Uru: Ages Beyond Myst
A Myst game set in the modern era with customizable avatars.
Uru: Ages Beyond Myst, the fourth game in the Myst series, was developed by Cyan Worlds and released by Ubisoft in 2003. Unlike earlier games, it is set in the present day and lets players customize their avatars. Though it later gained a devoted fanbase, the game was a commercial and critical failure for Cyan, leading to financial hardship for the studio.
Quick Facts
- Developer
- Cyan Worlds
- Publisher
- Ubisoft
- Composer
- Tim Larkin
- Series
- Myst
- Engine
- Plasma 2.0; Havok
- Platforms
- Windows
- Released
- November 11, 2003 (NA); November 14, 2003 (EU)
- Genre
- Adventure
- puzzle
- massively multiplayer online game
Facts from the source article.
Gameplay
Uru: Ages Beyond Myst is a puzzle-adventure game set in worlds called Ages. Gameplay can be viewed from first- and third-person perspectives, a departure from other Myst titles. Players navigate Ages from the third-person perspective but can switch to first-person for closer inspection of clues and objects. Players cannot pick up objects or carry an inventory; puzzle items must be pushed or kicked into place. The onscreen interface is minimal, with no health meters, maps, or compasses. Players create their own avatars at the start, choosing skin tones, facial features, clothing, and hairstyles. Each player receives a special linking book that serves as a portal to a personal Age called Relto. The main objective is to explore and restore power to other Ages, and to find seven journey cloths that act as save points; characters are transported to the last cloth touched when restarting. Player characters cannot die; falling off a cliff sends them back to Relto. Relto serves as a hub containing linking books to explored Ages, avatar customization options, and game information. Players uncover clues about the D'ni civilization and the D'ni Restoration Council, learning about D'ni social structure, marriage, and how Ages came about. Relto pages can be collected to add cosmetic customization to the personal Age, such as rain or a waterfall.
Plot
The story of Uru is set long after the events of Myst IV: Revelation. For the first time in the series, the plot blends a fictional secondary world with real-world locations. In this history, explorers in the 1980s discovered a hidden cave system near a volcano in New Mexico. Inside, they found an abandoned city built by the D'ni, a vanished civilization. The D'ni possessed the Art, a skill that let them write descriptions of other worlds. These writings became linking books, which acted as portals to those worlds, called Ages. The entire D'ni society disappeared two hundred years ago, shortly after a single human made contact. According to the game, the real-world Myst video game was created when the archaeological leaders asked the studio Cyan to produce a game that would teach the public about the D'ni. Today, a group called the D'ni Restoration Council has reopened the passages to the caverns and begun rebuilding. Players start near the Cleft in New Mexico, where a man named Zandi encourages them to explore. They soon find a hologram of a woman named Yeesha, who recounts the D'ni story and asks for help restoring their civilization.
Development
Cyan Worlds began development on its next project after finishing 1997's Riven, the sequel to Myst. The game that became Uru took more than five years and $12 million to complete. It was codenamed DIRT, then MUDPIE, before being officially announced as Myst Online and renamed Uru in early 2003. Myst co-creator Rand Miller stated that Uru was a revolutionary adventure game that took the best qualities of the Myst franchise and made them better, with a single-player experience that would eclipse previous titles and an optional online universe that never ended. Miller considered Uru a major departure from Myst and Riven because Cyan wanted to create a persistent world where actions occurred while the player was offline. He did not consider it a true massively multiplayer online game, as there was no leveling, skills, monsters, or experience points; the leveling was finding and exploring new Ages released regularly, and the experience was what players learned while exploring. Miller saw two benefits: players would care more about being part of the story, and new players could make discoveries and be part of the community. The game was designed as more of a spin-off than a sequel, merging contemporary items like traffic cones and T-shirts with fantastic elements like linking books.
Reception
Critics generally liked Uru: Ages Beyond Myst, but not as much as earlier Myst games. It earned average scores of 79 out of 100 on Metacritic and 76.19 percent on GameRankings. Reviewers often praised how the game differed from previous Myst titles; Game Informer’s Lisa Mason said it successfully updated the adventure genre. The graphics and music received high marks, with GameZone describing the D’ni world as beautifully rendered and brilliantly designed. Newspapers noted the game offered a welcome break from violent contemporary games. However, the third-person controls and the addition of instant death from falls were poorly received. Computer Gaming World’s Denise Cook called the third-person option “choked” and “quirky,” and found slipping off rocks, falling into lava, and plummeting into canyons annoying additions to the previously stress-free Myst formula. GameSpy’s Carla Harker said several puzzles were extremely difficult because the control scheme “never becomes intuitive.” Cook and Robert Coffey of Computer Gaming World considered the single-player story minimal and forgettable. A major point of criticism was that the game shipped without its promised multiplayer component. GameSpot’s Andrew Park questioned why the online mode was only open to select players after beta testing. GameSpy was disappointed that a feature advertised on the box and in the manual was missing. Reviewer Bob Mandel found it most disappointing that as players progressed, they encountered tantalizing clues about places and activities available only through the promised online mode.
Frequently Asked Questions
What platforms is Uru: Ages Beyond Myst available on?
Uru: Ages Beyond Myst was released for Windows.
Who composed the music for Uru: Ages Beyond Myst?
The music for Uru: Ages Beyond Myst was composed by Tim Larkin.
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