Thinking about Myst games. Curious who else played Uru bc it's a fascinating design study. About the most depressing game I've ever played

But it wasn't SUPPOSED to be depressing. Was designed as an MMO, with a huge social hub area that would gradually unlock links to new areas

They did some betas but ended up scrapping the multiplayer component at the last minute and releasing it as a single-player game

Result is just about the most horrifically oppressive atmospheres I've ever encountered in a game. It's a dead, empty wasteland

Which is FASCINATING bc on a surface level it's no diff from any other exploration-centric game. Artwork's great, everything's polished etc

But the environments are all HUGE; that weird MMO scale where the camera's too far away and ceilings are super high to make room for players

And there are all these horrible silent empty spaces that were supposed to be hub areas and player housing but they're all just dead ends

It's so surreal to play a game where the tech's all in place, but the INTENT has gone out of the environment design. Result is terrifying

Myst series always plays with loneliness, but always as part of a mystery. Myst is SUSPICIOUSLY empty; in Riven everyone's hiding from you

Uru was explicitly designed to NOT be lonely, and every location is haunted by the ghost of that intent

So while the other games deliberately used loneliness in their design, Uru's loneliness comes from outside the game: it's REAL, not a device

The same feeling in one game is a compelling aesthetic, and in another it's a crushing fog, and the only difference lies in the game design