Unofficial Myst/Riven/Uru "buyer's guide"

Myst and Riven are good, but there are so many versions of the former out there that it's a little confusing. After having the conversation about it in a few different Discords, I decided to put it all in one place (along with Uru because I think more people should at least try Uru):

First off, I'm going to limit it to versions that are generally available on modern PCs. If you're going to be setting up a console emulator for Retroachievements or running the original on 486 hardware, I assume you know what you're doing.

Three screenshots of different versions of Myst showing the same scene: an island with a control panel next to a trapdoor, with a catwalk leading to a fortress in the background.
Top: Myst Masterpiece Edition, bottom-left: realMyst Masterpiece Edition, bottom-right: Myst (2021)

That still leaves three options for Myst, in increasing order of price:

  • Myst Masterpiece Edition: Basically the classic slideshow version with minor graphics/audio updates.
  • realMyst Masterpiece Edition: A 3D adaptation that lets you walk around freely rather than being locked to specific nodes (but snapping to nodes is an option). The graphics are a bit dated, though.
  • Myst (2021): A remake with more modern graphics, VR support, and new accessibility options like subtitles. I'll admit I haven't actually played this one myself.

Puzzle-wise, the base game content of all three of these are identical. (The remake added a puzzle randomizer option if that's something you're interested in) realMyst added a small bonus area in the post-game ("Rime"), and the 2021 remake expanded on it.

So if you're a slideshow purist, Myst Masterpiece Edition is there for you. realMyst is probably good enough if you're price-conscious and don't need the extra graphical fidelity or features, and the remake is the newest and fanciest.

Two screenshots of Riven, featuring a similar shot of a round building surrounded by cliffs with a lake on the left.
Left: Riven (1997), right: Riven remake. (All the other images were from store pages, but the Riven remake one was a screenshot because none of the store page screenshots were in the same locations between the two games)

There are only really two commercially available versions of Riven:

  • Riven (1997) is the original game with a wrapper around it to let it run on modern machines.
  • The Riven remake from 2024, in addition to being in 3D, added some stuff, made changes to the overall game flow, and tweaked some puzzles.

I played the remake myself recently, and even remembering how everything from the original game worked there was enough new stuff that I still had stuff to solve and enjoyed the experience. However, some of the puzzle tweaks did simplify certain aspects, so I can't say there's zero reason to play the original. If the price tag's a concern for you, or you're interested in seeing the original version of the puzzles, the original version still holds up.

Screenshot of Uru showing the Ae'gura hub area: a courtyard with a large tree stump (I think) with an arch cut out of it framing a larger arch in the distance.
The versions don't really have graphical differences, so I just grabbed a random screenshot that wasn't Online-exclusive

Uru was Cyan's attempt to make an online Myst game, and if you're wondering how that worked it kind of didn't. It launched in beta, was canceled, released the content in the pipeline as single-player expansions, found a new publisher for a second online run, got canceled again, and now lives as an open-source server with a small but dedicated community making new stuff 20 years later. I think there's interesting stuff to see there, but it having an actual physics engine for the MMO bits led to them doing some platforming and physics puzzles/challenges which weren't really great and turned off a lot of people that would be interested in the adventure game parts.

Anyway, there are two paths to check it out:

  • Uru: Complete Chronicles, the single-player game plus the expansions from the interregnum period.
  • Myst Online, a free client that connects to the open-source server with all the content from the second online period and some ages fans have made since then. (This isn't quite a superset of Complete Chronicles- a few things never made it to Online, and at least one puzzle was changed to require multiple people)

In my opinion, Complete Chronicles is a more coherent single-player experience, due to the missing puzzles and being able to have a clearer endpoint than Online does. (well, one ending for the base game and one for each of the two expansions) And while I haven't been following the hardcore modding scene for fan content that hasn't made it to Online, my understanding is that that all requires CC as a base.

So my high-effort recommendation is to play Complete Chronicles and then if you want you can check out the online-exclusive content afterwards as a bonus. (You can't import progress or anything, but you won't have to repeat much of the single-player stuff unless you want the cosmetic rewards for having finished it. (yes there are cosmetic rewards)) Alternately you can just do everything online and see almost everything, with co-op available and mostly optional if you have someone you want to explore with.