PlayStation<br />Saturn<br />Pocket PC <br />iOS<br />Android
| genre = Graphic adventure
| modes = Single-player
Riven: The Sequel to Myst is a 1997 adventure game developed by Cyan Productions and published by Red Orb Entertainment for Mac OS and Microsoft Windows. It is the sequel to 1993's Myst, and the second installment of the Myst series. The game's story is set after the events of its predecessor; having rescued Atrus, who had been trapped by his sons, the player character is enlisted by him to free his wife from his power-hungry father, Gehn. Riven takes place almost entirely on the Age of Riven, a world slowly falling apart due to Gehn's destructive rule.
Development of Riven began soon after Myst became a success, and spanned more than three years. In an effort to create a visual style distinct from that of Myst, director Robyn Miller and his brother, producer Rand Miller, recruited production designer Richard Vander Wende as a co-director. Broderbund employed a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign to publicize the game's release. Riven received ports to the PlayStation, Sega Saturn, Pocket PC, iOS and Android.
Riven was praised by reviewers, with the magazine Salon proclaiming that the game approaches the level of art. Critics positively noted the puzzles and immersive experience of the gameplay, though publications such as Edge felt that the nature of point-and-click gameplay limited the title heavily. The best-selling game of 1997, Riven sold 1.5 million copies in one year. After the game's release, Robyn Miller left Cyan to form his own development studio, ending the professional partnership of the two brothers. Rand stayed at Cyan and continued to work on Myst-related products including The Myst Reader and the real-time rendered game Uru: Ages Beyond Myst. The next entry in the Myst series, Myst III: Exile, was developed by Presto Studios and published by Ubisoft. A remake of the game, recreating the world in fully explorable 3D and supporting both flatscreen and virtual reality modes, was released in June 2024.
Gameplay
thumb|left|A screenshot of Riven, showing the prison island where the [[non-player character Catherine is held captive]]
Like its predecessor, Riven is a point and click adventure game played from a first-person perspective. The player explores immersive environments depicted through a large series of computer generated stills using mouse clicks for movement or to manipulate objects within reach. By operating mechanical contraptions and deciphering codes and symbols discovered in the surroundings, the vaguely explained goal can eventually be reached.
To navigate the world, the player clicks in the direction they want to walk or turn. The cursor changes in appearance, depending on its position on the screen and what it is hovering over, to show what effect clicking will have. Such items can then be examined at any time, Atrus needs the player's help to free his wife, Catherine, who is held hostage in her home Age of Riven, which is slowly collapsing. Her captor is Gehn, Atrus' manipulative father and self-declared ruler of Riven. Thirty years earlier, Atrus and Catherine trapped Gehn on Riven by removing all of the linking books that led out of the Age. The final book they escaped from Riven with, leading to the Age of Myst, fell into the Star Fissure, a rift leading out of the damaged Age of Riven into a mysterious, space-like void. The linking book was not destroyed but was instead found by the player, leading to the events of Myst. Catherine was later tricked into returning to Riven by her sons, Sirrus and Achenar, whereupon she was taken hostage by Gehn. With the instructions of trapping Gehn, freeing Catherine, and signaling Atrus, the player links to Riven.
Once there, the player travels across the islands of Riven, encountering Catherine, Gehn, and the Moeity, rebels fighting against Gehn's rule. Because of the decay of Riven's structure, the only way to clearly signal Atrus is to further destabilize the Age—accomplished by reopening the Star Fissure, which Gehn had closed. When it is opened, Atrus links to Riven to investigate, and meets the player at the brink of the fissure. Depending on the player's actions, the ending to Riven varies. In the best (and canonical) ending, the player tricks Gehn into the prison book and releases Catherine, who helps the Rivenese people evacuate to another Age. Atrus and Catherine thank the player before linking back to Myst. The player then falls into the Star Fissure to be taken back to their world. The worst ending involves signaling Atrus without either capturing Gehn or releasing Catherine, which allows Gehn to kill Atrus and the player, then take Atrus's linking book to Myst, leaving the Rivenese people to die in the rapidly collapsing Age as he escapes. Other endings include capturing Gehn without saving Catherine, being trapped in the prison book, or being killed by Gehn after angering him.
Development
thumb|right|[[Taos Pueblo, a Native American settlement near Santa Fe. The artists spent a day at a pueblo in Santa Fe, gathering textures for the game.]]
Cyan Productions began work on Riven in 1993, after Mysts release. Before development began, when the name of the game was undecided, the brothers Robyn and Rand Miller said they wanted a "natural flow" from the first game to the sequel. As Myst proved to be a popular and commercial success, the two developers were able to expand their four-person team to a much larger crew of designers, artists, programmers, and sound designers. Development spanned more than four years, and was a much larger undertaking than for the first game;
The design for Riven stemmed from a desire to create something different and more dynamic than the romantic style of Myst. At an early point, the game's world was to be called Equiquay. The first stage of development was to create the puzzles, in an attempt to integrate them as smoothly as possible into the areas in the game. The Millers met their co-designer, Richard Vander Wende, at a demonstration of Myst for the Digital World Expo in Los Angeles. As the third member of Rivens conceptual team, Vander Wende ended up contributing what Robyn Miller described as an "edgier" and complementary vision, that made the game dramatically different from its predecessor. The large island objects were broken apart to facilitate efficient rendering, which required them to be created using polygonal geometry. In total Riven has over three hours of video Whereas the music to Myst was, at first, only available by mail-order from Cyan, Virgin Records had bought the rights to release it initially, prompting Miller to make sure that it could stand alone in CD form. The compact disc was released on February 24, 1998, with 54 minutes of music.
Miller established three leitmotifs for the game's three central characters, Atrus, Catherine, and Gehn. Gehn's theme is only heard in its complete form near the end of the game, but portions of the melody can be heard throughout Riven, highlighting his control of the Age. Miller tried to let the environment dictate the resulting sound in order to make the music as immersive as possible. While Rivens sales were expected to be higher than any other game that holiday season, Broderbund launched a multimillion marketing campaign and developed a retail marketing partnership with Toshiba America. Anticipation for the game was high even among non-gamers, helped by web-based word of mouth and well-placed media coverage.
Sunsoft, who previously developed and published Myst for the Sega Saturn, were initially set to publish the Saturn version of Riven in PAL regions, but the rights were later picked up by Acclaim Entertainment. A potential conversion of Riven to the Atari Jaguar never materialized.
The game initially shipped on five compact discs. A version of the game that shipped on a single digital video disc was released in 1998.
PC Data reported it as the best-selling computer game in the United States during 1997, despite its having only been on the market for less than three months. By April, Riven had sold over 1 million units and earned $46.2 million in revenue domestically, which led PC Data to declare it the fifth-best-selling computer game in the United States between January 1993 and April 1998. Sales surpassed 1.5 million units within a year of its release. Acclaim Entertainment cited Riven as one of their best-selling PlayStation releases up to that time.