Obduction

Obduction
76
Metacritic
78
Steam
81.7
xDR
Our rating is calculated based on the reviews and popularity of the game.
Price
$11.99
Release date
24 August 2016
Developers
Publishers
Steam reviews score
Total
78 (2 778 votes)
Recent
72 (11 votes)

A new sci-fi adventure from Cyan, the creators of Myst. Abducted far across the universe, you find yourself on a broken alien landscape with odd pieces of Earth. Explore, uncover, solve, and find a way to make it home.

Show detailed description

Obduction system requirements

Minimum:

  • Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
  • OS: Windows 7 SP1 64 bit or newer
  • Processor: CPU Intel i5-2500 equivalent or better
  • Memory: 8 GB RAM
  • Graphics: GeForce 660 GTX w/1GB / AMD 7700 series w/1GB equivalent or better
  • Storage: 20 GB available space
  • Additional Notes: For VR: NVIDIA 970 or AMD 480 (equivalent or greater)
Similar games
DLC
Show all DLC
Popularity
Reviews
Write a new review
Uncle Clover
Uncle Clover

I had this game in my library for awhile before actually getting into it. Once I finally began figuring things out, it hooked me. It's a lovely game with both a sad/tragic and a happy/beautiful ending, and delicious graphics. Even on the low settings, the graphics are pretty nice. But it is pretty power-hungry - even plugged in and fully charged, it only takes about 45 minutes or so for my laptop charger to start overheating. So I have to play it slow. But it's an interesting story, terrific visuals, and very engaging mentally. Not for the faint of heart of the weak of mind. In replaying it over and over to try to get as good at it as I can be, it's almost as entertaining each time. I definitely recommend for the Myst/Uru game lovers. It's a little bit of a different feel from that, but the gameplay is fairly similar.

Zollicoff
Zollicoff

I've tried so many times to play this game, but it's SO DAMN BORING.

And let me say I've played almost every Myst...

Vanem
Vanem

Horrible puzzle game. Nothing is clear, I'm just guessing at what to do next when i unlock something.
Gave up after 3 hours because i just can't handle walking around the map at an artificial snail pace. (I know there is a sprint key but everything is just so far apart it artificially lengthens the game)

ichhalt159753
ichhalt159753

A game just good enough to not call it bad. But honestly I played through it and it was just a pain in the end. The world starts out as a very believable story but gets more and more unpolished/gamey. The game tries to not be a game at first and instead an imersive wold, which (at first) it succeeds at. BUT the core gameplay mechanics are flawed and later on it tries to be a more puzzley game and idk, it just tries different things and fails at all of them. Some conclusions are more like interpretations, they make sense once you know the answer, but it's not logical/clear/definite that this has to be the conclusion.

Puzzle difficulty 2/10
Puzzle difficulty also 10/10 bc some are so rarely hinted at you can call them random
VR 4/10 - 3points for good looking surrounding, 1point for ok walk controls - seen worse, but gameplay is just 10x more painful then it already is. (can't look at notes and the built in photo system just slow as hell
Surroundings 8.5/10 really beautiful artstyle, but pretty basic graphics to make it VR compatible and many teleporter seams are just too unsmooth
Story 5/10 it's there, it's ok, but most of it is never explained or so rarely hinted at that you can or cannot get it and well it's just another meh

I really enjoyed it at first, but in the end I hated it.

Madbat
Madbat

This is a pointless waste of time. OK, so aliens put me in a zoo. Fine. Why the Fork do I have to solve all these nonsense puzzles? To escape? to where? Why? Who cares? So far this is just some pointless frustrating puzzle solving that has no purpose.

Game wise, it's a pretty dull linear puzzle-solver that tries to be open world and fails. Other reviews have stated it's tedious, and I can already see that. Go here to flip this switch, then go over there to do the thing, then come back here all to open a door I could have kicked in.

It kinda looks nice though. But if this was hoping to be another Myst/Riven, it fails. Those had a mystery, a story, and a mechanical system that grabbed my interest from the start. This one lacks that. After an hour and a half, I'm ready to quit. I'll slog through some more, and possibly amend this review.

Nope. I uninstalled this heap of garbage.

Aristo
Aristo

This is exactly the kind of complex, thought driven adventure I expected from Cyan. I am absolutely thrilled to have had the chance to play this game. I highly recommend this if you are a fan of the genre and of Myst and Riven specifically, just make sure you have your notebook and pencil handy. :)

green
green

This game is so un-fun, I would have requested a refund if I hadn't gone over the two hours. Had to watch a youtube walkthrough to get anywhere, there is no logic or reason. Glad I bought on sale.

reffro
reffro

Great game. The end is a bit tough but I found it fun.

Steve Dallas
Steve Dallas

OMG! Could it be any more tedious? An endless string of red herrings. Takes FOR-EVER to navigate around the geography. And, SERIOUSLY?! I'm not allowed to customize my control keys?

howpow8881
howpow8881

I expected this game to be similar to Myst or Riven back in the day. I finished both of them with little difficulty. However, it is EXTREMELY hard to figure out a lot of this game. I may not be a genius, but I am not a dummy, either. A great deal of this game is just wandering around and searching for clues to advance the game. Much of the game play is slow and plodding, and frustrating!!!
Even using a walkthrough did not help much as there are very obscure clues to solve. Don't try this one , even Mensa people will struggle!!!

mephitas
mephitas

This is a game in the spirit of Myst and Riven (it's from the same company after all) but uses the Unreal engine so you can move about freely and smoothly. The puzzles are similar in nature. I have not so far experienced any glitches.

mjstoner
mjstoner

I thought this was very difficult. It will probably take the average person quite some time to finish it. Really good Science Fiction story line. It's an ideal rainy day(s) game because of the time it consumes, but very satisfying to solve even the most basic tasks within it. I thought it was money well spent for this game.

marinaxp
marinaxp

One of the best VR titles for exploration, puzzles , story and visual effects. An amazing detailed open world to explore as slowly or as fast as you like.

trapped in purgatory
trapped in purgatory

Great game but I got the the part where you have to endure so many load screens it's not even funny.

The premise of the game is interesting and you are left to find things on your own, but I refuse to solve a puzzle where 90% of it is waiting for loading screens.

oukooVeu
oukooVeu

Не стоит потраченного времени.

Orion
Orion

As a fan of Myst and Riven, it really enjoyed this game
- The puzzles, while frustrating at times, are good and not too easy.
- As usual, for Cyan, the visuals are beautiful.

My only real complaint is that there isn't much to direct you where to go...especially if you are stuck.
I remember Myst being a little more on the "you have to do this before you can do that" side.
I also wish there was a little more lore and maybe more interaction (videos, etc).

All in all, I like this. Not on the level of Myst, but still a lot of fun.

Yermog
Yermog

If you're looking for a fun puzzle deduction game a la Monkey Island, Sherlock, or The Longest Journey, this isn't it. There is very little guidance at any point, and many of the puzzles take a long time to complete. There were several moments while playing that I felt like I was spending more time running from one place to another than actually trying to solve puzzles- but the running around IS part of the puzzle. The only real puzzle element in my opinion is trying to find your way around a very complicated map. I finally got fed up at the Maze, which is apparently infamously frustrating. I would not recommend this game to anyone who wants plot-related puzzles with clues and items.

What makes it even more disappointing is the fact that the plot is actually interesting. I would have kept playing if only to finish the story, but frankly at this point it's no longer worth it to me. I'll just look up an ending video and leave it at that- I'll save a lot of time and energy not enjoying myself.

a.l.hertog
a.l.hertog

A really nice experience. Submerge yourself in a world full of puzzle and riddles. A must play for fans of the Myst series.

kosst
kosst

It is a great example of games with self consistent story. Its puzzles looks natural in this world.
Although some puzzles were too hard for me and I used guide. This just helped me when I was stuck.
After end of the game I wanted to discuss this world, see some videos about it. It is world which I didn't want to leave.

OldAndBusy
OldAndBusy

Beautiful, cleverly designed, difficult in places, Cyan has done it again. This is a full 3D game, not point-and-click.

Two thumbs up.

verdienste
verdienste

Amazing game! Seems hard at start, but if you give it some time the story and puzzles are highly rewarding!

Paracelsus
Paracelsus

Don't get in a hurry. This game can take days or longer. I like the mind exercise/thinking, problem solving. If you get stuck refer to to the various guides in steam. Relax & enjoy, learn to slow down & live. There is more to life than being a worker slave for the rich.

dougwaxler
dougwaxler

I really loved this game, and feel it isn't receiving the recognition it deserves. I played it in VR, and absolutely recommend playing it this way, despite some technical and performance issues. It truly felt like I was lost in another world, and the exploration and problem-solving was extremely satisfying. Like all my favorites, it's an experience I wish I could enjoy again!

tobye000
tobye000

It's always frustrating to control a character with limited mobility, like where something as simple as one log is blocking you from your path. I feel like if your going to do that you should establish a reason why; perhaps the pc is handicapped in some way. Also, I want to punch CW in the face. Like dude, I just got here, at least explain one thing to me as though your life and mine depend on it!
But other than that, I very much enjoyed it. It's a beautiful and bizarre environment that you get to explore and discover, with mysteries and aliens. Though sometimes meticulous, I was able to figure everything out on my own except for one thing toward the end that I won't spoil.

Dracothuban
Dracothuban

Absolutely a Cyan game. Great quality, great puzzles, and great story. Worth your time if you like Myst type adventure games.

