Cyan released a teaser for a new Myst game,
Cyan said he spent about four months developing a prototype for the game in 2025, which was “made for the publisher’s eyes only,” as the teaser video stated. “For various reasons, the project couldn’t move forward at this time, but we’re still proud of the team’s work — so we’re sharing a teaser of the prototype with you all now.
Since then, the fortunes of Myst and developer Cyan Worlds have improved significantly. The most recent game in the series, Myst 5: End of Ages, came out in 2005 and was reasonably well received but not a big seller; Cyan, after years of financial struggles, has moved on to games like Myst, including Firmament and Obduction, both of which rely on crowdfunding
Myst was a huge success: it was the best-selling PC video game of all time and helped launch the CD-ROM era, paving the way for new technologies and unprecedented levels of fidelity in gaming. In 1993, Myst was a major breakthrough.
Studio 2025 laid off its staff by “roughly half”, with Justin Wagner of PC Gamer writing that “it’s great to see a historic indie like Cyanworlds so badly hit by the brutal, ongoing contraction of the game industry”. Justin was certainly right about that, but some people are finding it even more fascinating: Over the weekend Cyan released a teaser for a new Myst game, codenamed Project Anglerfish, that looks really good — and then said it’s not in development because, apparently, publishers aren’t interested.
Latest videos fromPC gamer
A Road Not Taken: Project Anglerfish – YouTube
It’s definitely a Myst game alright, though I don’t remember ol’ Atrus being as loud and screechy as the raging long hair here. As a lapsed fan of the series, I think it looks great, and it’s disappointing that this video doesn’t herald a new game but instead just a look at what could be.
At the same time, it’s not difficult to understand why publishers would hesitate to return the mini-trick to a new Myst game. Myst disappeared for a reason, and there’s a growing chasm between the heavy hit of nostalgia delivered by a three-minute video and the reality of playing old-school adventure games with purposefully obscure puzzles. Is Myst’s brand of storytelling really in demand these days?
Stay up-to-date with the hottest stories and best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
What really bothers me is that maybe it could work. A new Myst game might have a small audience (at least compared to, say, Fortnite or Roblox) but it’s also very dedicated and willing to make money as it wants. In other words, it sounds like an ideal candidate for a crowdfunding campaign—yet Cyan isn’t pursuing it. I wonder why that is, because the studio’s previous games, Obstacle and Atmosphere, were both Kickstarter successes, each raising over $1 million.
A new Myst game would almost certainly make even bigger numbers on the weight of the name alone: in 2018, Cyan ran a Kickstarter for it. The 25th Anniversary collection of Myst raised over $2.8 million. People love their Myst, and they want it too.
And who knows? Maybe, after all, they’ll get their Myst. It might be funny, but I find myself wondering if this little showcase is another way to gauge interest ahead of a potential campaign for a new Myst game—a non-teaser that’s actually an actual teaser for a game that’s not in active development. right now, but who can say what will happen in a month? It’s a little contrived, sure, but I like to think of it as more hopeful: you just have to believe, even if it takes some complicated thinking to get there.
