Myst is a video game series that includes adventure games. The first game, Myst, was released in 1993 by brothers Rand and Robyn Miller through their company, Cyan, Inc. The next game in the series, Riven, was released in 1997. It was followed by three more games: Myst III: Exile in 2001, Myst IV: Revelation in 2004, and Myst V: End of Ages in 2005. A different game in the series called Uru: Ages Beyond Myst, which included multiplayer features, was released in 2003 and had two additional expansion packs.
The story of Myst follows an explorer named Atrus, who can write books that connect to other worlds called Ages. This ability was created by an ancient civilization called the D'ni, whose society fell apart after being affected by disease. Players take the role of an unnamed character called the Stranger, who helps Atrus by visiting other Ages and solving puzzles. Throughout the series, Atrus creates a new Age for the D'ni survivors to live in, and players decide the future of the civilization.
The Miller brothers created Myst after making successful games for children. They used ideas from childhood stories to design the Ages players would explore. The name "Myst" came from a book called The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne. After Riven was released, Robyn Miller left Cyan, Inc., and the company began working on Uru. Other companies, Presto Studios and Ubisoft, developed Exile and Revelation before Cyan, Inc., completed the series with End of Ages. Myst and its sequels were widely praised and sold more than twelve million copies. The games helped increase sales of personal computers and CD-ROM drives and attracted players who enjoy calm and careful gameplay. The success of the games also led to three published novels, soundtracks, a comic series, and ideas for television and movies.
Plot
Myst's story begins with the arrival of a people called the D'ni on Earth nearly 10,000 years ago. The D'ni are an ancient group who used a special skill to create magical books that act as gateways to the worlds they describe, called Ages. The D'ni built a large city and a prosperous society inside caves. A young geologist named Anna from Earth discovered the D'ni civilization. After learning the D'ni language, Anna became known as Ti'ana and married a D'ni named Aitrus. The couple had a son named Gehn. Later, a disease caused by a man named A'Gaeris destroyed the D'ni civilization. Aitrus saved his wife and child by killing A'Gaeris, allowing Ti'ana and Gehn to escape to Earth as the D'ni society fell.
Ti'ana raised Gehn until he left home as a teenager and learned the D'ni Art of writing descriptive books. Ti'ana also cared for Gehn's son, Atrus, until Gehn returned to teach Atrus the Art. Atrus realized his father was reckless and power-hungry. With Ti'ana's help and a young woman named Catherine, Atrus trapped Gehn on an Age called Riven, where no linking books could reach him. Atrus and Catherine married and had two children, Sirrus and Achenar. The brothers grew greedy and stole their father's Ages, trapping Catherine on Riven. When Atrus returned to investigate, the brothers trapped him in a D'ni cave before being themselves trapped in special "prison" books. With the help of a Stranger, Atrus was freed and sent the Stranger to Riven to rescue Catherine from Gehn. Sirrus and Achenar were punished by being imprisoned in separate Ages until they showed improvement.
Atrus created a new Age called Releeshahn for the D'ni survivors to rebuild their civilization, while he and Catherine returned to Earth and raised a daughter named Yeesha. As Atrus prepared to take the Stranger to Releeshahn, a mysterious man named Saavedro stole the Releeshahn Descriptive Book. The Stranger followed Saavedro through several Ages (used to train Sirrus and Achenar in writing Ages) before recovering the book. Ten years later, Atrus asked the Stranger to check if his sons had changed after their long imprisonment. The Stranger saved Yeesha from Sirrus's plans, but Sirrus and a repentant Achenar were killed. The D'ni civilization was fully restored only after the creatures the D'ni enslaved, called the Bahro, were freed.
Development
Myst was first thought of by brothers Rand and Robyn Miller. As children, the Millers created imaginary worlds and stories, inspired by authors like J. R. R. Tolkien, Robert A. Heinlein, and Isaac Asimov. Together, they started a video game company named Cyan, Inc. Their first game, called The Manhole, won the Software Publishers Association award in 1988 for best use of the digital medium. Cyan made other games for children, but the Millers later decided to create a game for adults.
