Myst

Myst is one of the most famous pioneers of the puzzle-adventure genre. The gameplay involves exploring a mysterious island and interacting with various arcane mechanisms in search of missing book pages. Its surreal beauty, groundbreaking 3D graphics, and enigmatic story—together with its famously difficult puzzles—make Myst a classic that gamers have enjoyed for over 30 years.

Myst takes place on an island where magical books can transport you to other worlds. Two non-playable characters, Sirrus and Achenar, have become trapped in such books, and they ask you to return the books' missing pages in order to free them. Your search begins on the island of Myst, but hidden within it are several other books that function as gateways to other island worlds—if you can find and unlock them.

The islands are littered with steampunk-styled machinery involving a lot of switches, buttons, and handwheels, and the puzzle-solving mainly revolves around figuring out what the machines do and how to operate them. Many of them need to be set to a particular value or sequence, which can be divined based on props, documents, or sound cues found elsewhere on the island. Logical reasoning and thorough observation skills are required to wield these mechanisms, and some of them are notoriously tricky to figure out.

In its original release, Myst used pre-rendered still images of 3D models, since real-time 3D graphics were much too demanding for personal computers. Nonetheless, this allowed the game to have highly advanced visuals for 1993. Players navigate in first person by clicking on objects of interest (or on the borders of the screen) to switch to different views and parts of the island, adventure game-style. The strange and beautiful scenery, together with the uncanny experience of exploring settings that were once inhabited but are now empty of human life, are a big part of what makes Myst memorable. The designers also found ways to compensate for the static scenes with motion from the mechanisms at work, overlay animations of wildlife, sound effects, and occasional full-motion video cutscenes.

Myst has been rereleased periodically to keep up with changing technology. Myst: Masterpiece Edition, released in 2000, kept gameplay the same but replaced the 256-color original with higher-resolution full-color graphics. The synthesized music and the sound effects were also remastered. This is the oldest version of Myst that is currently available for purchase. RealMyst, also released in 2000, notably introduced real-time 3D graphics and free movement all across the island. RealMyst was itself remastered as RealMyst: Masterpiece Edition in 2014. Finally, in 2021, Myst was rebuilt again, introducing VR support, reworking many of the puzzles, and replacing the FMV snippets with computer-generated characters.

All the versions of Myst have met with acclaim. Whichever release you choose, Myst will stretch your brain with its challenging puzzles, and draw you in with its unique and lovely world.

This description was written by Gwen C. Katz and edited by Oriane Tury.