(Spoiler alert for those who haven't played Myst or Riven.)

The Starry Expanse site is still up, by the way. They're the bunch of ragamuffins who set out years ago to remake Riven themselves since no one else was doing it, showing care and aptitude. But another group of ragamuffins called Cyan Worlds was eventually doing it too, and fortunately for them, they were more likely to get the rights.

I saw a quick official demo of "Map Island" from Mysterium this year. The disclaimers: it would be brief, it was unfinished, just a sneak peek. But, goodness, I was encouraged by it. The brick-foundationed boiler near the coast of a large crater-hugged pond looked and felt exactly like the pre-rendered outlooks from the original. No dolling-up, no weirdness; just a seeming extrapolation to what the already-real-feeling game would have been like if the technology from 1997 had allowed it to feel realer yet.

A recent update from Cyan brought a few screen shots, pre-order pages for online game stores, and a write-up by Adam Morgan for GameInformer.

• GameInformer article

I wound up reading the whole thing, and I recommend any Myst fan prioritize it. Maybe I've been too steeped in online tech and gaming blogs like IGN and The Verge and stopped believing that truly high-quality writing about games, worthy of a magazine-style layout and reminiscent of the days of Nintendo Power, could still exist or deserve readership. This is what I was missing.

The enhanced graphics seem to threaten nothing while leaving no amount of detail to be desired, but the article reveals the accessible world of the game has indeed been changed. In fact, the re-release has gained the explicit subtitle "New Discoveries From The Lost D’ni Empire."

The recent full remake of Myst had a number of noticeable changes to the appearances of the locations and configurations of mechanical equipment. Sincere players will have been wary, having considered the original game to have been a portrayal of "the truth" of the fictional reality. Such alterations were taken as no less than a decision from the fiction-writing gods, the staff of Cyan, to retrogressively "change the truth." More than a little of that from any god and sincere players will take their sincerity elsewhere.

However, I understand those decisions. Some of the changes were to accommodate those playing in virtual reality, such as the replacement of a floor-set switch with a lever protruding a meter from the ground: a comprehensive way to discourage further squatters in the Channelwood Age, so to speak. Other changes contextualize the in-game technology, as some earlier displays and readouts were enabled by the smaller collection of video filters available in the early 1990s, producing renders resembling alien or highly advanced devices. Those were altered to seem more consistent with the resources of those who built them, which I think were informed by subsequent games. All of this can be interpreted as Cyan's godly statement that this is how it "really" was all along. (There's always been a lever.)

Nothing we've seen has indicated such alterations in Riven, but the subtitle and the write-up suggest the game has been appended to; perhaps places the well-explored original game made visible but inaccessible. This must technically be a form of "changing the truth," but seems subtler and more potentially welcomable since it can avoid conflict or contradiction with the established "truth," as did the surprise introduction of the Age of Rime within realMyst, which was so carefully and gracefully included that the recent Myst remake now feels incomplete to lack it.

There is also the question of the characters. The Myst remake's primary weakness was its replacement of integrated video footage with modelled versions of the actors, the response to which may have had inspired them to reintegrate that footage. Though humble in fidelity by comparison to its modern surroundings, it works when the image is grafted onto the pagew of a book, and remains the superior option. However, Atrus, when encountered in person, remains a fully-rendered figure. (I think that's true, isn't it? Even realMyst managed to combine his photographic likeness with a three-dimensional mesh.)

Riven contains a number of people encountered in person, raising the presumable challenge level, but the number one question must be: how do you do Gehn? John Keston's filmed performance is both precious and irreplaceable, but the low resolution and the need for a full three dimensions preclude its reuse. Fortunately, a post-Myst-remake tech demo may have foreshadowed a brighter outcome than the rendered Sirrus and Achenar: the GameInformer write-up speaks of a much more accurately-detailed Gehn and an effort to find the optimal actor to imitate (not reinvent!) the physicality of his monologues. Fewer kinds of undertakings deserve more care and respect, and it's mostly coincidence that Keston is similar enough to Peter Cushing that the two feel like honorary brothers in attempted post-mortem onscreen resurrection. (Admirable as the attempt was, I hope Keston's recreation is the more successful one.)

In this futuristic era we now inhabit where it seems impossible for a group to remake any TV show, film or game without succumbing to the delusion that some random artistic veer is somehow necessary, the ability to trust a creative group simply to be faithful to its own work is a form of profound reassurance. So, bonne chance, Cyan. "We're all rooting for you" feels like something I can say confidently.