Riven: we tried the 3D remake of the Myst sequel

There was a moment in the history of video games, which we can make coincide with the emergence of CD players in the PC and console sector, therefore in the years between the first and second half of the 90s, in which developers they suddenly found themselves in the hands of enormously powerful hardware, at least compared to everything that had preceded them, and above all a quantity of data storage space that floppy disks, cassettes and cartridges had only been able to dream of. The 700 MB of CD-ROMs seemed boundless and somehow they had to be filled.

The technological push was fundamental for the spread of multimedia content in video games, including films in full motion video format (which has become proverbial) and audio tracks of the same quality as that found on actual discs. Among the greatest singers of what was a real tsunami, capable of throwing into crisis everything that had previously been the industry, were the Miller brothers (Rand and Robyn) who with Myst (1993) they achieved enormous successselling around six million copies (a gigantic amount at the time).

Myst was a graphic adventure with puzzles based on ingenious mechanics, which made extensive use of pre-rendered scenarios and cutscenes to engage the player. Needless to say, a few years later, in 1997, the official sequel, Riven, arrived, which aimed to expand the Myst experience in every possible direction and which also sold very well, selling 4.5 million copies worldwide. world. Over the years Myst has been remade several times and after the 3D remake in 2021 it was clear that it was Riven’s turn to be modernized. We then got to try a demo of the Riven remake and meet Rand Millerwho explained to us the philosophy behind the project.

Between old and new

According to what Miller told us, Cyan Worlds has always considered Riven its diamond, which is his most successful work; what Myst should have been all along. Internally, there was talk several times about making a remake, but the project was always postponed waiting for the right technology to arrive to recreate that world with the desired amount of detail.

The new game was then developed with Unreal Engine 5, which guaranteed the desired graphic performance, without any qualitative compromise in the transition to 3D. It is possible to see it right from the introduction, no longer a cutscene, but a scene reconstructed with the game engine in which we can move the camera freely.

Cyan still had to review some aspects of Riven, considering the technological leap, and lengthened the experience a bit, but was extremely careful in the adjustments, studying them for a long time before implementing them and making them definitive, to do not create contrasts and inconsistencies with the original experience. In fact, right from the start you can breathe the right atmosphere, among surreal characters and scenarios, reconstructed with great attention to match those seen in 1997, so much so that we restarted the old game to check and were amazed by the attention to detail put into not betray the original vision. Riven was and still is a place out of time that seems to have come out of a story by Borges, among islands that emerge from the sea, large mechanisms whose meaning is initially difficult to decipher and the monorail that takes you from one part of the world of game with an effect that we could define as a roller coaster.

A demo for the upcoming Steam Next Fest and release date

The Riven demo on which this article is based will be made available to the public during the Steam Next Fest taking place from June 10th to 17th. So soon you will be able to download it and play it too. The release date is scheduled for June 25, 2024 on PC and Quest, Meta’s VR headset.

The puzzles

As we were saying, Riven begins in an identical, but different way to the original: the initial dialogue is no longer a cutscene, but allows us to examine the various details, so the same happens when we find ourselves in prison waiting to be freed by a strange character, about whom we will learn more during the adventure. The impact is no longer what it used to be, but the nostalgia effect is very strong, while at the same time managing to give the idea that we are faced with something new, which could be worth living even if we are the 1997 adventure is over. It’s a fresh look at an old storyas it should be, also useful for seeing the enormous strides made in the technological field in the last thirty years.

Having said this, after leaving prison we began the search for the book that was stolen from us, essential to free Catherine. We walked around the initial area a bit, finding familiar places, but with incredible results. We rotated the first room, the one with the golden scarabs, and everything appeared natural and perfectly organic, as it once was. We unlocked the locked wooden door at the bottom of the island with a trick instead of going under it like in the original and we realized that we wouldn’t have gotten away with it just by retracing the steps we took then (some puzzles are similar but different). In short, we enjoyed what we considered almost a trip to Riven, admiring the general level of detail, checking the improvement of feedback when you get the right action and enjoying a bit of a genre that is no longer very popular, that of classic adventures.

Transition to 3D

While we were playing we were reminded of the presentation we had with Miller, in which we were shown some frames of the game taken exactly from the position of the original scenarios. We then also tried to recreate those shots, discovering a game within the game, at least for those old enough to have played the 1997 Riven. We walked around a bit more, taking the monorail and so on until the end of the demo.

The move to 3D has done Riven a lot of good, with the various mechanisms that have been rendered in an even more physical way than in the past, so much so that the player feels its weight both visually and in sounds. Furthermore, now the sense of space is even more marked, so some dimensions and the perfection of the entire system are better perceived, which works like a large magic box. After all, the development team has enormous experience with this type of puzzle, refined over the years with the other Mysts and with the various Obduction and Firmament games, so it was able to easily rework what was done in the past, without making it lose a moment. crumb of its charm.

During the presentation we asked Miller if we can expect any simplifications for novices, as Riven was a very difficult game. It was explained to us that the team worked a lot on the quality of life of the various elements of the game, in particular the interface, and scattered small visual suggestions throughout the scenario which, when identified, can help you understand what to do (nothing invasive or that clearly states the solution, anyway). For the rest, the game remains what it was, so there will be no shortcuts whatsoever to move forward, because they would make it lose that sense of Machiavellianism that made the original experience so exciting.

More than that of Myst, the 3D remake of Riven seems very appropriate and capable of doing justice to the original title. The demo we tried convinced us and we can’t wait to have the finished game in our hands so we can complete the experience. We will have to verify the other changes, but those seen so far have been convincing and have not distorted the experience. A title to wait for, in short, and one that will also be released in a few days.