History of Myst

The legacy lives on. With the latest Myst game - URU: Ages Beyond Myst - out shortly we thought we'd take a stroll down memory lane and find out the history of Myst.

How do you build on the legacy of a best-selling franchise 12 million gamers have bought and played?

If you're Cyan Worlds and Ubi Soft, the answer is clear. You extend the legacy of Myst by digging deeper, amplifying the original groundbreaking experience with contemporary graphics, game design and more of the same immersive non-violent gameplay that hooked gamers ten years ago.

10 Years Ago...

In early 1993, the public flocked to see Jurassic Park, The Fugitive and Schindler's List. Alternative music fans snapped up copies of In utero, Nirvana's third and final studio album. Hip-hop fans revelled in Cypress Hill's Black Sunday while House of Pain and Suede topped charts devoid of Spice Girl and Boyzone pop influence. Man Utd began it's dominance of English football in May 1993 by recording its first premiership title for 26 years, while Swindon kicked off a 1993-4 season that would see them ship 100 goals.

In Africa, twenty-two U.S. soldiers died in Somalia, while in Waco, Texas, federal agents stormed David Koresh's Branch Davidian headquarters as 72 cultists perished. Eric Bin and future Netscape prodigy Marc Andreesen made the planet a little smaller and personal computing a lot more popular with the release of Mosaic, the world's first widely popular Internet web browser.

Meanwhile in a converted garage in Spokane, Washington, a nine-man team led by visionaries Rand and Robyn Miller were hard at work crafting Myst, a gorgeous abstract CD-ROM adventure that defied the logic of conventional gaming, seizing gamers imaginations and going on to become one of the most important and influential games in the history of digital entertainment.

Rand and his design team at Cyan Worlds wondered whether or not Myst would even be moderately successful. "We made a conscious effort to take the idea of building unique worlds, add a purpose and make a story that would appeal to an older audience." Rand Miller, CEO of Cyan Worlds, fondly recalls the purity of their pursuit. "But honestly, we were making Myst for ourselves - we had no idea whether it would succeed or not."