Myst remake hits PC and Game Pass on August 26

The latest remake of 1990s puzzle-adventure Myst, a game that's already been updated as Myst: Masterpiece Edition (1999) and realMyst: Masterpiece Edition (2014), will be out this month. Just called Myst, the latest version has been reimagined for VR and flatscreen displays by Cyan, the studio whose name was on the original back in 1993.

It's adding "new art, new sound, re-imagined interactions, and even optional puzzle randomization", as well as in-game photo capture and graphics options including ray tracing. While you can play it on a regular monitor, the VR version will have free roam and teleporting movement, and options for smooth-turning or snap-turning, quick travel up stairs and ladders, and supports a variety of headsets: Valve Index, HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, Rift S, and Quest via Oculus Link.

Thanks to its availability on Mac and release right at the beginning of the CD-ROM era, the original Myst enjoyed unbridled success, and was the best-selling PC game around until The Sims knocked it off that perch. It's not universally beloved, however, thanks to some illogical puzzles and a static world of linked images you click to move between. As Richard Cobbett put it, "Myst reinforced the toxic idea that adventures were about puzzles and boredom rather than adventure and fun".

Myst will be available from Steam, GOG, the Epic Games Store, Oculus, Game Pass, and Mac on August 26.

Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.