ʟǟֆȶʟɨʋɨռɢքօɛȶ
ʟǟֆȶʟɨʋɨռɢքօɛȶ

Here's what led me to uninstalling this game forever: I just walked through a wall that teleports you in Kaptor and I am frozen in place. I cannot move and apparently this is the only save I have. I don't even feel bad about it and I'm not going to bother sending my save file to the devs to have them fix it for me like they suggest to do. This game felt more like being trolled than playing a video game and I don't think I will ever buy another game from these developers again. Now let's get to the rest of the review which was already negative before this happened.

I'm generally a fan of puzzles but not these ones. The game is trippy and mysterious but it's overshadowed by the lack of direction and the complexity. If you like super hard puzzles that take loads of trial and error and you like almost no direction on how to figure them out then this game may be for you. Expect walking simulator-like backtracking as well.

I played in VR with a Valve Index and a Xbox controller and I think that made this already hard game at least 10x harder. I'll give one example. The projector in Farla's house would just spin around like crazy and not let me move it gently. I had no idea what I was supposed to do with it because of that. And that's where I gave up and started looking at a guide. I found it to be too difficult to complete without a guide and I don't like having to look at guides just to finish games. That wasn't the only area I got stuck on either.

"Just keep connecting the trees." The apparition behind the vault door says. Excuse me but what the fuck does that mean??? This hint gives you absolutely no indication on where to go or what to do next. The only way to progress from here is to stumble upon something hidden in an obscure location of the map. Have fun with that. I will say that the holograms look really cool in VR, the skybox art is great, and the level design is pretty nice, but it's the gameplay and game breaking bugs that suck and those are more important.

If you're like a super genius that loves tedious time consuming backtrack-happy gigapuzzles and makes copies of your save every 5 minutes then have it. I never played Myst or Riven so I have no nostalgic attachment to this game or anything to compare it to beyond my own experience with it.

I would be simply astounded if there was a single person out there who ever finished this without using a guide or encountering a game breaking bug.

theeastwind999
theeastwind999

Obduction, otherwise known as the game where the load times are almost as long as the game itself.

All jokes aside, this is a pretty good game. The puzzles are beyond difficult, and I had to look up walkthroughs about halfway through, but there's a wealth of good qualities to the game that make up for it. There's excellent worldbuilding, gorgeous landscapes, and a thought-provoking story.

Messing around got me surprisingly far, but just be advised that there will be a lot of patience needed for all the inevitable backtracking you will do. Unless, of course, you go in with a guide handy. And even then there will still be some backtracking.

In conclusion: bring something to fiddle with during load screens, be ready to tear your hair out over some obscure puzzles, and prepare yourself for some of the prettiest and tightly constructed level designs I've ever seen.

eroomr
eroomr

If you like puzzles and interesting scenery you will like this game.
This is the third time I have started this game and am stumped in the maze.
So never give up.

Jack
Jack

This is a hard one to review on the Steam system because you can only give it a thumbs up or thumbs down, and this game isn't bad at all, but it has issues.

I think the best way to describe the game is to describe my experience with it:

I had been interested in it for a while because of the pretty graphics, and I was curious as to what the creators of Myst could make in the modern age. (I'm not a fan of Myst or anything, but I did play through one of the recent versions of it, and it's a game that's always interested me.)

So I got Obduction and started playing. Naturally it's beautiful. It's fun to explore. When I got to the train thing you have to drive around I was thinking, "Okay this is overly tedious, but it is kind of cool, maybe it's a short game so they had to put this in to fill some time."

I'd say after 5 hours of play I lost all interest in the world. I'd seen everything so many times, walking back and forth, that I couldn't really stand it anymore. By that time I had seen some of the other worlds and I was even thinking to myself, "I can't believe there are more worlds, the one you start in had enough content, I think this game is overstaying it's welcome."

So I get to the world where you have to start the big mechanical machine, and that's where I quit. This was about 7 hours in and I just couldn't take it anymore. I got to this part where I was 90% sure I had to do some serious backtracking and undoing things I'd already done, in order to continue, and I didn't want to do that, so I quit.

I read some reviews at that point and they were all over the place, some loved it, some hated it, and many of them alluded to this horrible thing called the "maze"...

I quit for 4 months. I still had the game under my Steam favorites, waiting for me to finish it. Irking me. I played several other games to completion, but this one was still there waiting for me to finish it. So I figure , "Okay I might be in trouble since I might not remember anything, but I do remember there was that backtracking thing I had to do." Oh and keep this in mind, I did not "know" that backtracking was required, I just knew that I "thought" backtracking "might" be required, and there was only two ways to find out if I was right: 1) Attempt the backtracking, or 2) Look it up on the internet. I didn't want to look it up just yet, so I tried the backtracking, and sure enough that was the solution to the puzzle, and so I pressed on.

The next big obstacle for me was in this world where you have to teleport back and forth a lot. And I mean a lot. And it's long load times. And I was at this part where I wasn't sure if I needed to do a particular thing or not, and I played with this area of the game for an hour, maybe two hours, until I decided to write a computer program to calculate if what I thought I needed to do was even possible... And sure enough, it was not even possible, so I moved on and then noticed that there was a switch that I had not noticed before and that was what I needed to continue.

That's when I got to the "maze"... And it wasn't really that bad. Yes it had a lot of load screens, but I drew out the possible solutions to it on some paper and solved it with as few moves as I could figure would work. So at that point I had solved the thing the reviews were complaining about so I felt pretty good about the game...

Shortly after that I gave up. There is these number puzzles that the game has, and I never understood them. Almost all of them you can solve by randomly picking things and eventually you'll get the result you want, but I got to a part where I wasn't sure what number to put in, and there were a lot more possibilities and no feedback when the number was correct. At that point I gave up and looked at a guide, because I absolutely knew I didn't want to try to figure that out on my own. (Additionally, I'd have to backtrack pretty far to even look at the document that explains how the numbers worked.)

I pretty much used a guide from there on out, it was basically the end of the game, and I'd seen to much of the world so I really didn't want to backtrack any more than I had to. Even the simplest things I didn't want to try to figure out at that point. So I guess I solved about 90-95% of the game on my own. I don't know if I should be disappointed in myself or proud of myself for that...

In conclusion, it's a beautiful world, it's not trying to hold your hand, and there is a lot to discover, but it has many parts that are tedious, and as a whole it overstays it's welcome.

LLSix
LLSix

Recommended Specs cannot run this smoothly in VR. I have a 1080, significantly more powerful than the recommended GPU, and can't run the game smoothly.

nand
nand

Pretty fun atmospheric puzzle game. Exactly what you'd expect from a spiritual successor to Myst and Riven.

My biggest complaints were that some gameplay mechanics were obnoxiously slow/clumsy, and that there was a general lack of logic puzzles - it was mostly exploration and finding the right path.

earl.of.emsworth
earl.of.emsworth

Played in VR. Borderline masterpiece with a couple moments of all-time puzzle/adventure game obtuseness. An absolute joy, but feel ZERO shame about looking to the internet for help when you get stuck. I only got stuck a couple times, but when i looked up answers I was like, oh yeah I would never have gotten this. There's one puzzle, ("the maze") that people have written software solvers for because it's so absurd. And you have to get through two loading screens per move while you solve it! Madness!!

Aside from that tho, I loved this. Gave me those good old fashion Myst warm fuzzies. Fun world and mythology. Looks great in VR. Has a really fun thing where there's stereo 3d FMV live action characters cleverly integrated into the world. Just a great time at the video games. Between this and the VR Myst, I absolutely cannot wait to see what Cyan does next. Still killing it after all these years.

angrymeatbagel
angrymeatbagel

I was honestly disappointed. There was not much of a story other than notes you read, and talking to one guy 4x. I honestly expected a lot more considering how much I love Myst & Riven.
The puzzles were mostly annoying, lots and lots of backtracking... and don't even get me started on the maze.
I would never play it again.

Anonymous
Anonymous

A beautiful construction from Cyan Inc, the makers of Myst and Riven, both classic genre defining games. I really enjoyed this game, though as others have mentioned some puzzles require a keen eye (to be expected I guess!) and lots of patience for loading times – makes me appreciate that I chose one of the faster M.2 SSD for my new build!

Also it’s worth reading and understanding, as best you can, the lore that is scattered throughout the game......

Waffles the Genie
Waffles the Genie

If you like Myst you'll probably like this.

andrewshepherd2006
andrewshepherd2006

Challenging throughout, it was ideal for bring the old Myst team back together with a crate of beer

impliedwolf
impliedwolf

Some of the coolest sci-fi elements to be put in a game. Many of the puzzles are really really good and many of them make me very mad and some of them are both at the same time. Also it's very pretty

Snugglefist
Snugglefist

I've always been a huge fan of puzzle and exploration games like Myst, but I just can't recommend this game. I've had my eye on this one for a while and finally picked it up on sale. I'm VERY glad that I didn't pay full retail.

This game has a lot going for it. The game has a great look and sound design. It's fun and engaging to explore. However, the last third of the game is totally bogged down by endless backtracking and load screens. I actually hated finishing it and only decided to power through after checking to see how close I was to the end. You simply can't finish this game without completing this tedious mess.

Even though the overall design of this game is clearly rooted in classics like Myst, the execution just fell flat down the stretch for me. I can't recommend this game at all unless you really enjoy performing that kind of task. I can't even call it game play when I can SEE the solution to a puzzle and then my heart sinks because I know I'm about to spend the next 20 minutes running in circles and looking at load screens to finish. No thanks.

