Myst is such a huge and important title in not just the adventure game genre history, but the history of videogames overall. It’s legacy remains strong, affecting games and creating new genres to this day. And I have never finished it until now. In fact, I’ve tried playing the original game, it’s re-releases/remakes and sequels over many years and they’ve never clicked with me. And the majority of its influence on adventure game design was, frankly, terrible. With many titles abandoning any attempts at good design, opting to push cool visuals and obscure “puzzles” instead.
But I really wanted to get what Myst is about. And in this new 2021 remake of the game, I think I finally got it and was able to enjoy the game.
While far from being the first title of this kind, original Myst was a first person adventure game that focused on puzzles. Unlike the original game, and similar to the realMyst re-release, the new version allows you to traverse the locations in real time, like one would in a modern first person title, instead of relying on static frames and transitions between them. As you explore the locations, you would be constantly stumbling upon some interactive objects that you can try to do something with. However, and that’s what was really different about Myst and its later clones, the puzzles were often built not around finding and using items. But rather on understanding what these interactive objects do and how they are connected to other elements on the location. In other words – you wouldn’t just pull the first lever you find in this game, expecting this to be a solution to something, you had to first figure out what that lever does and then decide if you want to pull it and when to do it.
If this sounds like very obscure and intentionally cryptic puzzle design, it’s because it is. And it’s the reason why I didn’t really like the games in the first place. You are often required to run around the location to see if there are any hints around and remember how everything looks. Then you would try interacting with some levers. And then you would run around again to see if anything changed. It’s not the case for the entire game, of course, and some of the sections are far more straightforward, but nonetheless the puzzles are usually about understanding the connections, rather than anything else.
And that’s where the additions and changes to the 2021 version make the whole process so much more convenient. Just being able to mouse look, walk or sprint around changes everything. Yes, it can still get tiresome, especially if the puzzle has strange artificial limitations (why is one puzzle timed, for example, I will never understand). But the gameplay is so much more fun. The ability to take “photos” in-game and view the hints, instead of writing it all down physically with a pen, is also a nice touch. And in general, the game just feels better to play than any of the previous iterations. Hence why I didn’t drop the playthrough this time.
Which is why I was able to see the merit in Myst design too. I guess the experience with later entries tainted my memories of the original game. And the screen by screen movement was making the constant guesswork more tedious. But now, with free roaming, I was able to enjoy the mysteries and hidden connections for most of the game. It was fun to investigate the strange devices, entertaining to learn more about the story (that was likely inspired by The Chronicles of Amber), exciting to visit strange worlds.
Not that it was all flawless, of course. There are a couple of puzzles that still, even now that I’ve solved them, make little sense to me and seem obscure just for the sake of being obscure. The addition of the photo mode, while nice, is not as useful as it could be, since you cannot see the photos and the gameplay at the same time (so taking a picture with your phone is still more useful). And the absence of the realMyst additional world is strange – although I’ve seen mentions of its possible inclusion in a future update.
That said, I enjoyed playing Myst in this newest iteration. And I finally get why people loved it so much and why it has inspired so many clones that, sadly, lacked most of the positives Myst has while keeping all of the negatives. If you’ve never played Myst before and this kind of an adventure game sounds interesting to you, definitely give this version a go. If you liked Myst originally, well, I don’t know if you will like this one better or not, but I’m sure it will have things that you will like to experience again in a new way. And if you are like me, who didn’t like Myst after trying it or its sequels before, maybe give this one a try anyway. There’s a chance you will enjoy it like I did.