Today, Cyan Worlds officially released its remake of the 1997 title Riven on PC via Steam. The game is the sequel to Myst, regarded by many as one of the best video games ever made and an inspiration to countless developers. A demo is also available to download for a limited time.
Cyan announced the game’s remake in October 2022 to commemorate Riven’s 25th anniversary.
Myst was first released in 1993 for the Macintosh. The point-and-click game managed to become a surprise hit, and to this day, it is regarded as one of the best video games ever made, inspiring many games and genres to come after. In it, players travel to a magical world through a strange book where they must solve puzzles to travel to four other worlds to find out more about the title’s characters. Selling over six million copies, Myst was the best-selling PC game ever until The Sims hit the scene in 2002.
Riven was first released on five discs in 1997 and is set immediately after the events of Myst. It went on to become the best-selling game of 1997, with fans and critics praising its realism, puzzles, and narrative depth. In the new open letter on Cyan’s website, the dev team notes that unlike Myst, there had never been a play to remake Riven until a certain grassroots effort began. The Starry Expanse Project, a fan project started over a decade ago, aimed to recreate the game in a fully-realized realtime-3D environment. Cyan eventually reached out to the group of fans.
“We reached an agreement which allowed us to reference core pieces of their efforts to jump-start our development,” the letter reads. “They subsequently ceased development on The Starry Expanse Project, as our official efforts to remake Riven began.
The remade puzzle game is now available to download on Steam.