One final note: Even though I don't consider this to be the deal-breaker that the tedious seed swap puzzles ended up being for me, you can easily miss the couple of hints that you need to get the good ending. I can see people easily reaching the end of the game without having understood that there is one simple thing you need to do (or not do depending on how you look at it) to change the ending. Now, if you know what to do it's very easy to just reload your game and see both endings, so that part is fine. But I would have been pretty upset if all I'd been able to figure out was how to get the bad ending. It's a real let-down.

In summary, I just can't give a general recommendation for this game. While it has a lot going for it and really does capture that classic Myst game play for the most part, the puzzle design just craters into mindless tedium down the stretch. If that sounds like it won't bother you and you're a huge fan of classics like Myst and Riven, then maybe give it a shot if you can pick it up on sale. Otherwise, I have to recommend taking a pass on this one.

slatedawg
slatedawg

I just played Myst for the first time. I must say, this game set me up good for Myst. Like I had a very good idea of what to move and when to move. Back to this game.... I remember this was one of my first VR journeys. Yikes! is all I can say. I got stuck many, a many of times on Obduction until finally 18 or 19hrs in I threw in the towel for the most part and went to the guides. Can't say I have fond memories of this game, but I can't say it was bad. Lots of backtracking, long load screens if you remember those from back in the day (like 30-45seconds long), and then just things changing in the world you might not expect to change. These are the things I remember. But one thing I know for certain is that is that I'm never touching it again, and I sort of wish I never had.

Vinny
Vinny

Beautiful and well worth the time to play. I just wish the puzzles were harder. Too Myst-like for me, needs better puzzles rather than just traversing the world.

kuvja
kuvja

If you like Myst, this is as close as it gets.

ThunderBlade7
ThunderBlade7

The Pros:
- The visuals in this game are amazing; all of the areas had me stopping multiple times just to enjoy the view.
- The world(s) are pretty unique and creative imo, I loved learning about the aliens.
- The mystery had me hooked from the beginning and I feel like it wasn't too awfully hard to understand what was going on, though I did have to do a few re-readings of in game notes to fully comprehend.
- Most, if not all the puzzles were great. None of them were too frustrating (at least when I knew all the parts to them - see interactions below)
- The music is nice, nothing outstanding but I felt like it complimented the game well.
- Swapping between cells looks really cool, not that big of a thing but I wanted to mention it anyways

The Cons:
- Interacting in this game really bugged me with most things. Some things require you to be at a certain angle to interact with them. Twice this caused me to believe an object wasn't interactable and I wasted a lot of time trying to explore around to figure out what I was missing (I would have been more mad about this fact if it wasn't at least pleasant roaming the areas). Other things just aren't convenient to use. An example being moving the projector in the house, you need to line it up with the boards, but you have to look down to move it, and have to go at a weird angle to actually see what you are doing. It's a small thing yes, but there were many more and they got annoying fast.
- There is a game breaking bug or two with the minecart, and I was one of the unfortunate souls who experienced one and hadn't backed up their save, so I had to restart. Apparently it is a known issue but QA was never able to replicate, so it has never been fixed, which is insane to me considering more than a few people have had it happen to them.
- The slow fade in/out of the pause menu is so annoying, especially when the photos you take to help remember things are only viewable from there. I ended up just using my phone and taking pictures of my screen because it was faster and easier.
- You do have to walk around a lot, and sometimes the run option doesn't seem fast enough.
- There are a few aspects to the game that are criminally underdeveloped, and that end up not being important to anything gameplay or story-wise.

(This was all played on desktop, so I don't have any experience with the VR capabilities)

Overall, I recommend this game for those interested. Despite a handful of downfalls that hinder the experience, I am glad to have played it, and will most likely be trying out the other games by Cyan.

SpaceGorilla
SpaceGorilla

My god what a terrible game.

I came in ready for obtuse puzzles and some advanced note taking etc.

What I didn't come ready for was half assed (or completely non-existent) attempts at QoL improvements to this very old school formula.

You can choose object glow if you don't want to spend half your time working out what can be clicked on. But objects glow several seconds apart and only when you're within about 3 feet of them. Both settings that could easily have been given as user definable to set the difficulty at your preferred level.

Your cursor vanishes when you are moving (presumably to make the game look prettier) and only reappears when you stop. Your cursor changes when something can be interacted with, but to do this you have to come to a dead stop. A simple toggle would have made this less infuriating. If I want to zip around a room clicking and quickly seeing what I can interact with, I should be able to. Not step step look, step step look. Maddening.

Although 'zip around' is quite the misnomer because your run speed is far too slow for the large distances between areas you have to cover. It's already evident that simply backtracking will take up an embarrassing amount of playtime, and covering the distance between something as simple as two switches in the same puzzle is annoying as hell for this reason. I don't care if fast travel or something comes up later; because a) the damage is already done and b) you will always need to move between places on foot, and it sucks. You cannot sell this to me as 'taking your time', 'appreciating the environment and atmosphere' or any other such half assed, non-gameplay related reason. If I want to appreciate the environments (cool in places, if somewhat basic) I can stop and stand still. My choice. I don't need to be forced to move at wading-through-mud-speed to take in all the hard work that went into making this world.

If you want to move faster, you can move diagonally (you know, like in old school shooters where they hadn't yet worked out how to set the movement speed to be the same for both forwards and diagonally - a problem that's been solved for like 2+ decades). So cool, I can go 20% faster if I'm happy to stare at everything at a headache inducing 45 degrees to the direction I'm moving.

Sick of all of the above and want to save your game and maybe come back later when you've calmed down? Good luck. Press escape, and wait five seconds for the slow. fade. in. of. the. menu. for. literally. no. reason. Stare blankly at the existence of a 'load' option, but no 'save'. Hit google. Find out the game autosaves, but only every few minutes, and doesn't tell you when it has done it. Realise thanks to google (not the shitty game telling you) that the game saves while pausing, but the game doesn't telegraph this at all. Want to preserve a save game? No, you don't just create a new save slot, because that would be far too conventional and convenient, and you can't see the save slot. Instead, go to 'load', and then use a copy function to make a copy of your existing save file. But of course. Damn even typing this stuff is making me picture monkeys hitting buttons and accidentally coming up with something resembling a functioning piece of entertainment. Mind blowingly bad.

I'm all for challenge. But I have no time for poor UX than can almost certainly be attributed to ageing devs who refused to pay heed to any of the developments in gaming trends for the past 3 decades. I can say this with confidence, not as a young gamer who doesn't understand the how/why of these older-style more obtuse puzzle games, but as someone who is practically the same age as the games' lead developers - someone who can remember the original Myst coming out and playing it - and who has moved with the times, rather than being stuck in love with poor and/or badly implemented ways of doing things.

The list goes on but my playing of this game will not. It doesn't respect basic tenets of good game design, and it doesn't respect my time, so it won't be getting any more of it.

I came here for intelligent, multi-layered, multi-disciplined puzzles that require pen and paper, lateral thinking and joining of distant dots.

I didn't expect to be left pining for the thoughtful, intelligent design choices of Call of fucking Duty.

Garp02
Garp02

After playing MYST many years ago, I had high expectations and a fair amount of excitement when I discovered Obduction.
I was not disappointed, Obduction has suitably hard puzzles and even pushes you to use mathematics in another Base (base 4) and convert that into an alien binary value (It's not as hard as it sounds).
If you like challenging puzzle games Obduction is certainly a must have to experience the vast and mysterious puzzle embedded world /worlds, and discover the truth.
Can you make it back home?

Phlako
Phlako

Frustrating game with way too much running around. Unsatisfying puzzles. Most were utterly tedious and boring. Unsatisfying ending that didn't explain enough. Tons of bugs and glitches. I fell through the world and had to reload the game probably 15 times. This game did not feel tested or refined. The plot was a meandering mess that, like I said before, did not pay off in a satisfying way in the end. That cool "Blue World" you see in the beginning of the game is completely inaccessible. I feel teased by how good the game could have been, but am ultimately disappointed by how cobbled together it was in its finality.

Anonymous
Anonymous

The graphics and worldbuilding are amazing.

lilydianepresley
lilydianepresley

I really wanted to like this game. There was barely a story just random infodumps and the puzzles where more like getting lost in a city but the cities some messed up desert town. Great graphics cause its all rocks. For one of the main puzzle mechanics being teleporting the load times are INSANE. When I got to the final puzzle I just gave up and watched a playthrough. They also for some reason green screened actors as the other characters?? The acting was poor and I felt like I was at a museum watching a poorly scripted historical actor tell me about the civil war. The ending wasn't even worth it. Also if your gonna make a complicated area to navigate thats nothing but rocks INCLUDE A MAP. Should've been named obstruction rather than obduction with how many fricking doors I had to open. Never again will I buy a game from this developer.

Mr Eos
Mr Eos

One of the SLOWEST locomotion games I ever played. If not for my preference of puzzle games. You'd be getting a NO from me on this one just for the locomotion speed.

Boxman
Boxman

Good spiritual successor to Myst, even if a bit on the short side.

Fabulousigloo
Fabulousigloo

Great gameplay that is just the right level of challenge. I must have played this game at least 5 times now and thoroughly enjoyed each time.

The main letdown however is its poor optimisation. I have a reasonably well-equipped pc, but even on low settings the fans have to ramp up to keep the computer cool.

Sookie
Sookie

If you enjoy Myst type games this is a must play! I absolutely love that the world is large enough that you can get turned around and feel somewhat lost, I needed a map to keep things straight.

