshahn, killing the player, or leaving Saavedro trapped forever.
Development
Cyan Worlds and Mattel Interactive, which owned the Myst and Riven franchise, asked several companies to submit plans for making a sequel to Myst and Riven. Interested companies provided ideas, including story plans, studies of the first two games, technology talks, and technology demonstrations. A team from Presto Studios analyzed Myst and Riven and set goals for the third game. Presto founder Greg Uhler said the goals included making the game’s worlds look varied, creating a satisfying ending, and helping players track their progress. Uhler believed that players who failed to finish Myst or Riven often did so because they were unsure how much of the game remained or what their goals were. Presto first created three possible storylines, but a meeting with Cyan, Presto, and Mattel led to a new plot that connected to Myst’s unfinished details. Mattel chose Presto because of their skills, experience, and existing partnership.
Presto spent millions of dollars to develop the game, using all of the studio’s staff. Development took two and a half years, with nine months focused on planning and design. The team worked hard to create strong visual styles and game mechanics, which a critic described as a mix of ideas from Jules Verne, Rube Goldberg, and Claes Oldenburg. By July 2000, the game’s look, story, and puzzles were complete, and Presto began building the game’s worlds. Pre-rendered environments, similar to those in Myst, were used to make the world look real. Producer Dan Irish said the 360-degree camera view helped players feel like they were truly in the game. Presto used software like 3ds Max and Areté’s Digital Nature Tools to create pre-rendered visuals, dynamic water, character animations, and lighting.
Like Myst and Riven, the game used live-action scenes instead of computer-generated actors and props. Irish said using computer graphics might have reminded players they were in a game, which would break the sense of immersion. Live actors were filmed on a blue screen and placed into digital environments using chroma key technology. Before filming, sets were built, props were made, costumes were created, and scenes were planned with storyboards. Rand Miller returned to play Atrus, a role he had held since the first Myst game. Brad Dourif, known for the Child’s Play films, played Saavedro because he was a Myst fan. Dourif said acting for a game was harder than working on movies because he could not see players or interact with the game. Other actors included Maria Galante as Atrus’ wife, Catherine, and Greg Uhler’s daughter, Audrey, as Atrus’ daughter, Yeesha. Preparing for filming took four months, and the actual filming lasted seven days. Uhler said the video quality was not as clear as hoped because high-definition cameras were not used.
After Mattel sold its video game assets during the sale of The Learning Company to Gores Technology Group in 2000, the game was moved to a new company called GAME Studios, part of The Learning Company. In March 2001, Gores sold GAME Studios and its assets to Ubi Soft, and the Myst franchise, including this game, became part of Ubi Soft.
The music for Myst and Riven was composed by Robyn Miller. Jack Wall composed the music for the third game. Irish said creating the music was one of the hardest parts of the project: “We had to match or beat the dream-like style Robyn Miller created. The music had to feel like Myst but also be unique.” Wall saw the growing complexity of games as a chance to create a soundtrack as powerful as a movie score. He wanted the music to be different from Myst and Riven’s style but still recognizable as a sequel. Wall studied Miller’s music and noted that Miller believed melody could distract from the game experience, while Wall felt some melody helped players connect with the game. Wall wanted the music to have purpose while keeping interactivity, so he created “reward music” for completing puzzles and used a real orchestra to record the score.
Reception
Exile was generally well-received when it was released. The PC version has a 77% rating on GameRankings and an 83/100 score on Metacritic. Reviewers praised the game’s graphics and sound, saying they helped make the game feel more real. The puzzles were described as easier and more contained, meaning players did not need to try many things or move far between screens to see results, as in the game Riven. Macworld’s Peter Cohen noted that the game provided story details throughout the experience, not just at the beginning and end. The game’s pacing and reward system were also appreciated. IGN said Presto had done "a pretty good job with a notable addition to the series." The Daily Telegraph called Exile the best Myst game in the series, a view shared by other publications. Computer Games Magazine named Exile the best adventure game of 2001 and called it "a breath of fresh air amidst the otherwise barren crop of adventure titles." The magazine also gave the game awards for "Best Art Direction" and "Best Acting," the latter for Dourif’s performance.
Some criticism focused on the four-disc format, which required players to switch discs each time they entered a new area. GameSpot’s Scott Osborne noted that the frame-by-frame gameplay made it hard to tell where players could move and where they could not. The Los Angeles Times reported that up to 10% of the first shipment of discs had issues, such as missing sound, compatibility problems with some graphics cards, and system crashes. Reviewers who disliked Myst or Riven said Exile did not offer enough new or different elements to be interesting. The New York Times observed, "Exile has everything you loved or hated about Myst and Riven."
At the 5th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards, Myst III was nominated for "Outstanding Achievement in Character or Story Development," "Outstanding Achievement in Original Musical Composition," and "PC Action/Adventure Game of the Year." These awards were won by Ico, Tropico, and Return to Castle Wolfenstein, respectively. In 2011, Adventure Gamers ranked Myst III as the 59th-best adventure game ever released.
Exile was highly anticipated, with preorders exceeding 500,000 units by March 2001. It became the best-selling computer game in the United States within a week of release, priced at an average of $42. The Collector’s Edition reached fifth place in sales. The two versions of the game held first and ninth place the following week, with Ubisoft reporting total sales of 75,000 units. Exile stayed in first place for three weeks before dropping to third by June 2. It was the fourth-best-selling computer game in May, with 54,468 retail units sold that month. The Collector’s Edition sold 20,104 units and ranked 12th. Exile remained in NPD Intelect’s top 10 computer game sales list from June 3–23, and held fourth place for June, with 49,287 units sold. Ubisoft reported global sales of over 400,000 units by June 30.
Exile stayed in NPD Intelect’s top 20 monthly sales list from July through August. By October, it had sold 173,569 domestic retail units, with the Collector’s Edition selling 40,051. After its European release on September 7, it reached second place on British sales charts and first place in Germany and France. Ubisoft reported global sales of over 750,000 units by September and nearly 1.2 million by December. Domestic sales for 2001 totaled 284,555 units, generating $11.7 million in revenue. Sales continued in 2002, with 80,810 units sold from January to June, and in 2003, with 43,735 units sold. By August 2006, the PC version had sold 400,000 copies in the United States alone, earning $14 million. Edge ranked it as the 37th-best-selling computer game in the U.S. between January 2000 and August 2006. It was also the highest-selling Myst game in the 2000s. By 2010, total sales reached 1.5 million copies.
Despite strong sales, Exile did not meet the high numbers achieved by the first two Myst games, which sold nearly 10 million units by the time Exile was released. GameSpot’s Greg Kasavin told Time magazine that Myst was no longer as relevant to gamers as it once was and that it represented an older style of gaming compared to 3-D action games. After Exile’s release, Presto announced it would stop making software, with Whacked! being its last title. A Presto employee said the company’s unique approach and inability to work on multiple projects at once led to its closure. The next Myst game, Revelation, was developed and published by Ubisoft.