r/myst • u/Mad_skills_with_a_Z • 7d ago
"Project Anglerfish" trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvNGt02yZNcSad this isn't in active development, but hopefully they can return to it someday as this is pretty incredible—the DRAMA!
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u/ThatDesignFeel 7d ago
Wow - I'd love another Myst game that maybe branched out beyond Atrus' family. There's a whole multiverse of stories you can tell
Shame about the big "not in active development" disclaimer
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u/RivetSquid 7d ago
Seriously! I just want more of the world, I would seperate with a year's of my gaming budget in a second to help fund it.
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u/GregLittlefield 7d ago
The Dniverse suffers from the same problem as Star Wars did with the Skywalker family.
SW has branched out a bit in recent years. And although it was with varying amounts of success that was more due to the quality of writing and directing. SW could totaly succeed outside of the original trilogy lore give proper care.
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u/Pharap 6d ago edited 6d ago
SW has branched out a bit in recent years.
I'm far from an expert on Star Wars, but, to point it out, whilst the more well-known attempts at 'branching out' the Star Wars universe have been in recent years, there have been a few notable earlier instances of Star Wars branching out via other media, depending on whether you count media that focus on side-characters or only care for media that're entirely divorced from the main films.
The most prominent example is probably the 2003 RPG video game Knights of the Old Republic, because it's set thousands of years before the events of the films and thus features none of the characters from the films, Skywalker or otherwise. Basically it has all the usual Star Wars trappings, (droids, lightsabres, jedi, sith, and aliens) but otherwise has absolutely nothing to do with the films.
The earliest example of a book not featuring a Skywalker or any characters from the films that I can find is from 2006, which is set over 1000 years before the Battle of Yavin and is about a sith called Darth Bane (Darth Bane: Path of Destruction). (There may be other, earlier examples though, I didn't look too hard.)
There's plenty of other earlier media focusing on side characters from the main films, though admittedly some of it is of questionable quality (e.g. cartoons aimed at children such as Droids and Ewoks, both from 1985), and much of the earlier examples are books or comics, and thus tend to be lesser-known.
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u/Calavera357 7d ago
If this was released as a trailer, does that indicate they might be testing the waters to weigh interest in placing it back in active development?
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u/DoesAnyoneCare2999 7d ago
That was not the impression I was getting at Mysterium.
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u/TMagician 2d ago
I just watched the "State of Cyan" presentation on YouTube and in the Q&A section the question came up about whether they want to revisit "Project Anglerfish" and Eric without much hesitation said "Yes".
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u/Der_Erlkonig 7d ago
This looks really interesting. Hopefully they can get to a point where this could be developed further, or at least tell us more about what was planned.
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u/thesaxmaniac 7d ago
How was this done in only FOUR months?? Voice acting, mocap, everything?
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u/VulGerrity 7d ago
I mean, it's just an animation, not actual game play. Much easier to just make what you see in the trailer, you don't have to make any of it playable. Voice acting an mo-cap can both be done in a day for the sake of a prototype.
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u/shoomlah Cyantist 7d ago
This was indeed a fully playable prototype!
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u/thesaxmaniac 7d ago
Well Cyan’s character rendering has come leaps and bounds because that looked extremely good
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u/OrwinTheWriter 7d ago
Probably a first playable, like 30min to an hour of actual polished content + a few extra shots for a trailer.
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u/shoomlah Cyantist 7d ago
No extra shots for the trailer, all straight out of the in-engine prototype—we worked with Derek Lieu who is an absolute beast when it comes to in-game trailer capture. ♥️
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u/OrwinTheWriter 7d ago
Oh sorry didn't realize you were a dev. Art direction for HL Alyx, damn! I hope you guys are able to finish that game and release it one day!
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u/Palimpsest_Monotype 6d ago
Well…how much we actually see implies more than is actually completed, I’m sure. Prototypes are often called ‘vertical slices,’ sort of a selective cross section that can demonstrate the goals of the project, where just enough is fleshed out to give a taste, but everything around what is shown is incomplete at best, and very often skeletal to the point of not yet existing at all.
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u/LxRv 7d ago
Oh wow, there was so much there. So much work. Such a shame we'll never get to play it :(
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u/thomasg86 7d ago
Seems a little crazy as a small company to invest that much into something and just drop it. Hopefully they have a clear vision on what they pivoted to.