Damian
Damian

this puzzle/mystery game is one of the best experincis/vr experincis

Redplanet66
Redplanet66

True Cyan tradition, brilliant and worthy successor to Myst

Procrastinatey
Procrastinatey

This is a VR review. Poorly optimized and not great at telegraphing what the way forward is. Meandered around and eventually got out of the hub world but by then I was exhausted and tired of the game.

paulio10
paulio10

Super creative puzzles to solve in a mysterious sci-fi environment. I love this sort of game because the world isn't so big that you constantly get lost, and you can use common sense to solve the puzzles, though they're not easy, but also not too hard. Definitely recommend. If you liked Myst or Riven back in the day, this game is great in the same way, just designed for modern gaming.

Bernhard
Bernhard

Let's start with the only good thing about this game:
The general graphics style is okay. (That's why it might look good on the screenshots and videos)
Now the bad:
-The main issue this game has, are the ways the devs tried to stretch the playtime. The average playtime is around 15hrs but most walkthroughs barely need 2 hours to finish the game:
A lot of time is wasted by the following:
-Long loading times, which can't be avoided because of how many times the game changes levels by design.
-Unintuitive game design.
-Having to learn boring game mechanics for puzzles or trial and erroring them.
-Long and boring walks through a poorly and boring designed world with mediocre graphics and nothing really special to offer.
-Trying to find the things you actually can interact with, because they barely stand out from the rest of the environment.

-The sound design was also very bad:
-The music doesn't fit into the ambience of the game and was poorly chosen for story related situations.
-The background noises sound really artificial and feel really odd when playing the game.

-The story was hard to grasp and felt poorly worked out.
-Story related characters appear to you as terribly made videos, where you can even see the outlines of the used green screen. Why wouldn't you just model them? This would make the world feel less empty and boring.

Anoran
Anoran

An interesting game, but riddled with technical problems.
The VR is basically a "look and don't touch" implementation. There's "motion controls" but they are absolutely minimal. The game is playable, and I've seen worse VR implementations, but from a game that is supposed to support it from the get-go, and is built around VR, it's very disappointing.

TLDR; buy only if you're a big fan of Cyan Studios' stories.

On the motion controls:
- There's no physics engine, so when you let go of things they just float wherever you left them, until you move, where they reappear in their original positions (and you can't move while holding things; you'll just let go). While I understand not wanting players to interact with useless objects so that they don't chase red herrings, it would still go a long way to improving immersion.
- If you want to interact with an object repeatedly, you have to switch hands, because the last hand used seems to stop working.

On the movement controls:
- The menu will lock you out of certain combinations of control schemes for no reason. For example, you may want to have smooth movement with motion controls... But for some reason, when enabling smooth movement it force disables motion controls. This is apparently random and is a clear programming bug.
- The game asks if you want smooth movement or blink movement when you start, but completely ignores whichever you pick. You have to go into control settings to fix it, but then you might struggle with the previous issue.
- Sometimes after interacting with object in the environment, the game completely disables movement. You have to enter and exit the menu to fix this.

Regarding desktop mode:
- Playing in desktop mode forces SteamVR to open... Even though you're not using it. Closing SteamVR crashes the game. So I just unplug my headset... Simple fix for a stupid design. You also may have to tell Windows to use your desktop speakers/headphones instead of the VR headset.
- The cursor/crosshair vanishes while moving. This is because you can't interact with objects while moving. But as another reviewer said, it would be nice to be able to at least identify interactables while moving around a room.

Other issues:
- Audio volume is rather low. I have to bump up my system volume 50% higher than my norm.
- Audio is muted unless you have the game as the active window on the desktop, despite the VR headset being the thing you're actually using.
- For the level of graphical fidelity, performance, while smooth, is rather poor. The game could be better optimized. 50fps when I usually average 90 in most VR titles is rather bad.
- The auto-detect for graphical settings does... Nothing.
- Exiting the game causes it to crash. Not a big issue but it is a bad sign regarding the quality of the programming.
- The ground is improperly calibrated in the game. You float about six inches off of it.
- Turning is based on a fixed point on the ground (which isn't even the center of the play area), meaning smooth turning is extra-nauseating, especially if you have a room-scale VR setup.
- Probably the biggest issue for me, is that when loading a save game, the location data can get all screwed up. I don't know if this is an issue with switching between VR/Desktop on the same save, but I loaded my game and got dumped in the middle of some area I've never been to before. I had to restart my game since I was so lost. Half an hour wasted.

scarecrowm
scarecrowm

5/5 stars.
This is an excellent game that lives up to the standard set by the Myst series of games. Well worth the time for those who enjoy puzzle and problem solving. They even included a number puzzle, first introduced in Riven where it was base 5 (Not base 5 in this one though). And of course the worlds are fantastically surreal.
Hint:You need to examine things closely because some clues and buttons are quite hard to spot if not paying attention.

I couldn't figure out how to save the game though, there was no save button in the menu, because there is one point past which there is no return. You cannot go back and do the thing you missed, which is optional, unless you're a pedantic gamer.

Note: This is a different story than Myst, so can play it independently - But still recommend playing Myst series.

The only criticism is the loading time to swap between worlds. It wouldn't normally be an issue except the puzzles in this game required you to swap frequently between worlds in order to solve them. This resulted in far too many loading screens.
Probably not possible to fix after the fact, but perhaps a partial pre-load of the destination world before travel, load the rest after travel resulting in a shorter average load time.

shploogen
shploogen

Obduction's beautiful setting and captivating mystery are not enough to overcome its inconsistent gameplay. Far too often, the solutions to the game's various puzzles end up disjointed and not intuitive. There is something to be said for not holding the player's hand, but Obduction takes it too far with obscure clues and a clunky UI.

Minor story spoilers to list a couple examples: The rotating piston puzzle shows no indication that the contraption can be rotated, requiring the player to click and drag a very small piece with no feedback while doing so. Also, after watering all of the trees, no clue is given to the player that CW opened up a new passageway, leading to unnecessary frustration and backtracking.

WHATEVER
WHATEVER

If you like loading times and base 4 math then this game is for you. Overall enjoyable with flaws.

stephenclaxton
stephenclaxton

Great puzzles, very much like Myst! Lots of fun if you like those kinds of explore, think, collect clues and solve games.

CaptainGeoluread
CaptainGeoluread

Would I recommend Obduction? This is another of those 'Yes, BUT...' games.

There have been many supposedly spiritual successors to the venerable Myst series, and of those, I've played Quern, The Witness and Ether One - Obduction finds itself in a fairly crowded genre these days, yet is of course the closest you can possibly get to its ancestors without actually going back to D'ni. Cyan Worlds? Check. The Miller brothers? Check.

That means wandering gorgeous, otherworldly environments that you've been transplanted into with scant explanation is once again the order of the day. It's no less captivating than it was way back in 1993 - except you've now got Unreal Engine 4 making it all look and sound fantastic.

Popping backwards and forwards between different worlds (à la Myst's ages) is also present. Without spoiling too much, I love how the game gradually makes one world affect another and even calls upon you to use adjoining worlds as workarounds and shortcuts when traversing one of the others. Very smart.

It also means that you're going to solve a lot of puzzles, and Obduction's are fiendish. I've already mentioned that each of the game's four environments gradually impact one another, but that's only the half of it. I shan't lie: a walkthrough accompanied me for some of my six-or-seven-hour journey, but you can multiply that severalfold if you're going to avoid succumbing to temptation.

So far so good. So what's wrong with it? It's full of nods to its ancestors, and while some of these are good, some of them riff of of some of the Myst series' biggest annoyances - and feel a little stale to boot. Save a little fauna, the game's worlds are empty. What scant human presence there is is achieved with full motion video badly applied to flat surfaces (e.g. projectors or glass) - dated in the 90s when it was in the Myst series and even worse now.

Equally, one strand of puzzling is hugely reliant on you learning and understanding a counting system - one that I frankly still hadn't grasped by game's end. Not only this, but as in Riven, a careless moment can see you served with the end credits long before due, thankfully protected by autosaving this time around.

I mentioned the game's gradual tying together of worlds, which necessitates frequent trips back and forth. This in itself is not the problem, but the loading times of these jumps quickly grate and ultimately break the immersion when one whole section of puzzles requires you to make dozens of them in quick succession. Indeed, this whole sequence in the game outstays its welcome by a good half an hour. This is where I quit the game the first time round on a non-SSD-equipped machine and nearly did so again the second even with one installed.

Another way in which the game breaks immersion is with its tribute to a number of Kickstarter backers who paid to feature in the game. I've no problem with this and see it all the time in board game Kickstarters, where backers are inserted into character cards, location names and more. Here, though, the names of backers are stamped onto an array of objects strewn throughout Obduction's world with no use. Early game in particular, when you aren't clear on the lack of inventory system, you'll pick up an object and have the illusion totally shattered by being told which Kickstarter backer paid for it. Even worse for said backers, you can just turn off their names in the options, which you promptly will, rendering it a non-issue for the regular player at least.

My biggest issue with Obduction though (and it's one that will divide people reading my thoughts here) is plot-by-notes/terminal/audio log, and it's something that infuriates me in plenty of adventure and exploration games. Without (in the main) characters to provide dialogue and move things along or making use of its environment to tell the story, so much of the game's plot is tied up in diaries, journals and pages amounting to a hefty weight of written material. Worse, it's all handwritten to varying degrees of clarity.

