Riven (1997)

Riven (1997) carries forward the story of Myst as Atrus sends a stranger - you - into a decaying world to rescue his wife Catherine from Gehn, his tyrannical father. The Age of Riven is collapsing under Gehn's rule, and only careful observation can pry loose the truth behind its torn-apart geography.

The original release shipped with almost five thousand pre-rendered images and over three hours of full-motion video, an unprecedented scope for the era. Point-and-click navigation moves you between dense jungles, awe-inspiring caverns and the monolithic structures Cyan was famous for, with secretive characters drip-feeding pieces of the larger mystery.

The puzzles refuse to hold your hand. Solutions live in the environment - in machinery, in symbols, in patterns you must notice and interpret on your own. Even decades later the visual and sound design holds its own as one of the most acclaimed adventure works of its time.