The brothers spent months designing the Ages in the game, which were inspired by earlier playful "worlds" Cyan had made for children's games. The game's name and the mysterious, lonely atmosphere of the island were influenced by the book The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne. Robyn's unfinished novel, Dunnyhut, affected parts of Myst's story, which the brothers developed gradually as they created the different worlds. As the game was being made, the Millers realized they needed more story and history than could be included in the game itself. They wrote a rough version of what would later become the novel Myst: The Book of Atrus to provide more details for fans.
After Myst became very popular, work quickly began on the next game in the series. Cyan moved from their garage to a new office and hired more programmers, designers, and artists. The game was planned to release in late 1996, but the launch was delayed by a year. The development cost was between $5 million and $10 million, much higher than Myst's original budget. After Riven was released, Robyn Miller left the company to work on other projects, while Rand stayed to continue working on the Myst franchise.
Although Rand Miller said Cyan would not make another sequel to Myst, Mattel (then the owner of the Myst franchise) asked several video game companies to create story ideas and technology samples for a sequel. Presto Studios, known for making the Journeyman Project adventure games, was chosen to develop Myst III. Presto spent millions on the game and used all of its staff to complete it, which took two and a half years. Soon after Myst III: Exile was released, Presto closed down, and Ubisoft, the publisher of Exile, made the next game, Myst IV: Revelation, internally. Meanwhile, Cyan created a spinoff game called Uru: Ages Beyond Myst, which included an unfinished multiplayer feature that allowed players to work together to solve puzzles.
Cyan later returned to make what was called the final game in the series. They stopped using live-action scenes in prerendered graphics and instead created a world that was rendered in real time. Actors' faces were turned into textures and placed on digital characters, with their movements matched using motion capture. Shortly before the game was released, Cyan stopped development, but this did not affect the game's release. The company rehired its employees a few weeks later and continued working on non-Myst projects and an attempt to restart the multiplayer part of Uru, called Myst Online. In 2010, servers for Myst Online were set up using donations, and the game became open-source in 2011.
Cyan created many detailed parts of the Myst universe, including the language and culture of the D'ni. The D'ni numbers and writing first appeared in Riven and were important for solving some of the game's puzzles. The D'ni language was used in various games and books in the Myst franchise and was created by Richard A. Watson. Many online D'ni dictionaries have been made as part of the fan community that continues to support the game.
Music
The music for each game in the Myst series was created by different composers. Originally, the Millers believed that any music or sound besides background sounds would distract players and reduce the feeling of being in a real world. Because of this, the first game, Myst, was not to have any music. However, after a sound test, the developers realized that music could actually help players feel more immersed in the game. Robyn Miller then composed 40 minutes of synthesized music for Myst. He also created the music for Riven, which included unique musical themes for each main character. Virgin Records purchased the rights to the music and released the soundtracks in 1998.
For Myst III: Exile and Myst IV: Revelation, composer Jack Wall created the music. He developed a more active musical style that was different from Robyn Miller’s ambient themes. Jack Wall saw the growing complexity of games as a chance to create a soundtrack as powerful as a movie score. He aimed to make music that was unique but still recognizable as Myst music. In Revelation, Jack Wall reused the musical themes for the recurring characters from Myst and worked with Peter Gabriel, who contributed a song and provided voice recordings for the game.
The music for Uru: Ages Beyond Myst and Myst V: End of Ages was composed by Tim Larkin. He had previously worked on the series by designing sound effects for Riven. Tim Larkin moved away from his background as a jazz musician to create music with less structure and without clear beginnings or ends. He composed different music for each location, giving each setting and Age its own unique tone. For End of Ages, Tim Larkin could not afford a full orchestra to perform his score, so he combined individual instruments with a variety of synthesizers.
Adaptations
Rand and Robyn Miller wanted to create novels based on the background story of Myst. After Myst became successful, the publisher Hyperion signed a deal with the brothers for three books worth one million dollars. David Wingrove used the brothers’ story outlines to write the books. The three books—Myst: The Book of Atrus, Myst: The Book of Ti'ana, and Myst: The Book of D'ni—were released in 1995, 1996, and 1997, respectively. Later, the books were collected into a single volume called The Myst Reader. A fourth book, Myst: The Book of Marrim, was planned but was never published.