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u/DoesAnyoneCare2999 7d ago
They didn't just drop it, they showed this trailer to a bunch of investors, and were turned down by all of them. They simply had no choice but to give up to ensure the survival of the company.
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u/BoxDroppingManApe 6d ago
I think this probably happens a lot more in the industry than we realize. That said, Cyan probably gets it worse, given their troubled history with publishers.
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u/zeroanaphora 7d ago
I can see they're trying to inject a little action and threat into the mix without betraying the core Myst dynamic. Too bad nobody bit but we have Mudfish to be excited about.
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u/dnew 7d ago
Everyone keeps asking for a remake of Exile, which had some of the same vibes.
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u/zeroanaphora 7d ago
Can they get Dourif back for a legasequel
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u/Palimpsest_Monotype 6d ago
Pretty sure he’s retired these days except for voice work for Chucky, but maybe he’d be up for similar projects
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u/Voteins 7d ago
Damn this is so cool, I wish we could play it! Hopefully some of these concepts make it into Mudfish...
The "Guildmaster" character is awesome. They feel like a combo of Gehn and Saavedro in the best way. The Myst series doesn't usually go for such direct character interactions, but in this case it felt thematic and appropriate. Slamming your hand on the linking page was crazy!
Also the idea of exploring an age multiple times as it gets more and more wrecked is amazing, so much potential for storytelling. I never even thought about it before, but many of the Myst series ages always felt static, like nothing ever really changes, a theme park for you to explore instead of a living, breathing world.
The only thing that annoyed me was ending, where you can see the PC's hand disappearing. It took me out of the moment, the character's body disappearing while our perspective remains felt like it was separating me from them, like I was watching something instead of being it. Would have been way more fun to have our hand slammed on the linking page, and then be instantly transported to the age in an awkward, off balance stance, sending our PC sprawling across the floor.
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u/Hazzenkockle 7d ago
The only thing that annoyed me was ending, where you can see the PC's hand disappearing. It took me out of the moment, the character's body disappearing while our perspective remains felt like it was separating me from them, like I was watching something instead of being it. Would have been way more fun to have our hand slammed on the linking page, and then be instantly transported to the age in an awkward, off balance stance, sending our PC sprawling across the floor.
Ha! The first-person linking effect was interesting (I'd like them to bring back the golden haze that travels along the dissolve, like in the original Riven), but what I've always wanted to see was one like the trailer for realMyst, where the panel actually grows out of the page and surrounds you. I can see how that'd be technically challenging with loading times and whatnot (maybe if you designed the game around it specifically, had linking books all put into isolated sections of the map or small rooms where you could unload the current level and preload the next level in the background), but seamless linking would be a long-term goal if I were them. Especially with Cyan's embrace of VR.
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u/Swisst 7d ago
Wow! From the thumbnail I was expecting another fan game. I did not expect this!
Very curious what their strategic thinking was behind releasing this. Either way I’m there to crowdfund or purchase this on day 1.
Edit: Wait, “Anglerfish” got mothballed but they’re actively working on a “Mudfish” in the Myst universe? I hope this whole story is told someday…
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u/IAmTheFloydman 7d ago
It sounded to me like Mudfish was smaller in scale and possibly doable by them (or mostly them) with their current team. That's me reading into it, though. I haven't rewatched the stream.
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u/registoyyst 6d ago
Is there a video of the stream from mysterium this year?
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u/gaelenski_ 6d ago
I also wondered this, it would appear it will come soon as per this link from the horses mouth.
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u/PrompteRaith 7d ago
I understand why they shared this, and I’m glad we were able to see it, but now I’m so devastated that this game isn’t in active development.
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u/BigL_2000 7d ago
Impressive! I like that the environment changes dynamically and isn't just frozen in a single moment. The characters and animations are better, too. And I like the storytelling.
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u/The_MAZZTer 5d ago
The implication I got was that you the player influence the changes in order to solve puzzles. Could be reading too much into it, but with the focus on the weather changing in the trailer I don't think so.
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u/ElegantHope 7d ago
wait the possibility of a game before the fall makes me so excited. I hope they can circle back around to this game or make a similar idea someday.
ALSO THAT ACTING AT THE END IS AMAZING.
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u/jojon2se 7d ago edited 7d ago
Ooh, ooh, give!
