Riven review

Atrus. Linking books. Ages. A big cardboard box illustrated with an imposing sphere-like structure, filled with CDs to install. Weird, weird, puzzles. Riven, like its equally famous prequel Myst, is one of those games that made such a splash back in the '90s that it feels a little familiar—a little revered, even—to just about everyone of a (my) certain age. A true classic, known even to those who never had any intention of playing it.

What is it? A classic puzzle adventure, expertly updated
Release date: 25 Jun, 2024
Expect to pay:
Developer: Cyan Worlds Inc
Publisher: Cyan Worlds Inc
Reviewed on: Intel Core i7-7700HQ, GTX 1070, 16GB RAM
Multiplayer: No
Steam Deck: Unsupported
Link: Steam 

Going back to the original in the cold light of 2024 is hard: it's a 640x480 flipbook of a game, much of its original multi-disc awe and wonder lost to time. This remake brings all of the ancient magic back in an instant.

At the risk of stating the obvious: this is Riven, but in 3D. And I don't just mean the old environments, polished domes, and worn machinery are all still there. This is the most successful, spiritually accurate real-time recreation of that unmistakable pre-rendered '90s CG style I've ever seen. Everything's slightly unreal. The sky's almost too blue, the outdoor sun is always just a bit too bright, and interior lights have an attractive yet artificial pre-baked quality to their illumination. Rocky textures are sharp and intricate but never quite photorealistic. Foliage is too detailed yet naively simplistic all at once, giant single blades of green erupting from the dirt.

It's beautiful. Stylish. Timeless. Being able to casually walk around environments that once took professional workstations hours to render from a single angle at much lower detail levels almost feels disrespectful to history, yet it immediately makes for a better adventure.

Somehow Riven still manages to look amazing even on relatively lowly modern hardware. Due to the unexpected and catastrophic