Myst Online: URU Live Review is a continuation of the wildly popular Myst and Riven games of the past. We've been putting Myst Online: URU Live through its paces to see how it measures up to its pedigree. See how it fared and then leave us your thoughts in the comments.

Myst Online: URU Live is a massively multiplayer online game developed by Cyan Worlds, Inc. It is the continuation of the Myst and Riven series of games and novels. The D’ni, a now-extinct civilization that lived in elaborate caverns under the New Mexican desert, were able to create books that linked to other worlds, or Ages. You play an explorer that feels compelled to solve the D’ni puzzles, help rebuild their civilization, and restore power to the linked Ages.

Read more of Krystina Balogh's Our Official Myst Online: URU Live Review.

Well there are different "shards" or "servers" from what I remember, I think you called them Bevin which makes sense. You can change the one you are in to a more populated one, I think a couple of them have quite a few people on at a time, and when you join people are usually just hanging out in the central hub talking or waiting for someone to ask them for help solving a puzzle.

This game is very, very unique and I loved it for that. I like the fact that you don't have to pay anything, but the issue I've always thought about was what if people stop donating? They won't have money to keep the server up anymore and another MMO will be gone forever. I thought it was gone the first time it went down before it went into open source territory with a donation system. But I guess maybe it could happen again a third time if necessary.

Does anyone else find this review "timely" for a game that was released (rereleased?) in 2010?  The reason I mention timely is one of The Secret World's "newer" questing aspects are the investigation missions which are basically puzzle quests that typically encourage a non-combat approach and in many cases quite a bit of thinking outside the box.

I played all the Myst games back in the day. I even played the single player incarnation of this (Myst: URU).  I remember hearing how they wanted to make it multiplayer. How much of it is different/ how much new content is there now? Wondering if its worth jumping back in.

I wasn't even aware this was a thing. o.O

First released by GameTap in 2007, MO:UL was closed down in 2008.

Actually it was released before gametap had it.  I was in the original beta, 2005 I think, not sure.  But it got started, then closed then gametap picked it up.

I don't really see it becoming popular with gamers today. 

looks wonderful. hope others take advantage of this game.

sadly i'm a bit too dull witted for the intricacies of a game like Myst, let alone MOUL.

*lose* detail

"loose" is another word -  opposite to tight, I know American English is not British English but this one is a horribly oft-repeated mistake.

Bad spelling doesn't usually annoy me, but when it's actually another word (similarly Rogue being miss-spelled as "Rouge") it does.

On-topic, I might check this out had played Myst & Riven years ago so this might be fun.

URU is a lovely game to play, very relaxing and still visually pleasing. The music and ambience is great too.

nice one, i will give it a try..

but it seems like they have a problem  with account creation right now.. hope it will work later on

Looks interesting and with different approach to mmo. I always wanted to give this game a try, maybe now is the right time to do so.

i trie it before the first time it went dark and wasn't that impressed...it suffers from lw population issues. i dunno if that changed after the relaunch

I played this game years agao in offline mode. all this game is about is puzzle solving and it also tells you in more detail about the MYST story line. and yes a lot of reading is involved. so they brout this game back? um...don't how they could have as they ended the MYST story line in MYST4. I am serprised they don't make some kind of game thats simlar as the MYST games was extreamly popular. hm....according to the main site you are now alowed to create your own ages. I can see only dyehard MYST fans doing this.

This is a fair review, but the reviewer didn't went too deep in it's history,probably because didn't got a chance to meet other players, expecially the very old fan of the Myst serie.

Ac tually the game started it's beta in december 2003, and the beta was directly inserted inside the "URU: Ages Beyond Myst" single player game box, released around september 2003. The boxed, single player game contained the first 4 ages (the personal ages) and the instruction on how to get an invitation to the beta.

The beta ended the 5th of february 2004, because UBI Soft, the publisher, abandoned the project.

In the same year, Cyan opened for free an "unofficial server", called Until URU, and it was opened till the official launch from Gametap.

Personally, i participated, with many other people, the full beta, from december 2003 to february 2004. And I returned some months later to rejoin Until URU. Even if i know every single piece of the game, i still descend down the cavern  sometimes, just to enjoy the incredible surrealistic atmosphere of Ae'gura and other ages.

It was one of the most, intense, immersive, and incredible game experience i ever had.

Most groups, linked together during beta, and during "Until URU" , are still together, speaking about the story of D'ni, organizing events, all using fb or other social networks.

Having played a lot of mmo, I know, there was little room for MOUL to get a big audience, because of the difficulty of the puzzles, the absence of combat. It's a surreal, steampunk environment, where you are just an explorer exploring the ancient ruins of a lost civilation.

This review just reminded me of the fantastic time i spent in the cavern.

Originally posted by clamo

I played this game years agao in offline mode. all this game is about is puzzle solving and it also tells you in more detail about the MYST story line. and yes a lot of reading is involved. so they brout this game back? um...don't how they could have as they ended the MYST story line in MYST4. I am serprised they don't make some kind of game thats simlar as the MYST games was extreamly popular. hm....according to the main site you are now alowed to create your own ages. I can see only dyehard MYST fans doing this.

The story line ended with Myst V: End of ages, last single player game of the Myst serie released by Cyan.

Seems you lost the last episode :)

The official server is still opened, and yes, it's very empty, with the exception of some event that happens from time to time.

Originally posted by Wintermute23

nice one, i will give it a try..

 

but it seems like they have a problem  with account creation right now.. hope it will work later on

 

I was able to create my account this morning. So maybe they fixed whatever was wrong.

I'm so glad I found this, I was looking for Myst a couple of years ago. I got all wrapped up in the basic mmorph's out there, hunt kill,  quiesting, same old junk over and over again. I love Myst series and from what I have seen in game I'll be playing this till the end, so excited. Beautiful graphics, and no problem loading and running the game, was pleasantly surprised. Old time gamer.