The entire Myst series will be re-released for Windows 10

Published April 10, 2018

Myst holds a special place in the hearts of many. Released in 1993, it was unlike any video game most had seen at the time — and yet, its DNA lingers in countless games released today. It was also the game that made tens of thousands of kids beg their parents for a CD drive.

With the game’s 25th anniversary just months away, Myst has found itself in a place no one could have predicted in ’93: Kickstarter.

The game’s original developers, Cyan, have managed to get the rights to all seven games in the Myst universe, and have turned to Kickstarter to re-release it as one big box set. After launching this morning with a target of raising $247,500 dollars, it’s already smashed through its goal and is currently sitting a bit shy of $500,000.

The games included in the set:

Myst: Masterpiece edition
Riven: The sequel to Myst
Myst 3: Exile
Myst 4: Revelation
Myst 5: End of Ages
Uru: Complete Chronicles
realMyst: Masterpiece (the 3D Myst re-make released in 2000)

$49 gets you digital copies of each game, while $99 gets you DVD copies in a box built to look like a Myst book. Tiers above that include a bunch of real-world goodies, from a recreation of Gehn’s in-game pen/inkwell to original, hand-drawn concept art.

Oh, and they built a friggin’ Linking book, complete with a 800×480 LCD screen that plays video fly-throughs of the game’s environments when the book is opened. (For the unfamiliar: in the Myst universe, “Linking books” transport those that touch the book to a far-off destination.)

They’ve updated the games to work on “modern systems,, but there’s a bit of a good news/bad news situation there. The good news: it’ll work on Windows 10. The bad news: most of the games won’t work on MacOS. That’s a bit of a drag, given that the series started its life on the Mac — but Cyan says getting everything running on the Mac would take resources they “just don’t have.” Cyan notes that while they’ll continue to sell the updated games once the Kickstarter is over, the special box set is a Kickstarter-only deal.

As arstechnica points out, much of the Myst series is already available for Windows 10 — only Myst III and IV had never been updated for compatibility, as the rights were held by a different publisher. But this Kickstarter brings it all together for a whole new generation, with some real-world treats thrown in for the longtime fans.