2018 marks the 25th anniversary of the great point-and-click adventure Myst, and to celebrate the big birthday Cyan announced last month that updated versions of all the games in the series would be released later this year. Today the studio launched a Kickstarter to support that effort, with details on what's coming—seven games instead of five, for one thing—and how they're being updated.
Myst, Riven, and Myst 5: End of Ages are readily available on Steam and GOG, but Myst 3 and 4—Exile and Revelation—for some reason are not. Cyan said in the Kickstarter pitch that it's been working for awhile now to gain the rights to release all of them, and it's "finally managed to talk with all the right people in all the right places to garner funds to make it happen."
The 25th Anniversary Collection will include Myst Masterpiece Edition, Riven, Exile, Revelation, and End of Ages, plus Uru: Complete Chronicles and RealMyst: Masterpiece Edition, all of them updated (with assistance from GOG) to run on Windows 10. They are not being remastered, however, so as gorgeous as they were when they were new (and they really were beautiful games), they're going to look pretty dated now, particularly Myst and Riven.
Kickstarter reward tiers start at $49 for digital versions of all the Myst games, and climb from there through a number of boxed collector editions with various sorts of physical goodies. The goal is $247,500, and there's a reason it's such an oddly-specific amount. "To deliver a high-quality Myst collector’s edition at a reasonable price, we need to have a minimum number of orders," the studio explained. "Based on quotes for the design, tooling and manufacturing, we've calculated that we need at least 2,500 orders at the $99 tier or above (2,500 * $99 = $247,500) to achieve the bare minimum and move forward."
The updated games will be available for purchase digitally separate from the Kickstarter, so you'll be able to pick them up even if you don't back the campaign. And while full remasters aren't going to happen, it's possible that they could get a little facelift.
"Changes in the products are first and foremost compatibility with Windows 10. Beyond that, we are hoping to fix little bugs here and there," a studio rep explained. "Lastly, we are hoping (but definitely not certain) that we will be improving the look a bit here and there on certain products, but original Myst is a long-shot because of the logistics. As we get a feeling for how much funding the Kickstarter provides we'll be able to provide more specifics in updates."
The Myst 25th Anniversary Kickstarter campaign runs until May 24 and is already more than halfway to its goal.
