Obduction, the spiritual successor to Myst, is delayed to August

Obduction, the very Myst-like adventure that's currently in the works at Cyan, is going to take a little bit longer than planned to see the light of day. It was set to come out next week—July 26, to be precise—but today the studio announced that it's been pushed back to August 24. 

Cyan has been working hard to get the game done, Producer Ryan Warzecha said on the Obduction developer blog, and it was close enough to complete that it could have been released on schedule. “But we came to the unanimous decision that if we shipped it was driven mainly by the deadline—not because we were satisfied,” he wrote. “Obduction is a product that we’re very proud of, and we don’t want to let unpolished edges get in the way of an amazing immersive experience.” 

Warzecha said it's actually “a bit of a relief” that the studio decided to take the extra time with the game, even though some people are bound to be disappointed. “We realize that there are a few folks that will think this is just another '20 minute gate delay' of a plane that will never depart. We really do understand the skepticism,” he wrote. “We wish you could be here with us, play Obduction, see how good it is, and how close we are. We think it would change your mind.” 

To clarify, the blog post says Obduction will be out “the week of August 22,” but Cyan said in an email that it will be August 24. Either way it's a letdown, but I've been looking forward to Obduction since the Kickstarter and if it takes an extra month to get it right, then I'm happy to wait.   

In better news (although it's not really “new” at this point), the first track of the Obduction soundtrack, composed by original Myst maestro Robyn Miller, was posted to Soundcloud earlier this month, and it's pretty good. We also got a chance to speak to Myst creator Rand Miller at E3 last month. Enjoy!