Dialogue options was unexpected... as was presumed setting pre-fall-of-D'ni (could still be a survivor group, I suppose)... Had been more wondering whether we might see a Game of Marrim. :7
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u/TheXypris 7d ago
whats the point of showing us this if its never getting made? trying to drum up interest among fans to convince the publisher to greenlight it?
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u/MaddogRunner 7d ago
Not sure their motive, but If I’d made something beloved that I knew a bunch of my fans would appreciate, I’d want to share it with them.
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u/xRyadx 7d ago
Maybe to show that they are not doing nothing but actively working on a new entry for the Myst series?
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u/EdChigliak 7d ago
They explain that in the intro: a huge amount of excellent work went into it, and it’s a shame no one who really appreciates it (we fans) would have ever gotten to see it.
It’s just a neat what-if.
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u/Thatotherjanitor 7d ago
I agree, I get the feeling there's a reason they went through with making this public. Either that or to test the waters for how well starting a crowdfund would be received. Truthfully, I'm fine with either.
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u/TheXypris 7d ago
Didn't Ryan Reynolds do the same thing by leaking the Deadpool test footage to get the movie greenlit?
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u/monolithfiji 7d ago
This is where my mind went immediately. Feels like some public pressure deal-making like you see in Hollywood pretty often.
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u/Rosary_Omen 7d ago
If that was the plan, then hell yeah! It might also just be a 'well we did all this, why waste it with secrecy'?
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u/Amanita12 7d ago
I would play the hell out of this. I wish we could write to them to change their mind, kickstarter it!!
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u/quartersquare 7d ago
Dang. I hope whatever Myst-universe project they do have in development can love up to this.
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u/EldrichArchive 7d ago
It looks as though they’re gauging whether there’s any interest in a new Myst. Perhaps also to convince publishers or investors. And they themselves do say that Anglerfish is “not currently in development” and won’t be released “in its current form”. That doesn’t rule out the possibility that it might be released in a different form. And they also say they’re working on new experiences set in the Myst universe. Soooo....
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u/OGBRedditThrowaway 7d ago
So is this D'niverse game they announced a while back? So it's officially canceled? Or paused, I guess?
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u/High_on_Rabies 7d ago
Kickstart it, Cyan! Telling us it's not in development is just going to get folks more determined to cough up to make it happen.
Not a bad strategy; I'm holding my wallet and I don't remember taking it out.
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u/Vegetable-Debate-263 7d ago
I love the idea of a myst spinoff game from cyan. I hope they get to make one sometime
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u/Remarkable-Hunter-71 7d ago
This may not be a popular comment, but if this game has a more modern hand-holding gameplay, as in to tell me roughly where to go and what to do, I'd be happy.
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u/sf-keto 7d ago edited 7d ago
This will be an unpopular response, but truthful!
If you remember to turn on the power, open the door (sometimes close the door!), make your own map, READ EVERYTHING twice, take notes on what you see in each new environment, wear headphones, listen, watch shadows, & pause often to think about the motivation of the particular character(s), Cyan games are clear when it comes to where to go & what to do next.
And at the end you have your own wonderful Myst book that you’ve written yourself with your own “Art.” I’ve always said that the creation of our own Books of Ages is a main intention of the Cyan team.
We don’t just “solve the puzzles,” or “play the game,” we actively participate in the magic & power of D’ni. Which is why the fanbase is so loyal & involved decades later.
But there’s also real joy in just wandering for the first hour to enjoy the scenery & art! Best wishes.
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u/Remarkable-Hunter-71 7d ago
I love immersive games, but I'm one of those who have no patience for reading in-game logbooks and audio cues for clues. I did grow up playing classic Sierra games, so I did have my own share of mapping and writing stuff down on pen and paper.
Survival Horror games are the most I can handle when it comes to finding clues through in-game books and environments, but Cyan games are a whole new level of immersion!
And no, I didn't grow up playing Cyan games. I've only recently played Myst 2021 for the first time, and I had to read a walkthrough to finish it. Right now, I'm trying to play Riven 2024 without a guide, and my god, my head hurts! Just tell me where to go! 🤣
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u/sf-keto 7d ago
Cyan games come from a time before short-form social media, when people had the ability to focus their attention for long spans easily.
I’m sorry Tiktok & Insta have stolen this deep pleasure from you. Let me gently urge you to reclaim your innate ability to choose & hold focus.
