Review svrbrndmg 5/5 · May 26, 2026
The only game to make me fear enabling fullscreen
This is what a game looks like when it is stripped of our expected modes of inspiration. When there is simply an earnest, no-strings-attached attempt to capture a mood, or tell a story, or dream up a place...
Myst Island is tangible, traversible, tasteable. It is never anything other than overwhelming and assertive, existing all around …
This is what a game looks like when it is stripped of our expected modes of inspiration. When there is simply an earnest, no-strings-attached attempt to capture a mood, or tell a story, or dream up a place...
Myst Island is tangible, traversible, tasteable. It is never anything other than overwhelming and assertive, existing all around you and in your memory, and it accomplishes that solely with bit-crushed audio and pre-rendered still images. I don't think any game has captured this loneliness, on this level since Myst. I don't even think Riven does it, and Riven is a far better game than Myst!
I lose hope now that I will ever be reminded of my sacred memory again, on edge and yet comforted, bespeckled with goosebumps and yet warmer inside than the embrace of a weighted blanket, at the same time, by visions of texture-stretched ships, by sounds of distant bubbling-up of seawater and artificial seagull caws, as I have been privy to in this game, on this island.
Come back to me when your game makes me feel terrified to hit a stupidly chunky button, in fear of what piercing sound will cut the heretofore sustained dead air, and what animation will take fewer frames to arrive than expected, and what aftermath will see me basking in the introduction of a new toy. Come back to me again once you somehow, as if through arcane magic, make the same game feel like the most inviting second home to ever blanket me with its salty breezes and arcs of electricity. Until then, until the tides are sure, until the storm breaks up, until new land is discovered on the horizon, I will stay here, on Myst Island.
