MMO veterans probably recall that ages ago Myst Online: Uru Live brought the Myst franchise fully into the MMO space in the mid-aughts, as developer Cyan Worlds put the game online in multiple incarnations attempting to find its audience, even open-sourcing parts of the project a decade ago in order to keep it all going. (If you missed all that, make sure to read our own Game Archaeologist’s recap of the game!)
In any case, this past weekend, Cyan Worlds announced that it was going to open-source even more of the game’s assets, this time releasing it directly to the public with an NDA.
Myst community site Guild of Messengers called it a “surprise move,” saying that the bundle contains “design documents, textures, audio, and 3D models for ages and Cavern areas,” including pre-2000 goodies and stuff that was planned for expansion areas. Though the site warns many of the assets are genuine antiques and that gamers shouldn’t expect too much, player developers are already hard at work sorting everything and make it accessible for future devs.
In case you’re wondering how to play, you can do that right now already, either on the remaining MOULa server or the fan-run servers, and it’s free-to-play to boot. And not too shabby-looking even in 2021, if we do say so ourselves.
