Riven — Insular Trails
Review
Adventure is an old genre, one of the oldest in the book—and in PC games. We go places that few will venture to find and unearth their secrets. We solve enigmas and puzzles; we follow trails and clues. The places themselves speak to us, and the environmental narrative unfolds from this rich mélange of wonder and exploration. Riven is perhaps one of the richest and most challenging of these old school adventure games from the 90s, and it will now endure as a fully 3D remake, following Myst (2021).
Cyan Worlds is the oldest independent studio in the United States, surviving and thriving through several generations and iterations, and it will now find a new generation of players and adventure fans. In 2014, I bought a bundle on GOG with every iteration of Myst and tried to complete them, but found it difficult to navigate the levels. This 3D remake does not make the puzzle gameplay much easier, but the navigation between levels is fluid, and the level design is often astonishing.
Lost in the Myst
The puzzles themselves remain ingenious and compelling, and sometimes almost impossibly difficult to unravel unless you take the time to think hard and deep, decipher the number system, and pay attention to subtle details and hints. Once you do, however, everything makes sense, and all you have to do is follow the implicit logic, connecting the dots between interactions and places across different levels.
What remains frustrating is not knowing when to move on from a level. I kept asking myself: have I been able to do everything I can do in this level at this time? There is no way to know what remains to be done or what can still emerge if you do this or that. And so the player is frequently backtracking through the same level, trying to find a way or a cue to move on to the next one.
HD Pixel Hunt
As I said previously, the biggest improvement in this remake is the navigation in and between levels. The original was made to be functional in its navigation, not optimal, and this made backtracking a nightmare, unless the player memorized every nook and corner. Being able to see the levels and each interaction point more clearly in 3D helps a lot with the navigation, so players can connect the dots.
While the design is solid and consistent in that sense, I found the controls a bit too finicky sometimes. Finding the right spot to activate an interaction can be somewhat complicated sometimes. Pixel hunting has plagued adventure games since the 1970s, and here we are in 2024 still struggling to find the exact spot for the hitbox. Maybe if I look up and walk closer? No? Perhaps if I go around and turn back? And so on…
Linking Worlds
The concept of books as virtual worlds that can be interacted with and explored in first-person perspective has always been Cyan’s strongest selling point since Myst. The plot is somewhat convoluted, but players are not required to understand all the fine points of the backstory. Riven succeeds in dropping the player in medias res in a strange, mystical world and allowing them to explore without handholding.
The 3D cutscenes look decent, but some old school fans might not appreciate the switch from FMV cutscenes to 3D-rendered motion-capture graphics. In many other games with FMV cutscenes, it would be difficult to justify the switch. But it feels seamless for the most part, with a few kinks that players might nitpick. The rendering style may not be entirely photorealistic, but it fits the world of Myst and Riven.
Walking Sim Archetype
I experienced more than a fair share of frame rate dips and uneven performance, with several crashes. The settings offer plenty of customization, and most of it seems to work well, though it seems the game utilizes more resources than it should when idle. But all games could use more optimization in general. Cyan Worlds will be sure to keep patching the game in the following months for a more polished final version.
All great puzzle-adventure games live in the shadow of Myst and Riven: Dear Esther, What Remains of Edith Finch, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, and Return of the Obra Dinn. The mechanics change, the settings and characters change, but the feeling of exploring a unique world with its own rules and unique properties remains. Rather than relying on a dotted line or quest marker to advance the story, Riven trusts the player to explore and connect the dots on their own.
Disclosure: Riven was reviewed on PC with a Steam key provided by the developer over the course of over 10 hours of play time. All screenshots attached were captured during the review process.
Rating: 8.5 / Recommended.
The Good
Challenging puzzles;
Stunning level design;
Excellent art direction;
Compelling worldbuilding;
Clever writing.
The Bad
Uneven performance;
Several crashes;
Poor UI optimization.
Gallery
Riven is available on Steam and GOG. More information is available on the developer’s website.