In 1993, Cyan partnered with Dark Horse Comics to create a four-part comic series called Myst: The Book of Black Ships. The series would have focused on Atrus and his sons, taking place before the events of Myst. The first comic was released in September 1997, but the project was canceled after the first issue did not meet expectations. A later comic, Myst #0: Passages, was released online.
Disney asked Cyan Worlds to create an attraction based on Myst on a closed area of Walt Disney World called Discovery Island. Rand Miller visited the island and thought it was a good fit for the Myst setting, but the project was never completed.
Several film and television ideas based on Myst were planned or rumored but never happened. These include:
– In 2002, The Sci Fi Channel announced a TV miniseries, but it was never made. Rand Miller said none of the proposals met Cyan’s standards or were too simple or humorous.
– In 2006, filmmakers Patrick McIntire and Adrian Vanderbosch proposed a movie based on Myst: The Book of Ti'ana, but the project was not completed.
– In 2014, Legendary Entertainment announced a television series, but it was never developed.
In 2015, Unwritten: Adventures in the Ages of MYST and Beyond was published as an authorized role-playing game by Inkworks Productions. The game used the Fate Core system and focused on solving puzzles and exploring stories. Two additional guides, The D'Ni Primer and The Myst Saga, provided background information for players.
In 2016, Cyan Worlds released Obduction, a game funded through Kickstarter. While Obduction is not directly connected to Myst, it was considered a spiritual successor, sharing similar themes and puzzle designs. Robyn Miller, who had left Cyan earlier, helped create the game’s music and played a character in the story.
To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the first Myst game in 2018, Cyan secured rights to release updated versions of all Myst games for modern computers. A Kickstarter campaign in 2018 raised $2.8 million to fund digital copies of the seven games and special rewards, such as a simulated Linking Book with an LCD screen.
In 2019, Village Roadshow Entertainment Group announced they had acquired the rights to the Myst franchise. They plan to expand the Myst universe with movies and TV shows, working with Rand Miller, his brother Ryan, and others from Delve Media.
Reception and impact
The Myst series has been very successful in both reviews and sales. Rand and Robyn Miller hoped Myst would earn enough money to fund their next project, similar to their previous games. Instead, Myst sold more than six million copies, becoming the best-selling PC game until The Sims surpassed it in 2002. The first three games in the series sold over twelve million copies combined.
Jeremy Parish, a writer for 1UP.com, said people have two main opinions about Myst’s slow, puzzle-based gameplay. Some fans believe it is a smart, elegant game for adults, while others criticize it as a lifeless experience that feels more like art than a game. Game industry leaders were surprised by Myst’s success, as they did not expect an "interactive slide show" to become so popular. Russell Pitts, a writer for The Escapist, described Myst as a groundbreaking game that blended video with a beautifully designed world filled with puzzles and mystery. He noted that in a market full of games like Doom, Myst showed the future of gaming. It took nearly ten years for other games to follow its example. Critics from Wired and Salon believed the games were close to being considered art. Scholars Henry Jenkins and Lev Manovich highlighted the series as an example of how new media could create unique forms of art.
Myst changed the adventure game genre. Unlike earlier games, Myst focused on keeping players immersed in its world by removing elements like text explanations, inventory systems, and score counters. However, Myst also led to the decline of the adventure genre. Publishers created many poor-quality copies of Myst to take advantage of its success, which overwhelmed the market. By the time Exile was released, some critics viewed games like Myst as outdated.
Myst was widely praised for attracting not only dedicated gamers but also casual players and groups who rarely played games, such as women. Its lack of typical game features like violence, dying, or failure made it appealing to people who were not regular gamers or considering buying a computer. The Millers’ choice to develop Myst for the new CD-ROM format helped increase interest in CD drives.
Myst inspired a parody game called Pyst, created by comedian Peter Bergman and featuring actor John Goodman in video scenes. In Pyst, players explored a ruined island of Myst, which had been visited by millions of players before. The parody game humorously mocked aspects of the original game’s design.
Fan conventions
The game has led to annual fan events happening worldwide. Mysterium began in 2000 after a small group of fans wanted to meet in person. About 200 people attended the first event in Spokane, Washington, which took place at the main office of Cyan Worlds, the company that created the game. Later events became more organized, including talks and live music. Mystralia is a similar event for fans in Australia and New Zealand, and it has been held since 2005.