Cyan Worlds reveals cancelled Myst sequel prototype, codenamed Project Anglerfish

Cyan Worlds has released a teaser trailer for Project Anglerfish — a cancelled Myst sequel that would have been the first new entry in the series in roughly 20 years. The trailer was never meant for public eyes, and the game itself is dead.

According to Cyan Worlds, the team spent about four months building a prototype over a year ago. The teaser was built specifically to pitch the project to publishers. In their own words: "For a variety of reasons, this project couldn't move forward at the time, BUT we're still proud of the work the team did — so we're sharing the teaser for the prototype with you all now." The studio hasn't named which publishers passed, or elaborated on what those "variety of reasons" actually were.

Myst launched in 1993 and was a landmark moment for PC gaming — its pre-rendered environments and atmospheric design showed what CD-ROMs could do. It held the title of best-selling PC game until The Sims knocked it off the top. Cyan Worlds has kept the franchise alive in other ways, most recently with a remake of the original Myst, but a full sequel has been absent for two decades. Project Anglerfish would have broken that drought.

Cyan's statement leaves a small door open — they note the project "couldn't move forward at the time," which stops short of a permanent goodbye to new Myst games. Whether that's genuine optimism or careful wording is hard to say. For now, fans have a beautiful teaser for a game they'll never get to play.