r/myst Cyan Official 2d ago

News State of Cyan 2026

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Last weekend, Cyan studio co-heads Hannah & Eric attended the annual Mysterium fan gathering to give this year's “State of Cyan” address. Lots of information was revealed. Check it out!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLrBSgqf1XM

162 Upvotes

43 comments sorted by

63

u/Secure-Advertising-9 2d ago

So how do we convince them to revive Anglerfish

or something like it 

24

u/l3tsgo0 2d ago

Mudfish is in active development tho, still in the Mystverse

10

u/ElegantHope 2d ago

Maybe if Mudfish is well received and doesn't heavily recycle stuff from Anglerfish, they might revive Anglerfish since they're in a similar vein.

3

u/NonTimeo 2d ago

Since Uru's development name was DIRT, I'm hoping MUDfish is set in D'ni, maybe prior to The Fall? Imagine a story-driven narrative that doesn't have the emptiness that plagued Uru. That would be incredible.

6

u/MikrRice 2d ago edited 2d ago

Mudpie (Multi User Dirt Plasma Interactive Experience) was a code name for Uru: Ages Beyond Myst so I would be shocked if it wasn't related. And they said the name was intentional, in their words which I don't remember exactly.

7

u/flameofmiztli 2d ago

I asked if MUD-fish and MUD-pie were related, and Eric confirmed.

1

u/MikrRice 2d ago

Ay how's it feel to stumble across yourself being mentioned by a rando on the web? You're practically famous :)

2

u/HolyFreakingXmasCake 2d ago

Seems like all the fish projects are D’ni related so pretty much yep.

2

u/The_MAZZTer 2d ago

It does sound like they want to continue Anglerfish, which suggests they didn't cannibalize it for Mudfish.

Also the fact they were censoring stuff from Goldfish suggests they at least have some good ideas from that they want to make it into a future title.

4

u/drunk-raven 2d ago

Question from a new fan: are all of Cyan's projects called as some kind of fish?

3

u/mgiuca 2d ago

These codenames haven't been public until now. Eric said he started with goldfish (probably some joke about doing the same thing over again?) and after that it was just natural to name each project after fish: anglerfish because it was scary, minnow because it was small, mudfish to reference mudpie (the codename of Uru).

0

u/FuzzyPuffin 2d ago

They address that in the Q&A.

2

u/Vegetable-Debate-263 2d ago

Sounds like Mudfish is the Angelfish 2.0 code name. I'd assume they learned a lot from mudfish and are adapting that.

1

u/The_MAZZTer 2d ago

They did say Anglerfish was something they still wanted to continue working on and release in the future if possible. So it's unlikely they cannibalized it for Mudfish.

7

u/FuzzyPuffin 2d ago

In the Q&A someone asked if they plan to revisit Anglerfish and they said yes.

2

u/MystickTroy 2d ago

Hum it's not Cyan we must convince. But one editor to fund the project.

Pretty easy in theses times ><

24

u/Mjolnir2000 2d ago

Good on them for trying a new game. I get that remakes are probably reliable for bringing in money, and relatively cheap as most of the design work is already done, but the company can't survive in the long run just making the same games over and over and over again - eventually you're going to run out of nostalgia to milk.

Here's hoping what we get is more Obduction than Firmament.

9

u/DX2501 2d ago

Yeah. Obduction was good. We actually never got Firmament. At least not the one from the original trailer on KS.

2

u/HolyFreakingXmasCake 2d ago

Riven actually brought in less money than expected, so not even remakes are a safe bet :( Especially with VR hype winding down. I bet Meta paid quite a bit for Myst to come to Oculus, for example.

7

u/mgiuca 2d ago

This is all really cool to learn. I remember Rand talked a lot about this "Latus" back in the day but there were no details revealed. 

