What makes Myst such a classic?

Myst's 2021 iteration is Myst at its absolute best. Myst has maintained a cult following for decades since its original release for PC in 1993. The game has a storied history as well, including the fact that its popularity is often noted as one of the core reasons for the adoption of the CD-ROM format, which is no small feat. It's had several iterations, but the 2021 variant of Myst is the best possible example of a Remake.

Myst has a lot of nostalgia for me, It was one of my core childhood video games, however at the time I was very young, so the game was very hard, that said I eventually managed to beat it after a few years, of trying it on and off. Even then I've bought and played each of the iterations that came out, Myst Masterpiece Edition, realMyst, realMyst Masterpiece Edition.

Coming back to the game once again, the Myst remake truly is a definitive version of the game. It perfectly encapsulates that feeling that the original Myst had and translating it to beautiful 3D environments.

What Makes Myst Different?

Myst is one of my favorite examples of environmental storytelling, the story isn't told to you explicitly but instead, you're led to infer what has occurred on the island through a few FMVs, Reading a handful of notes and journal entries, but the strongest storytelling is done through looking at the state of the environment. Everything is carefully placed, and the objects, or lack of them, can tell you a ton about the state of things leading up to your arrival.

Myst starts you off with a voiceover. The words you're hearing don't mean anything to you yet. Who is this? Did they fall into a fissure? Why wasn't the book destroyed? What's a Myst? He sounds so proper and educated though so he must know what's going on.

You stumble upon the Myst book and as you open it, you're shown a small window, as if it were a portal, showing an island surrounded by a vast body of water. As you touch it, you're teleported to the isle of Myst, finding yourself on the dock next to a sunken ship and a door.

At this point you may explore the island at will, nothing is stopping you from going anywhere. At this point, you and your brain are on your own.

There are a ton of hints if you look for them. Eventually, most players will stumble upon the Red and Blue books, in what looks like a library of some kind, each one clearly missing a page. Putting the page back into the book reveals that they are similar to the Myst book you saw earlier, but the window is unclear and filled with static. A person appears in each book, and while their words are cut off by the static, you can get a rough idea of what they want.

They tell you they are brothers, and that they were betrayed by the other, claiming they are innocent and that you need to help them escape the book by finding all the missing pages. However, they both warn you not to bring the pages of the other brother's book, you're unsure why but it's clear that they believe that something bad will happen if you do! This gives you a clear goal, find the colored pages of the books! An interesting conundrum, why are they trapped? Why are the pages hidden? Who are they really?

These are all things that come in time, assuming you can get through the...

Pain points

Myst has always had some pain points, and while I think many issues are solved in this version, it introduces a few new issues as well.

The first is that the first few hours of the game can be grueling. If you're unfamiliar with the game, it's hard to find out what to do to get started. The beginning part is super interesting, once you finally get started, but getting there isn't easy.

One of the changes that impacted this most is that the improved graphics can sometimes make the puzzle hints hard to find, in particular, one of the early puzzle hints feels fairly obscured compared to how obvious it is in the original.

Here's a comparison of the location of the first hint in both games

Spoiler!

This letter is critical to being able to beat the game, as it's a major hint, in the original graphics you can clearly see the note, while in the remake it's much harder to see

The rest of the pain points boil down to not being able to fix some things without completely removing or altering some puzzles massively compared to the original. One of the issues is that puzzles can sometimes have one spot the player needs to backtrack to several times, these often involve an elevator ride or something that makes each trip kind of painful, and the lack of a cutscene skip button in the Remake does make these sections annoying especially if you're not sure exactly what you're looking for, needing to backtrack through the section just to see if the interaction changed anything elsewhere. The issue is that changing these moments would make the puzzles not faithful to the original. But at the end of the day, all I'd ask for really is a way to skip elevator rides(There is an option to disable them entirely in the settings, but I really just want to be able to skip them with the Escape key like in Myst Masterpiece Edition)

Is it terrible? No but it can still cause new players to reach for a strategy guide sooner rather than later which isn't ideal.

What has gotten better?

The graphics are obvious the original came out over 20 years ago now, so I won't go on too long needless to say, it LOOKS amazing.

RealMyst has done the first-person free movement controls already, but I think realMyst's flaw was that they let you go anywhere making it more confusing since you could access areas that don't have content. The 2021 Remake avoids this by combining free movement with restricting the player to just the areas that have important things in a way that works without feeling too restricted.

While most of the layouts have remained the same, some puzzles are improved due to the developer rethinking how the user interacts with it, nothing revolutionary, but it's clear they put time and effort into reconsidering small changes that don't fundamentally uproot the core gameplay.

And a huge upgrade is the built-in camera, in a lot of cases the camera help you avoid needing a notebook to write down every bit of info you see(Which is how I eventually beat Myst in 1996) Think it might be a hint for something? Take a picture! It's really a great feature.

Myst is a classic for a reason

I still think Myst is an experience that has yet to really be replicated. The combination of atmosphere, puzzles, and world-building to create this familiar but alien setting is really something I still recommend.

Anyone with the willpower to sit down and take their time should 100% play the game. Really look at the puzzles for a long time and contemplate them,

Beating the game blind is one of the most rewarding things you can do. It's a challenge, but it's a good challenge.