Myst revolutionized PC adventure gaming when the title first came out in 1993. Developed by Cyan, Myst focused on solving puzzles to advance the player’s progression through a strange island world. The game quickly became a best-seller, with critics and consumers alike hailing the game’s premise. Interested in expanding on Myst‘s original ideas for a new era, Cyan decided to create a spiritual successor to the game series for PC. Called Obduction and released in August 2016, the game saw critical success upon launch. Now, after a successful Oculus Rift launch, Cyan also has plans to bring Obduction to PlayStation 4, PlayStation VR and HTC Vive.
Reported by GamesBeat, the publication interviewed Myst creator Rand Miller about Obduction‘s focus on VR experiences. “We’re going all-in on VR,” Miller told the website. “And the PlayStation breaks open our availability as a much broader platform for us.”
Obduction, which was originally released solely for PC, features first-person gameplay to facilitate exploration and interaction with Cyan’s world. The VR move makes perfect sense for this very reason: virtual reality expands upon Obduction‘s adventure gameplay. Not just that, Cyan wants to take full advantage of virtual reality’s features. According to GamesBeat, the developer is also looking into adding hand controls for players to interact with objects.
One of the most exciting aspects of Obduction‘s turn to PSVR is its availability to consumers. HTC Vive and Oculus Rift are notoriously expensive to own, both due to their sheer cost and the hardware specifications needed to assure a PC is suitable for rendering virtual reality environments. But the PlayStation VR is an accessible and affordable alternative for many consumers, especially console users. In other news, Obduction‘s turn to PlayStation 4 allows Cyan to bring Obduction‘s virtual reality experience from a one-note PC gaming novelty to a brand new experience for a variety of console players. Time will tell if that proves to be the case.