I haven't the patience to trawl through, but this meant that I missed key plot points, clues and an understanding of the game's two potential endings. Part of the other reason I had a walkthrough to hand was to make sense of it all, yet discourse on social media after completing the game seems to suggest even those who did read every word are still somewhat in the dark.

Obduction has four worlds in theory, though the last of these feels hollow, linear and ultimately incomplete and rushed, whether for plot reasons (though I wasn't any clearer on why if so) or time.

The last one's a tiny one: if you're going to set your game in UE4 with full motion, then please except people to whack the spacebar from time to time expecting to jump. In Obduction, however, this is the button to take a photo, which halts the game for a good couple of seconds and was maddening every time I did it, doubly so given that the menu to then find and delete your unbidden moment of cinematography takes a few seconds to navigate to.

And no - you can't rebind the keys.

Yet despite all that, I still had immense fun in Obduction's world even with its many attempts (witting or otherwise) to remind me that it isn't real. I realise, too, that I play these games in a way that would be anathema to many better, more patient adventures than I. If you're in that latter group, you'll love this. Even if you're not, you'll still enjoy it, but you won't quite come away with the same satisfaction or completion when you finish it.

Witje
Witje

Very complete game, replayable.

Immortalis
Immortalis

Absolutely incredible. It feels like Myst all over again! Except a bit more difficult than Riven.

bunzy1604
bunzy1604

Very difficult game - needed walkthrough help to complete, especially all the swap machines, wow they were complex!!

Magus Alab
Magus Alab

Poorly optimized into a vr game, moving around is painful and y'all didn't even put hands in a vr game. The most disappointing game I've played and I've played Gorilla tag

Burnt[Toast]
Burnt[Toast]

Gotta love a quality explore/puzzle game. Pretty as tits too.

dimoc
dimoc

First game in a while I've dropped

binglehart
binglehart

Great puzzle game from the creators of Myst. Challenging puzzles and an interesting story with familiar mechanics.

Anonymous
Anonymous

Took me back to my first days of playing Myst.

hprandya
hprandya

Just finished. Really enjoyed the game. Exactly the style, format and structure that I enjoy playing. I wish there were more like this out there these days.

Akelo
Akelo

A worthy spiritual successor to Myst.

CompisPaDum
CompisPaDum

I was really doubting about wether I should play this game or not while looking at all the reviews that didn't reccomned playing it. But after beating it, I can say this:
Cons:

1. Yes, you will have to walk a lot and the loading times are annoyingly long. For me though this was not that big of a deal. Maybe I've just gotten used to progressing slowly by playing all the Myst games. If you like playing Sekiro on 20x speed, then yeah, maybe you should avoid this game. Otherwise, you should be able to withstand it.
2. There were some things that appeared/dissappeared out of nowhere, seemingly without any connection to what I was doing. I just seemed that, if I progress the game, then some door will now be opened. I still don't know how exactly does it work, but, if you get reeeeaaaallly stuck right after doing something important to the story, you might want check, wether that door, that was closed previously, is open now.
3. You move faster diagonally.

Pros:
1. The puzzles in this game are often very creative. Every time you solve one, it feels amazing.
2. The landscapes around you are astonishing, desktop background worthy.

Judging from how much I have written in cons cattegory compered to pros, you would think that I wouldn't reccomend the game. But, in my opinion, those 2 pros are definitly worth playing this game.

Anonymous
Anonymous

Nice graphics and puzzles. Myst-like. I'm enjoying it.

Chucktastico
Chucktastico

It reminds me of a modern Myst and Riven. I love exploring the world and trying to understand to piece together the various parts of the larger story.

Anonymous
Anonymous

Great game. I played the entire Myst series and was very happy they created this one.

frannicus
frannicus

It's kind of like Riven meets Portal. If that doesn't scare you away, I recommend it.

Anonymous
Anonymous

Gripping and imaginative. Recalls a lot of great elements of the Myst games without repeating them.

Chevron
Chevron

I went in totally blind with this game and was pleasantly surprised. Turned out to be a fun puzzle game that just keeps expanding as you go along. I suggest not overthinking the puzzles. I got stumped on one because it was far less complicated than I was expecting.

mwinter42
mwinter42

Highly colorful gameplay; engaging storyline; Enormous fun to play. Thank you

tasoder
tasoder

THIS WAS A FUN PAST TIME GAME TILL I GOT TO THE " MAZE " AT THAT POINT THIS GAME BECAME A BORING REPETITIVE PROCESS OF IDIOTIC FRUSTRATION EVEN THE AVAILABLE CHEAT CODE SITES ATE REPETITIVE b BORING AND USELESS. AVOID THIS AT ALL COSTS

Kayden
Kayden

Got boring. Too much time hunting for solutions when it should have been more intuitive and respectful to the players time. Tech issues like loading zones and etc are ridiculous and the volume level for some NPC's are low as hell. I don't get the praise for this game and to each their own for sure but it couldn't hold me and that's an issue.

Alec_Azam
Alec_Azam

Not quite as obtuse as Myst. Though, like its predecessor, front loads quite a few of its more fiendish tests so I could see people being put off by one of them early and never coming back. As is usual with Cyan's puzzle games everything is entirely logical so the solutions (when you realise them at 2am) are actually pretty intuitive - although there are one or two I completely cheesed (or got right for the wrong reason) so it's slightly more forgiving than its harshest forebears. Worthy addition to the genre.

Shader
Shader

Feels very much like Mist and Riven while remaining a different and unique game. I love it, highly recommend it to fans of Cyan Worlds' previous works.

ChunkehLeygs
ChunkehLeygs

A little late to the party with this game, playing it several years after it was released. Overall I enjoyed the game...the plot is really interesting and exploring the strange new worlds was pretty engrossing. I liked the fact that the game didn't do much hand holding early on....one has to figure out what's going on themselves.

Having said that, some of the puzzles in the game were pretty obtuse and one or two just seemed silly (given the plot) and/or overly tedious. Maybe a hardcore gamer wouldn't be quite as negative about them as me but when you solve a puzzle by using a guide and STILL can't figure out why the solution worked, that does detract from the overall experience.

Overall though, it's a game definitely worth a try.

TesseracT
TesseracT

A very solid spiritual successor to that of the Myst Series.

godrulox
godrulox

This game was ZERO fun ! Most of the time I had no idea what the duck to do. What the duck was going on. Where the duck was I. Most of the puzzles are impossible to figure out because there is no logic or clue on how to solve them. It's mostly trial n error. The worst part are the teleporters not just because of the long waiting times but because of the abuse of having to use them multiple times to solve a puzzle that makes no sense. The game is very pretty in VR but stuck in the early 90's gameplay wise. The sound is atrocious, I could barely understand what was said. So much voice distortion. The level design very poor. Most of it is running at very low speed through ruble and long trails from one end to the other..... and then backtrack. The endings are totally underwhelming for the torture finishing this game was. As a matter of fact I still don't know what the duck I just played. It's unbelievable so many people were involved in creating this garbage world that feels so empty.

jordie
jordie

Overall:
If you like puzzle games and don't mind having to backtrack a bit and move around a lot, it's a fun game and I'd recommend.

Upsides:
- Fun game. I did overall enjoy it and most things are pretty logical. You have to take a few logic leaps here and there and explore a lot, but that's the type of game I enjoy.
- Beautiful game, still holds up very well 6 years later.
- Interesting story and I love the way it slowly builds up the whole picture.

Downsides:
- There was a bug in Maray where a clue doesn't appear and frustrating that there isn't a clear way to get to that clue otherwise.
- No normal way to drop a save. You have to open the menu (which autosaves), then go to load game and copy the current game. Also only lets you have a max of 10 saves?! Unnecessary restrictions.

DeathKnight.
DeathKnight.

No story and lots of runing around like headless chicken. Not worth the time

Anonymous
Anonymous

I loved all the Myst games and Obduction didn't disappoint. The story and the history were interesting to discover during game-play. I was able to solve some of the puzzles quite quickly (typical Myst scenarios) and most of the others after a bit of wandering and poking around, which was rewarding and satisfying. A few things had me baffled though, and I had to resort to getting some hints (which I think is OK and better than all the puzzles being easy). The worlds are detailed and they encourage exploring with no fear of dying. I completed the game in 25 hours and I didn't want it to end. Hunrath in particular was a brilliant place to explore, it almost felt like 'home' after travelling to the other worlds. In true Myst style, there is always a 'ride' and it would have been nice to have had more game-play with the little train in Hunrath and the cable car in Maray. Some reviewers were critical of the length of time it took to complete the maze due to 'swapping', but I thought it was OK; it was tricky though and I needed help to get started. The visit to Mofang felt like an afterthought and lacked activity. Riven (Myst #2) was my favourite game ever and I would score it 10/10 and Obduction 8.5/10

zebralemur
zebralemur

Meh. I wouldn't recommend to others. To much time roaming confused. Motion too slow. Teleports too slow. Some puzzles wayyy too non-sensical. The last puzzle of finding someone that then opens a door? wtf? The train puzzle was just annoying and slow.

Mostly, the movement across the map was so annoying.

Somehow I'm supposed to understand what the heck the final contraption is from some brief books.

Good puzzle games are hard, but make a person feel smart when they solve them. Portal is an example of this. This game just makes a person feel idiotic.

makdputt
makdputt

This game is really tough. Without some help from the walkthrough guide, i'd have been lost. Great game with fantastic views.

YaDamnSkippy
YaDamnSkippy

In the vein of classic MYST, per my expectations of CYAN.

Good puzzles, though i wish i'd done a better job learning math.

