Cyan’s Quiet Send-Off for Project Anglerfish Previews a Myst Sequel That Could Have Been

Cyan Worlds just opened a door that will stay shut. On their YouTube channel the studio posted a short video titled “A path not taken: Project Anglerfish.” Development director Hannah Gamiel and creative director Eric A. Anderson appear first with a clear warning. Everything that follows is not in active development and will never ship in the form shown.

Over a year earlier, the team spent around 4 months developing a prototype that immersed gamers directly into the world of Myst. This small teaser was all about persuading potential publishers to embark on the project, but finance concerns put everything on hold. To avoid simply shelving the work, Cyan decided to offer it as a sort of public farewell. Their CEO, Anderson, says the studio is already working on additional new experiences set in the same universe, with all the juicy details to come when they’re ready.

The prototype uses the Unreal Engine, which also powers the recent Myst and Riven remakes, and the character animation is particularly impressive. House of Moves did the vast majority of the motion capture work. Noshir Dalal is in charge of bringing this ‘Guildsman’ to life, under the supervision of Kal-El Bogdanove. The soundtrack was handled by Maclaine Diemer, while the full roster of Cyan artists, designers, and engineers contributed to the creation of this small playable clip.


You’re dropped right into a magnificent mansion. Some posh gent in a green cardigan meets you as ‘Guildsman’, a smooth-talking fellow who is calm and measured, but he needs some assistance finding a very specific book. He tells you that the book must remain closed for everyone’s safety, yadda, yadda, but what really bothers him is that he needs to trust you while admitting that the plan they’re on is fraught with danger. The real clincher is that he wants you to explore every available path before giving up and returning empty-handed. The entire time, you’re surrounded by the iconic Myst architecture that we all love: crisp lines, spotlit interiors, distant views, and that wonderful, unnerving crystal instability that has been a characteristic of the Ages since the original game.


As you begin to explore, you will be traveling away from the mansion and down some subterranean passageways, into some hidden crannies, while the traditional Cyan puzzles appear: objects to investigate, paths to test, and basically quiet, reasoned environmental logic. You eventually become tied into one of those Myst Age worlds, where you discover that the book you were hunting for is simply one of those world-creating, world-destroying tomes that we’ve all come to know and love since 1993. The environs begin to transform as well; what was once elegant and organized becomes destroyed and scary – objects break, and odd growths emerge. Some early coverage described them as tentacle-like.


Project Anglerfish would have been the first brand-new (as opposed to a remake) Myst entry since Myst V: End of Ages in 2005. The remakes of Myst 1 and Myst 2 dragged the games into the present day with great visuals and VR compatibility, but they left the rest of the timeline unchanged. This prototype was an opportunity to do things differently, a darker, more character-driven approach with a single, demanding person driving the narrative forward from the start. The language plays a larger role than it did in previous games, which were primarily about silent exploration. The overall tone shifts from courteous invitation to blatant menace, but the essential Myst mechanics remain intact: linking books, careful observation, and so on.