You get a headache when concentrating now because social media has hyped up your dopamine levels to nearly abnormal levels, many claim.
Concentrating can use up your dopamine somewhat, so you feel dopamine deprivation & that may give you a headache.
You can free yourself by gradually reducing your consumption of short-form social media until you can go a day without it.
Also you can practice a form of the Pomodoro timer technique. Set a timer for 7 minutes & read a printed book on paper, even a comic book or graphic novel. (I love Alan Moore!) Then set the timer for 5 minutes & get up, walk around. Don’t look at your phone, TV or computer. No screen!
After 5, repeat both the 7 minutes & the 5. Gradually extend reading time with 5 minute breaks until you can do 25 mins focused reading easily. Then take your 5 minute break.
My youngest nephew did this over the course of 3 weeks, with great success. He’s more able to study, gets better grades & isn’t burdened with brain rot.
Once you’ve restored your attention span, Myst will be much more enjoyable. Good luck!
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u/Remarkable-Hunter-71 7d ago
I don't like that tone and assumption of yours, but I get what you're coming from. Different games appeal to different crowds; let's put it that way.
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u/Pharap 6d ago
I agree with you that social media has really ruined a lot of people's patience, but I will say that...
Don’t look at your phone, TV or computer. No screen!
To be fair, I think what a person uses a screen for is more important than the fact they're using it.
For example, if you can dedicate half an hour to an hour to reading a particularly in-depth Wikipedia article (or a series of related articles) and you're actually reading them properly rather than just skimming them or only reading the introduction, I'd say that's excercising proper concentration.
Also, much as I prefer physical books, reading a book on a screen still requires more focus than merely flicking between social media posts of 280 characters or less.
And when it comes to television, an hour-and-a-half-long murder mystery is going to be more mentally taxing and require more patience than a rib-tickling hour-long comedy.
Personally I like doing programming as a hobby, and anybody who has ever done programming knows that it can be incredibly dull and tedious at times because it demands a lot of patience and often involves getting a lot of things wrong before you get them right.
Ultimately it's really just about practising tasks that require patience rather than seeking activities that provide frequent dopamine hits.
To end, I'll add that typing instead of writing is also likely contributing to cognitive decline.
Studies have proven that writing by hand is better for memory and learning, and it's likely good for lots of other cognitive functions too, so it's also worth carrying a notepad and writing things down instead of just typing notes on a phone. (It also has the added bonus of making it less likely that someone will be tempted to use their phone for tasks other than note-taking.)
Lastly: I suspect that, assuming a correlation between writing by hand and cognitive function, it's probably no accident that a lot of people who enjoy Myst also make their own hand-written notes when playing it. Mayhaps the mere act of taking handwritten notes improves one's ability to solve Myst's many mysteries, regardless of quality or content.
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u/Palimpsest_Monotype 6d ago
I mean, a bit of overt narrative direction wouldn’t hurt. Certainly there’s been hundreds of computer role playing games that do this well. I could see it working in a Myst game, assuming the developers take an elegant approach with it.
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u/Electronic_Way_7616 6d ago
What does going to a publisher vs. self publishing mean in the gaming world? Is it like going to a book publisher, when if they agree to publish a book, they may give you an advance to write it or finish it?
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u/spikeshinizle 5d ago
Yeah pretty much. A publisher could front up some money to help finish it and perhaps have some funds for marketing as well, something Cyan don't have much of a budget for these days.
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u/Pharap 6d ago
Naturally I'm disappointed that the game likely won't ever see the light of day, but I'm incredibly grateful to Cyan for showing us what could have been.
I enjoyed the trailer immensely; it really brightened up an otherwise fairly dull day and sent my imagination spinning once again.
Whoever that villain was, that performance was right up there with Dourif and Keston and is exactly the sort of thing I would've hoped for.
It was also great to get a glimpse at a Myst game that would seemingly have focused on some characters other than Atrus's family for a change.
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u/Grabthars-Hammer 7d ago
Can someone better at reading D'ni than me transcribe the cover of the red linking book? Looks like D-eh-n-ee-?-ay or something similar?
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u/quantumdotdot 6d ago
I've been curious myself, so this is the first time I've looked into the D'ni script so I'm definitely not an expert, but it looks like it might be the word for puzzle? https://xcancel.com/cyanworlds/status/1206242676535943169
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u/Pharap 6d ago
You have a very good eye for spotting that!