The Doss Boss
The Doss Boss

I love a good puzzle game and this definitely did not disappoint. This was probably the hardest one I’ve ever played. It was quite difficult, And I even used a guide.

Cool story, over complex grid puzzles. Everything else was fantastic. 8/10 - do recommend.

Letande
Letande

“Where should I begin? Perhaps my story is in order.”
~Atrus

Cyan's back! You know, Cyan? Miller brothers? No? OK, perhaps some history is in order. Back in 1993, a small team of talented young people released MYST. A puzzle adventure game that quickly became a legend. And not only because of its state-of-the-art visuals (even though yes, while being one of the first CD-ROM games, it looked fantastic), but also because of its creativity. MYST wasn't just a game. It was an art. Long story short, at the beginning of the game, player (in MYST we weren't supposed to take a certain role, we were supposed to be ourselves) discovered so-called linking book. A book that allowed them to travel to strange island called Myst, from which it was possible to get to the other worlds and eventually discover the dark mystery. Or not, since the game had four different endings and the best one required you to pay attention to details. Anyhow, the game became a huge hit and ended up spawning a franchise.

Ironically, it was MYST that ruined Cyan's future. And I'm not talking about the fact that, after two good games that were made by Presto and Ubisoft, Cyan failed to live up to the expectations in MYST V. I'm talking about URU. An experimental multiplayer game, which tried to bring MYST online. I can't say it was a complete failure and it sure was an interesting experiment, but still, solving puzzles together online? It wasn't for everybody. I mean, let's just admit it – Internet and puzzles are a lot like water and oil. The best thing you can do while playing an adventure game is to turn Internet off. Just to avoid the temptation to google yourself some hints. Naturally, URU didn't live long. But guess what? Instead of moving on, Cyan just kept pushing. Again and again, they tried to revive URU and it was ridiculous. Even though I have a special place in my heart for that game, I must admit – those attempts felt a lot like beating the dead horse. Which was especially stupid since it only caused Cyan financial troubles.

Like I said, though, the guys are finally back. For real. Even though breaking their bonds with URU felt a lot like quitting smoking, Cyan is finally done with their bad habit and is ready to move on. So, here comes Obduction. The first Cyan's game since 2005. Well, as long as we won't count basic stuff like Cosmic Osmo's Hex Isle and mobile games, but honestly, all that just doesn't count as the real deal. While Obduction? It's exactly that. The real deal. The next big thing from Cyan all of us, old fans, were waiting since RIVEN (like I said, MYST III and IV weren't made by Cyan, while MYST V failed very hard). Is it good? Well, short answer is – yes. Yes, it's good. In case you were afraid of getting another MYST V here... well, don't be. Obduction is good and can offer you a lot of fun as long as you enjoy puzzle adventures. But of course, it's not that simple and there are many things to talk about. So, let us begin.

The first thing you should know about this game is that it follows the MYST formula. Again, we're supposed to play as ourselves and visit a strange place that serves as a hub, from where we'll be able to access some other places. Naturally, it's a not a bad thing per se, but they kinda... overdid it a bit. While RIVEN was a daring attempt to create something bigger and more complicated, Obduction feels a lot like MYST all over again. Like it's the only thing they can do. Kinda gives the game an unpleasant aftertaste. “Kinda” because well, it's not that simple.

Like in MYST, in Obduction we have a hub place and four different worlds to visit, but this time things won't be nearly as linear. In MYST it was pretty simple. We were supposed to solve a puzzle to unlock another world and then go there, find two pages and solve another puzzle to return. In Obduction it's more tricky than that. Even though the amount of worlds is exactly the same, we won't just visit them. I mean, we will, but not in such a simple way as before. See, gameplay in Obduction revolves around two things – shortcuts and so-called seeds-swap devices. In every world in this game there's a tree (which you should find and connect to the main hub). And while being inserted in special machinery, those seeds can be used to travel to corresponding worlds (an interesting linking books alternative). But the thing is – we won't just go there and back again. There are quite a lot of seeds here and different seeds will lead to the different parts of the worlds. Moreover, seeds won't just teleport you. They'll take a part of the your current location with you. And even though most of the time it'll be just a cool-looking gimmick, from time to time, it'll be a very important feature to progress. Moreover, the worlds are not completely separate places anymore. Not only they're connected to the main hub, they're also connected to each other. With the same exact seeds. And at the late part of the game, you'll travel between them quite a lot, which will be a somewhat complicated task. In other words, it's a pretty interesting concept. The one that does improve over the old one.

Unfortunately, at the same exact time it kinda makes things a bit too... monotonous. While in MYST every world was unique not only because of how it looked, but also because it came with a unique set of themed puzzles, here? Things are a bit too similar. And as the result, despite the fact that the worlds here do look different, it's almost like there are no different worlds at all. Like it's just one big world. And it doesn't feel as good as it was supposed to. It's also important to mention that Obduction is a VR-oriented experience. And technically, it's a good thing. Just because, like music, VR makes everything better. Unfortunately, while trying to sit on two chairs and providing us with both regular and VR versions of the game, Cyan screwed things up a bit. While playing the regular version, it's hard not to notice that controls here were made with VR in mind. While VR controls? Despite playing it smart about taking notes (the game allows you to take pictures, so you won't need to remove your headset to take notes), those are pretty rough, buggy and unpolished. Up to the point where I needed to switch to gamepad just to pass through certain parts. It's not like I expected perfectly polished experience from Kickstarter project (when it's about Kickstarter, the best thing you can ask for is a game with no “unfinished” aftertaste and, thankfully, there's nothing like that here), but still, it's important thing to mention.

Aside from all that, though, Obduction is a brilliant present to all the MYST fans out there. Which is very cool, since, let's just admit it, puzzle adventures are dead. Nowadays, we either get some hardcore stuff like RHEM, or story-driven “press X to win” games. Obduction? It's exactly what we fell in love with back in 1993. Which is even more cool since we can experience all that in VR now. Sure, Obduction isn't perfect, but then again, what is? As long as you don't mind old-school puzzle adventures and don't want the game to tell you exactly what to do, this is a game for you. Like MYST, Obduction wants you to dive into it, take things slowly and try to understand how they work. Actually, good ending in this game is exactly about that. You'll just go for puzzles? You'll get the bad one. But if you'll read all the notes and learn about the story? You'll be able to make right decision. Which will look wrong otherwise. Like I said, Cyan's back. For real this time. And it's great.

nuclear
nuclear

Wonderful, beautiful, and challenging puzzle game. I expected great things from the creators of Myst, and I was not disappointed. Thank you for the fun, and frustrating, hours of play.

Anonymous
Anonymous

Cyan creates the best puzzle games by far. I can't wait for Firmament to be released!

Rickety Cricket
Rickety Cricket

This is a great game. The worlds are very immersive and the puzzles are challenging. Definitely a spiritual successor to Myst.

7Arter4
7Arter4

Complessità, ricercatezza delle ambientazioni e minimalismo funzionale che sono tipici soltanto dei giochi Cyan. Bravi tutti a fare rompicapo fini a se stessi o con 260mila utensili da poter trovare e raccogliere in giro per il mondo, ma solo i creatori di Myst sono capaci di farti perdere ore ed ore a cercare di capire cosa puoi fare con le tue sole mani. Capolavoro.

zcd7582
zcd7582

Loved all of the Myst Games and this one is right up that same alley. Great graphics and visuals. Great game play and the puzzles are fantastic to figure out.

Bob Bob the Water Cat
Bob Bob the Wa…

Myst, Riven. Same same only different.

Anonymous
Anonymous

This a VERY good game if you like the Myst style. NOT a FPS game, and thankful for that! Highly recommend this game if you've some free time and patience. Gonna take both.

Exxion
Exxion

Interesting premise and storytelling. Loved piecing together the story. Gameplay, music, puzzle design, etc. are VERY classic Cyan, other than the free movement, though I think this game is slightly easier than Myst. If you liked Cyan's earlier games, you'll like it.

Minor complaints:
It's easy to ring the doorbell, not wait long enough, and walk away, completely missing what the guy has to say, with absolutely no way of hearing it again other than restarting the game.
There's a lot of backtracking, especially in the maze puzzle, though the maze actually isn't too bad if you plan ahead properly. It probably sucks if you don't, though.
The twist in the last world is so laughably obvious, I thought it was a joke until the game actually required me to fall for it in order to progress.
The alien designs are pretty boring.

Also note that if you're playing it on Linux, use Proton GE. The videos don't work with default Proton and you will miss a lot of both lore and instructions.

Mitzvahman72
Mitzvahman72

On one hand, this game has a weird premise with an open-ended, yet immersive environment that Frac OSC will never accomplish. However, it's a few notches too open-ended to the point where you need a guide to know where you need to be going. And considering you have to regularly backtrack through large environs with one of the slowest running speeds in video game history, it becomes a tedious exercise and the time significantly adds up. There should be an option to fast travel certain areas instead of taking in too much of the scenery. Also, while the Hint Glints are helpful, they only give vague hints for your puzzle solving outside of showcasing the lore in-game. As someone who likes a good puzzle, this was getting towards a disappointing walking simulator.

Also, can this game please use a regular save system that RealMyst has? Having one of the most unspecific auto-save system that doesn't let you know when it saves doesn't exude confidence...

Leona
Leona

Good fun finding puzzles and beautiful scenes.

silentxshadow888
silentxshadow888

The game had a ton of potential, and I was willing to look past its flaws to finish playing it, but a massive game breaking glitch with the "mine" cart resulted in me not being able to progress any further. And because of how large the world is, and how slow the player moves (even when sprinting), it would take hours to catch back up to where I was.