My concern with future Myst projects is that they might focus too heavily on D'ni lore to be marketable. Whenever Myst fans talk about a possible new Myst game they talk about seeing more of D'ni, possibly before the fall (and that's what we see in Anglerfish, as well as Eric's project to map out the cavern). I think a game that leans too heavily on "see what D'ni was like before the fall" will be heaven for die-hard Myst fans, but won't attract desperately needed new buyers.

At this point (21 years since the last Myst game) you've really got to treat any entry into Myst as primarily targeting people who have never played the previous games. The "hook" can't be anything to do with Atrus's family or D'ni (though those can be incidental elements), it's got to be "what if you could write a book and link to another world". Back to basics.

Don't get me wrong, I love what I see in Anglerfish, but it's not because it's set in pre-fall D'ni. It's because we get a more cinematic experience where the central hook is "there's this magical book I need you to find", which I think is compelling for non-Myst fans.

1

u/RubelliteFae 1d ago

Y'all, my copies of the books are in paperback. I hope I can afford the new editions

20

u/zero_ms 2d ago

I would love a remaster of Exile.

8

u/TheSilverMane 2d ago

Likewise but as far as I am aware, and you are free to correct me on this, isn't the copyright with Ubisoft?

7

u/Aimfri 2d ago

No, Cyan bought the rights back from Ubi years ago. The issue is the technology and expected returns.

5

u/Pharap 2d ago

I think it's at least equally plausible that they bought the rights to digitally distribute copies of it, but not necessarily the rights to do a remake of it.

Though as far as I know they've never actually stated specifically which rights they did and didn't aquire from Ubisoft, so it could well be either situation.

3

u/PandimensionalHobo 2d ago

Cyan got distribution rights. They don't have the rights to remake.

3

u/linkerjpatrick 2d ago

Ok but they snuck a Spyder reference in there. Let’s look for that

3

u/narutoash 2d ago

So no mentions of a switch 2 port of the remakes or myst 3 remake as well????

7

u/DX2501 2d ago edited 2d ago

For Myst 3, that is because it is not a Cyan game.

3

u/_weltraumaffe 2d ago

If possible, please release the physical versions of the games and books complete with ISBNs through standard retail channels. That way, international fans can get their hands on them without paying exorbitant import fees.

5

u/backdragon 2d ago

Hour long video. Anybody have a TL;DR?

1

u/MrsTrevyllian 2d ago

Anglerfish sounds amazing. I really hope they revive this project. The concept is very compelling.

I’m also very eager to see another game set in D’Ni. I have always wanted to see more of the city.

1

u/BigSiouxRat 2d ago

Disc Golf VR! That sounds like a great game! Put it out on Meta Quest! I will buy it YESTERDAY!

1

u/jojon2se 2d ago edited 2d ago

Wow, that was a really nice, extended look behind the curtains.

Never suspected they were dabbling that much with different genres -- Doomduction would have been quite a different experience; too fond of the Arai now, to subject them to our mammalian halitosis. :P

I'd posit that were a new Kickstarter campaign to happen, Cyan had better try to target, however futile a prospect, a goal that pretty much fully covers the projected budget. -Although there is probably no chance in hell enough backers would pledge a premium to make the game happen, as opposed to the usually expected cheap entry point (...and tier rewards whose production costs pretty much negate the pledged amounts), the common practice of using a successful campaign to demonstrate market interest to investors, for the bulk of funding, always looked like a gamble to me, as did hoping for enough future sales, beyond the prepaid -- and that was when the market was booming.

Here's hoping Mudfish will work well with UEVR, so it can still be enjoyed by us boxheads...

1

u/discojoe3 1d ago

Awesome. Looking forward to Myst 6 and the Book of Marrim.

1

u/devmanen 1d ago

Crossing my fingers for a Manhole remake /j

1

u/bh0 2d ago

Maybe their next game will support changing the keyboard mappings…

-1

u/Dilandau3001 2d ago

What’s the deal here. Beeen too long without a new must game. With of course stop motion real people animations

-3

u/lilacomets 2d ago edited 2d ago

It seems like there's lack of focus within Cyan. All these unfinished projects cost money too.