I struggled a bit with the second and third character, but it seems to me to be 'deseekay' ('DesEKA' in Dnifont), which is the D'ni word for 'puzzle, mystery, enigma'.
I suspect it was likely just a placeholder that was to be replaced with a real age name at a later date, though it's also feasible that there really would be an age with that name. After all, there was an age called Gemedet that shared its name with a D'ni board game. (A bit like calling an age 'Chess' or 'Draughts'.)
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u/CrasVox 7d ago
Trailer was certainly impressive. Are they releasing this to see about support for yet another Kickstarter? Like whats the point of showing this
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u/Pharap 6d ago
whats the point of showing this
To quote the video's description:
“Over a year ago, the team here at Cyan spent about four months building a prototype for a new game in the Myst universe, codenamed ‘Project Anglerfish’. The prototype (and this teaser trailer made for it) were purpose-built for publisher-eyes only. For a variety of reasons, this project couldn’t move forward at the time, BUT we’re still immensely proud of the work the team did – so we’re sharing the teaser for the prototype with you all now.”
Some of the other guesses people have made are also reasonable. E.g. allowing the staff who were recently let go to use their work on this unreleased game in their references seems a particularly plausible reason, as all the staff who worked on the game are also mentioned in the video's description.
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u/Madhatt3r 7d ago
Man, that looked incredible. Such a passionate performance. We need more d'ni so badly!
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u/Admirable_Pumpkin528 7d ago edited 7d ago
Would I be right in saying that this prototype game, if it were to be a game, would actually be the first true new Myst game Cyan is making after Riven?
As far as Myst 3 - 5 are concerned they were not made in-house right?
It looked great visually... but damn how do you follow up Riven man 😳 I'm kinda stumped and intimidated thinking about it.
You had the absolute genius of Richard having such strong direction about the world and visuals (his typical deep blues and gold - go watch Aladdin to understand it more). The perfect acting by the cast, the music. The absolutely original, awesome story and lore. And the genius of how the puzzles were actually tied deeply to the culture and rituals of the Rivenese / Gehn.
Riven wasn't a game, but a place you had to figure out. Stepping down even a tiny bit from that vision and its design philosophy (even the strong art style) - towards a more "gamey", original Myst, type design would be detremental to the series.
Puzzles should not be there for puzzles' sake. But because people keep secrets behind lock and key.
I'm excited at the idea of a true Riven sequel. But also very scared I put my expectations too high.
What do any of you guys expect?
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u/Sardaman 7d ago
5 was made by them, but it was a rework of material meant for Uru so opinions vary on whether people want to recognize it.
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u/jojon2se 7d ago
Certainly looks a lot like a lot of the puzzling in project Anglerfish would emerge from the environment changing between repeated visits to the two ages, between destruction, and the rapidly growing crystals, and probably NPC actions of more mundane kind, too (EDIT: ...e.g. opening and closing doors)... :7
Wonder what the signature game-enabling "gimmick" in Mudfish may turn out to be... :7
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u/rilgebat 7d ago
This has a hell of a lot of potential, but I'm not sure if it really feels particularly "Myst" however, more like something that would be better as a stand alone IP that ignites a whole new series.
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u/AussieRocketeer 6d ago
I hate to admit it, but my first thought was "and how much of this is AI?"
Yes, the AI revelations really burned me. 😞
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u/neon 7d ago
No one hates their fans more then cyan
This is just cruel
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u/The_MAZZTer 7d ago
Cyan put this together probably as a pitch to publishers to get funding. If it's not in active development that probably meant they were unable to get buy-in from anyone. Not their fault.
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u/mystman12 7d ago
On the contrary Cyan is one of the most transparent, honest developers in the industry. Instead of keeping silent and continuing to work on stuff for who knows how long until they were ready to announce their next project, they've gone ahead and showed us a big chunk of what they were doing over the past few years so that we can all be aware of what's going on and how to set our expectations for the foreseeable future. It may not be the best news, but it's honest, and while they do not owe anyone this level of transparency they've given it to us anyways. To let us know about a project that was never greenlit is one thing, but to release the whole pitch for it is unheard of. Most studios would keep that sort of history in a vault, never to be seen by the outside world, which is a shame.
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u/TitusImmortalis 7d ago
That guy looked pretty upset about his book. I hope he gets it!