I'd have much preferred a smaller world that was more dense with puzzles. However, this game's ambitions to create bigger worlds with puzzles that span the entirety of those worlds ultimate results in a very slow and boring experience. 90% walking around, 10% puzzle solving.

Anonymous
Anonymous

I have failed to complete this game after several attempts and many hours of play. I have tried more than one walkthrough to assist through this game and still failed to reach the end. I have completely lost heart.

Thr
Thr

Slowest walking speed in any video game ever in the history of forever. Is there some award for that? Anyway...

I liked this game. The puzzles are logical and challenging (maybe except for the pod one), but not too cryptic or abstract to require any googling. I've learned a new way how to express numbers (how do you even come up with something like that?), met some alien dude and left him to die without any help or a single word. Great stuff.

There's also unamusing music, zero story and several technical issues. The graphics were nice though.

Let's talk about the walking speed for a bit because I need to get this out of my system. Let's just assume that all of those QA testers listed in credits (actually a surprisingly huge amount) had lobotomy and never seen a game before so they were completely fine waiting about 7 years for the character to walk over 2 meter distance. It's fine. But for the rest of us, press caps lock as fast as you can to always "run" which actually brings you closer to what would be perceived as a normal walking speed by a regular human being (and not a QA tester after lobotomy who never played any game in their life). But there is actually another funny aspect to this. If you strafe left/right and walk forward, the game moves you in both directions at the same speed, which actually means that you walk diagonally 1.41x faster! I have developed this zig-zagging pattern of "running" when traversing the world. I have never seen this in any game ever. Actually incredible. In a bad way.

So as the story goes... I don't know. I did not understand it a bit. At the beginning you meet this guy and he's like "I don't have time to explain this, just do X". And so you explore, do some things, perhaps even do what the guy told you to do (or at least you though you did). You talk to him again and he's like "You can't even do X even though I've never explained how to do it or where to find it? I might as well go boil my shirt." Like what? Is this guy for real? You'll very soon realize that he's as helpful as cancer and might as well ignore him completely for the rest of the game, which is what I did. Maybe he eventually changes his mind and would actually explain something at some point in the game? Who knows, fuck that guy, let him boil his shirt.
You find some letters that explain some things but you don't really know what you're actually trying to do the whole game. I visited some other planets (I think?), connected the multidimentional wtf tree (or trees?), blew some shit up for who knows what reason, seen some laser show, got teleported and then 2 TV screens apologized to each other and I guess I died in a sandstorm? That's the story. That's how much sense it makes. Great storytelling, ain't it. Perhaps I missed some notes, perhaps I should have talked to that shirt guy, or perhaps the developers should have read some book about story telling and walking speed. Would probably help.

But the main problem (right after walking speed, of course) are the technical issues. Everything stems from the fact, that the game utilizes only 2 CPU cores. It utilizes the shit out of them and everything is bottlenecked by it. You lose framerate and loading takes about 5 eons. Doesn't matter if you have the latest SSD, latest RAM, it is bottlenecked by bad CPU utilization. Which is a massive issue because some puzzles are based on teleporting from one place to the other and back several times. And every single teleportation triggers a load screen. And it takes exactly 5 eons. Every single time. This game is currently 6 years old, I cannot even imagine running this on a 6 years old CPU when the game got released. If you ever get to the maze or "gauntlet" as they call it, you'll understand how bad it really is. You just wait and wait and then wait some more. It felt so much like a chore as you already know a solution but it takes over 20 minutes to actually do it.
And the game has no reason to load that often. It uses only like 30% of VRAM and only about 3GB of RAM, it has so much to spare. Why unload and load so many times? I don't get it...

I would recommend it just because there isn't that many games in this genre and the puzzles were actually good, but the constant super slow loading might be a hard pill to swallow for some.

ΤΣΠΠΘ
ΤΣΠΠΘ

A collection of attractive environments connected by an interesting yet unfulfilled narrative. Obduction's visual achievements are impressive, its puzzles are engaging until teleportation is introduced, which then becomes heavily featured and irritating after prolonged exposure. The characters are extremely unlikeable, the dialogue is somnific and their performances are absolutely atrocious, some of the worst I've ever seen. Despite its weaknesses, this is still worth experiencing, it gets enough right to secure a recommendation.

Wondrous worlds.

6/10

Nova250
Nova250

A worthy successor to the Myst series. I had a great time with it. The loading times and the walking/running speed were fast enough for me but I can see why some would find them bothersome, especially during a certain later puzzle. Speaking of which, they all had logical solutions except one near the end that I got through with a lucky guess, which kind of annoyed me.

Looking forward to Firmament.

LuciusVoltaic
LuciusVoltaic

Good: it's like Myst! It's got a cool world with neat transportation magic and a lot of very well-constructed puzzles. If you liked the Myst games, you'll like Obduction. Also it looks very cool.

Less good: the loading screens get annoying when you have to go through them a bunch of times in one puzzle. To get the good ending you need to figure out what C.W.'s battery is for, which is not clear at all.

Anonymous
Anonymous

First, the good: the visuals are amazing, most of the puzzles are great (a few are a bit repetitive).

However, the negatives outweigh those for me:
- The interactions are sloppy. The bounding box for buttons doesn't even overlap the buttons from certain angles, you have to be positioned just so to be able to interact with other buttons, some controls are weirdly sticky/non-responsive. I wound up having to look up a walkthrough a half-dozen times, and each time I had tried to do the thing I was supposed to do, but had misclicked the mouse by a few pixels/needed to retry the clicking. The arrows for some levers were really nice, it would have been good to incorporate a similar visual for other interactable things (or just make it easier to interact with the things).

- There are multiple options for the ending, but even deliberately replaying and changing the relevant decision (and I went back and checked on this from the walkthrough), the game would only select one ending. I was pretty careful about this, but I'm also not about to go spend the 6 hours needed for a speedrun to check again.

- There's a lot of content that winds up being entirely superfluous to the game. It's too bad, because it seems like they could be incorporated to make some of the puzzles more interesting.

- There are a couple deus ex machina parts where the world changes in a very relevant and entirely imperceptible way. To discover this, you would either need to look at a walkthrough or comb through the entire explored world up to that point (a task that would take 4-5 hours) to discover if anything has changed.

Overall, the game felt frustrating and tedious, and not from the difficulty of the puzzles (which were actually fairly well tuned). It's unfortunate, because the actual game part of the game seems really well done, just the mechanics didn't get enough attention.

Satire is Dead
Satire is Dead

I recommend this Myst type of puzzle game. I will say that the majority of the puzzles center around routing and navigation. There is a massive amount of backtracking and it's easy to see why installing it on a SSD is recommended due to frequent level loading!
I had a good time with it.

To be clear though, the problem isnt the backtracking and navigation by itself, it's more how much loading was involved with that that broke up the flow of travelling/exploring.

Slësu-snam
Slësu-snam

It's a return back to classic puzzle games, which don't necessarily respect your time and demand a lot of patience. Be thankful you don't need to swap discs nowadays!

On a more serious note it's a beatifully rendered world, full of creative choices, with great ambience, music, and sound -- with pleasantly corny live action sequences, and most importantly -- good puzzles!

EDIT after beating the game:
Well, I should probably have beaten the game before reviewing it, although my original thoughts still stand. I have a few grieavances, but overall my experience was positive and I still recommend playing it. After my run, however, I would recommend consulting with a walkthrough whenever you get stuck for too long.

Near to the end, the puzzles become very logic-based, as opposed to the "exploration-and-progression"-style puzzles up until that point. I felt they became a chore, and hampered my progress. Indeed, this is where I initially left the game for a year and a half.

After playing again, I used a walkthough for this part, and felt better off for it.

Another thing is the ending(s). I think this game is too long to have multiple endings, of which some are negative, considering you can't save manually. You need to back up your save! A real disappointment to some people to end their magical journey on a downer without the ability to re-do, I'm sure. I looked up the endings and got spoiled.

A few poor design decisions in the final run, I'd say. But again, overall a very creative, (mostly) relaxing and refreshing experience.

Bamm!
Bamm!

grew up on myst, this scratched that itch

Facemelter
Facemelter

Great game, hope they make a sequel

Cap10tom
Cap10tom

Obduction is a fun game with reasonable puzzles and a mysterious atmosphere. The puzzles were challenging, but not really hard or off the wall. I did reference a guide at the end of the game because I was tired of back tracking (which there is a lot of). Would recommend.

ilovesoggybread
ilovesoggybread

Teleport... Teleport... Teleport...

I will drink a F***ing beer to the first person in history, whoever it must have been, to genuinely beat this game without any help from the internet. Seriously.... like the level doctrine is based around Easter eggs and anomalies. Like how the F was i supposed to figure out the password to the house. Or teach myself an alien interpertation of mathmatics. Or know WHAT THE TELEPORTER ROOMS WERE, OR THE CONFIGURATION THE TELEPORTERS HAD TO BE, OR HOW TO KNOW IF I DID IT RIGHT OR NOT.

Like. seriously needed more clues or tips for half the puzzles.

It's too bad the visuals were beautiful but the gameplay was so obnoxiously difficult it felt like more than a chore to beat WITH help from multiple sources online.

Lem the casual
Lem the casual

Had so much potential, but terrible.

It's enjoyable for the first few hours when it feels like you're solving puzzles around the "island" and making the big picture come together. Then the game devolves into an utter mess of stupid teleportation puzzles that depend on rules that are in no way implied or explained. There are also instances where the game doesn't even bother to show you something has changed, so you just wind up walking around until you stumble into it.

