So if you can save $30 via Game Pass, you should do that.īeyond the visuals, there's the question of whether this is a better gaming option for anyone new to the meandering, puzzle-solving island pastiche. On a features basis, at least in terms of flat-screen gaming, you're getting practically the exact same experience. Sorry, PlayStation and Switch fans.) Advertisement (The console version is currently Xbox exclusive. In particular, you'll see less grass and foliage on a base Xbox One, with the results looking more like the wimpy Oculus Quest version. Both Xbox One versions drop to 30 fps, lower resolutions, and reduced graphics sliders. Performance and image quality are quite sharp on Series X/S, with most of the game's PC effects toggles enabled and a frame rate that seems to stick to 60 fps. Should you have an Xbox console (as low as the base Xbox One or as new as Xbox Series X) and Game Pass, I'd argue that's the best way to dive back into the game in 2D, at least if you're already paying for Game Pass. If you're asking me to pick a favorite version of Myst, the grainy original is still my favorite, but I'd probably rather play this year's model. Plus, quite honestly, neither version of realMyst holds up particularly well in 2021, especially in terms of 3D translations of natural world elements. The crucial stuff looks identical or mighty familiar compared to the original game, and major island and underground arrangements are nearly identical in terms of physical walking distance.

The results show the team's willingness to reimagine various architectural touches or natural rock, forest, and water formations. When reviewing each version of the game side-by-side, you can see Cyan applying a different philosophy to how its dated 1994 CGI should be brought forward into a new computing generation. For the most part, the results are quite handsome, whether thanks to more bespoke foliage and trees, improved texture quality and object variety, or (most impressively) more realistic and grounded lighting that emulates material-based bounces, even without ray tracing enabled. Meanwhile, the game's original geometry has been overhauled-now for the third time, after two versions of realMyst and this time inside Unreal Engine 4. AdvertisementĪ few changes to the original game remain since its first realMyst touch-up. Mercifully, players won't have to rewind their brain to the unfamiliar universe of mid-'90s CD-ROMs, but the heart of each puzzle remains intact. In general, I prefer the new touch-ups, in part because I imagined an entirely unfamiliar player trying Myst for the first time and having more obvious, mechanical items to click and manipulate. Once touched, the mechanical switch animates with a chunky sound effect. Instead of clicking in the center of a painting to activate a door, for example, you now have to aim at a mechanical switch next to the painting. I always appreciated that option to split the difference between the old and the new.Ī few of the game's switches and machines have been touched up to account for either VR compatibility or the shift to modern controls, too. I'm honestly peeved that the latter has been removed for non-VR players. There's no menu toggle to revert to the original game's slideshow style-nor the realMyst 2000 edition's 'node-by-node' smooth walks between the original game's frozen moments. This is now a real-time, first-person game, modeled after the controls you'd find in a shooter on PC or consoles. For one, players can no longer expect the original game's Hypercard-based point-and-click system. Further Reading 30-plus years of HyperCard, the missing link to the WebBut this journey isn't identical to the original.

Myst series