Riven | PC Review

Masterpiece is a term that gets thrown around a lot lately. It would seem that every month a new masterpiece is released. I feel that this cheapens the word. Historically, a masterpiece is “a piece of work by a craftsman accepted as qualification for membership of a guild as an acknowledged master.” The modern meaning is “a skillful or impressive example of something”. In 1993, a game was released that for many in the video game industry would be the definition of a masterpiece; a game so beautiful, so new, so bold that it would even be an instant masterpiece: Myst. 

Myst

Myst was an adventure game like no one had seen before. Its graphics were so good that it would sell PCs and made the transition to CD-roms a lot smoother and quicker. This game had to be seen to be believed. Myst was so successful that in 2000 it became the best sold game of all time, with over 6 million copies. This record lasted until it was broken by Sims 2, two years later. With success this big, it’s no surprise that the game got a sequel: Riven.

Sequel

Riven was released in 1997 and came on a whopping 5 CD-roms. Today, where an average patch is more than a gigabyte, this might not be that spectacular, but twenty-seven years ago, that was insanely big. Like its predecessor, Riven used FMV sequences to tell the story and boasted a lot of puzzles to keep the gamer satisfied and puzzling for hours and hours. To no one’s surprise, Riven also became a massive hit, selling 1.5 million copies in its first year of release, as well as getting great reviews from critics and players. And this year, in 2024, we get to experience it again.

Remake

Cyan Worlds took it upon themselves to reintroduce the world to Riven by completely remaking the classic adventure game from the ground up. They recreated the entire world in Unreal Engine in 3D, and replaced the FMV characters with 3D models. They even added more puzzles, so if you played the original Riven, then the game still has several surprises up its sleeve. This all culminates in a new experience that manages to recapture the feeling of the classic game, but also manages to bring it into the 21st century. 

Present

When Myst was released, and later Riven, I was a teenager. I was also already a red-blooded, hardcore, experienced adventure gamer who had visited many, many worlds and finished a lot of them. I did not care for these games. They were gorgeous, but I just could not handle all the puzzles and barely any interactions. The games did not grasp me, and I found all the puzzles too difficult. I have remained a non-fan of this genre of adventure games ever since. 

However, as we are now almost thirty years since those first experiences, I was curious if I gave the game a proper shot at the time, and maybe had just not been patient enough. I thought they deserved a second chance to capture my heart. So when I had the opportunity to get back into reviewing for The Gaming Outsider with the remake of Riven, I jumped at that. I thought this was an excellent chance for Cyan to prove me wrong.

Conclusion

Did the game succeed in winning me over? Unfortunately, it did not. It was not for lack of trying, though. And it certainly wasn’t the fault of the game. Because the game still looks beautiful, the updated gameplay is fantastic, and the VR functionality adds a whole new level of play. But this is simply not a game for me. The puzzle after puzzle after puzzle style still frustrates me and no amount of surprises and exploration can remove that. It wasn’t long before I had to consult a walkthrough, and before I knew it, I was basically playing while watching the walkthrough for the rest of the game. This game is hard. It does not hold your hand. And that is exactly what it should be. But that also makes it a game that is not for me. And that is perfectly fine.

To hear me talk more about Riven, be sure to listen to the October 31, 2024 episode of The Gaming Outsider podcast around the 1:28:29 time stamp.

This review is based on a PC copy of Riven provided by Evolve PR for coverage purposes. As of the time of this writing, it is exclusive to this platform.