I can't even imagine how bad Myst is if this is a modern take on the same style of game.

Eventually you'll get stuck, read the dumb solution on a website, and instantly uninstall. Don't waste your time.

The Doc
The Doc

I love puzzles and puzzle games. This one is not for people that have a limited amount of time to play. I play 2 or 3 hours a night and this game was a drag with very little reward throughout. If you miss any little detail you end up either going over every inch of the map or looking up a walkthrough to realize you missed a button because it looks like everything else in the scenery.
Everyone with a negative review mentions the maze because it the best example of how much of a drag this game is. I like puzzle games because of the puzzles not because I want to solve a puzzle and then slowly shuffle back and forth across the same terrain over and over and over and over and over again. Even the endings are boring with you watching a tv and from the farthest point from any action.

Alex Sly☯<DG3
Alex Sly☯<DG3

I really enjoyed this game. It's a puzzle game centered around exploring, figuring out what you can do and what you would need to do to advance. The puzzles and paths are very logical and it was a lot of fun figuring out how everything connects.

Woody
Woody

As always, a beautifully constructed world by Cyan

arj202
arj202

Stunning game thus far. I'm totally in love.

SirSukima
SirSukima

Puzzles are like Myst, Adventure is like Myst, Graphics are phenomenal, Story is compelling, If you liked Myst this game is a MUST.

LittleMetalPixie
LittleMetalPixie

I really want to like this game. And yet...

I enjoy a good exploration/puzzle game, and I love hard puzzles. I like a challenge, and I don't even mind looking up puzzles I get really stuck on. Having said that, I should not need to use a guide every second I am playing, or learn complex math just to play a video game.

I played this game a year or two ago for an hour and a half or so, made zero progress, and quit because I had no idea what I needed to do or where I needed to go and was very bored and frustrated. I decided to give it another try - like I said, I WANT to like this game, so I gave it a more fair chance by sticking it out longer. I have now played for about 5 hours. No, scratch that, I have read a guide and followed step by step instructions. Every step of the way, I had to stop to look at guide to see what the hell was going on and where I needed to go, and what order I needed to do things in (and often not just where the switches and things were, but to even know what the hell I was even looking for to interact with since everything looks just like everything else, and the interaction is really, REALLY clunky and difficult).

It did not get better, it got much much worse. And then I learned every puzzle in the game is noted with made-up "number" characters in an alien language... and BASED ON BASE 4 MATH.

I am not a math whiz. I am ok with this fact. I am not here to become one. I came to play a video game and have fun.

I am not have any fun whatsoever, and I feel less like I am playing a game and more like I'm reading about someone else having played a game, while I get angrier and angrier yelling "HOW THE HELL WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW TO DO THAT?!?!"

0/10, do not recommend even a little. Don't bother with this game, even if they were PAYING YOU to download it. Certainly don't spend your money on it.

Old Man 678
Old Man 678

Was really on the fence about this game, and I break it down into 2 sides: Those who preferred MYST and those who preferred RIVEN.

I played this in VR which is what I am base my review on.

If you liked MYST, this may not be for you as this plays alot like RIVEN. This game has a pretty large and ever expanding world with puzzles that can be simple and others that make you go WTF?

Game looks pretty cool and they have alot of excellent atmospheric events in this game to go with some amazing sound and a story that is always curious and keeps you wanting to see where this goes. The puzzles are pretty cool as well, but, just like in RIVEN, you do one thing one place to effect another, but sometimes traveling between these locations can take awhile. One puzzle in particular took me almost 30 minutes of going back and forth just barely move forward and you have to do this several times. Gets a little tedious. There were some glitches with your hands as sometimes one would float away or get stuck. And when doing some of the other movements, your camera would not follow properly. Other than that, this game ran very well, look and sounded good, and felt like a CYAN game.

Recommending this because it is a pretty cool game, but after 8 hours of play and just going back and forth with little progress for the last 2 hours of that, I just kind of stepped away from this. Hope to finish one day, but not what I am looking for at the moment.

Jane
Jane

Loved it, hated it. It's a frustrating, expansive puzzle game. I put 12 hours into it and used a walkthrough for some parts. Non linear, interesting storyline, and hidden lore bits to put together all of it. Could really use with a little map overlay on easy mode or something, the maps are large and twisty. Overall worth it for me, but it did have all the typical Myst style frustrations- swapping takes a LONG loading screen and you will do it a hundred times, what do you even do this world is so big and there's nothing in it, the MAZE ugh. I laughed, I cried, I rage quit, I came back.

msimardn
msimardn

Myst like. Very nice and relaxing game.

Zero
Zero

Let's make one thing clear right off the bat: This is a game by the creators of Myst, for people who liked Myst. If you've never played Myst, I recommend you go buy that (it's cheap) and see if you like it, before sinking the $30 on this game.

That said, this game is both better and worse than the Myst series, which is par for the course. On one hand, most of the puzzles are very intuitive. Most of them. It seems we will never have a Cyan puzzle game without at least one or two things that make no sense, and in this case that one thing is an alien numeral system that you are going to need a guide for. It's disappointing, because Riven also had a numeral system that you needed to learn, but it was much more intuitive. There are going to be places where you know what you need to do, you just won't know exactly how to do it.

This game also has a really egregious amount of backtracking and loading times, especially in one particular section. Imagine if you had to go through a series of linking books in Myst, with a load time between each. It's pretty terrible, and feels like padding. You will also spend a lot of time backtracking, then kicking yourself because you didn't need to backtrack. This game autosaves, so you can't save multiple files and thus can't reload to save time, which is by far the games biggest flaw.

That said, I would still recommend the game on the caveat that, again, this is a game for Myst fans. If that's you, it's a good game. Enjoy the nostalgic use of FMVs. And don't waste too much time on the box with all the knobs, you will hate yourself.

PaSe
PaSe

Loading screen puzzle was the hardest. It messes with the mind on some other level.

Daeranilen
Daeranilen

Even now, years from when I first completed it, the way this game unfurls is so, so striking. Obduction's genius is in how it gets you looking at the same few spaces with fresh eyes over and over again. Every time you think you've exhausted an area, you open up some new way accessing, traversing, or altering it. The game is full of so many genuine surprises, and there's a true sense of wonder in seeing how its world comes together. If you like exploring in games, and you haven't tried Obduction, you should try Obduction.

NiceDuckPerson
NiceDuckPerson

It was a neat puzzle game, very complex at times, but it was a cool challenge. My only problems were the loading times, especially on some puzzles that required you to go through a bunch of loading zones to complete a puzzle between 2 areas. Also I appreciate the hint glint option. All it does is flash objects that you can interact with, but I found it helpful because sometimes it feels like there is too much detail and you don't know what you can or can't interact with. Pretty good overall though.

tombakalarz
tombakalarz

If you liked Myst and Riven, you will love this. You can feel the unique style and imagination of Cyan studio all through this game.

It's just so many interesting and beautiful things mixed together

Baszahatizsak
Baszahatizsak

Wow! A piece of art, no doubt. I started this game looking to be immersed in another world and relax. And that is exactly what I got. The worlds are BEAUTIFUL and incredibly creative. Same goes to the story and million other details that accompany them. Some of the places I will remember for a long time, they made a huge impression on me. Level design is PERFECT. Every view, composition, path and sight is crafted with a purpose, and it works fantastically. Puzzles are more than enough to hold your attention (more on this below), and as the story starts to emerge, it will keep you engaged.

Some things to be prepared for: The game is SLOW and sometimes HARD (IMO). I walked so much I was wishing my character had a Fitbit to count the steps. Some puzzles span across worlds and especially if you miss your path, you can walk you a** off going back. If your progress gets stuck, the world is large enough so that you can completely lose any sense of direction (where should I go? What should I do?). The game also doesn't push the story too much in your face: although the clues are all easy to find, they don't detail it too much, so you'll need to fill in those large gaps yourself. The game also has a handful of funny bugs, and for a mysterious reason, a small set of graphics look just BAD. Even with these minor frustrations, the game is worth every penny. I recommend if you want an amazing escape from reality and into an intriguing dream world!

Pchan
Pchan

Obduction is a beautiful and interesting adventure game. The world is dense with clues to what is going on and how to progress, with only a few mishaps here and there, which kept me engaged with progressing. The story is cryptic but not difficult to understand, and the design of the puzzles feels naturally build into the environment.

There are some aspects of the world and puzzles however that felt somewhat underdeveloped. There are aspects of the world that you can learn about from exploring but which ultimately do not contribute much to neither the story or the gameplay.

On the technical side things seem pretty well now for the most part. Playing on an SSD in desktop mode I had no issues with the loading times for the most part, although there is one with frequent loading screens at around 10 seconds each. In VR the loading times were increased significantly to more than 30 seconds.

As a VR experience in general, the game mostly works well but it feels like it was build for desktop. There are some issues at times with orientation in the virtual space not working quite as expected, especially when the game rotates the player. I enjoyed playing in VR, although I changed to desktop near the end as it felt more natural. Still I would recommend trying out VR in Obduction and hope to see new games of a similar kind build around VR.

The Cumquat Man
The Cumquat Man

Good game but if your computer crashes while playing you need to start over

siljeeg
siljeeg

I loved this game! Great story and even though it's sometimes a test of my patience I still didn't loose interest. My sense of direction is not the most impressive and made this game quite a challange. Recommended for people who love puzzles and exploring.