The Starry Expanse Community

Here is my list of all the Myst ages in order of best to worst from a design perspective:

1. D'ni: I think this is the coolest and most iconic place in the entire saga. What's more original than an stone alien city built deep underground and bathed in an eerie orange glow? Simply the most amazing location in the saga.

2. Riven. The age is the largest in the series save for Earth. Under a cyan blue sky and colored in dusty hues, Riven is the most striking and subtle visually. I could live here.

3. Myst Island. The surreal island that started everything. Its use of allegorical juxtopisition of the symbolic structures of gear, ship, tree, rocket, library are what make it so instantly iconic. Its no wonder it caught on.

4. Teledahn. Simply one of the warmest and most memorable ages in the saga. Who doesn't like shrooms, right? Everything about this age is so captivating from the blue/yellow sky to the spores and buggaroos in the air.

5. Narayan. Possibly the most original age in the series. Tall floating cities of inflated pods and lattice branches within the clouds high above an endless ocean. Bathed a salmon hue, the age is exotic and mysterious. Great well- developed culture based on maintaining the cities using weaving.

6. Amateria. Instantly memorable. Japan meets Ireland meets strange alien technology. This is the most mezmerizing age when it comes to vibrancy and atmosphere. ...and talk about that final ride!

7. Haven. The ultimate pirate age. Warm, bright, wild and full of adventure. Containing different biomes from dense jungle, a windswept beach under an ominous horizon lying behind a giant upright shipwreck, a swamp, and lake - it feels the most at home in the Myst saga. The most alive age in the series.

8. Spire. What is cooler than a floating crystal spire hovering above a green dwarf star? Not much. This is the darkest and most sinister age in the series with some insane physics. The crystal tower has grown into the illusion of a large empty castle, symbolic of Sirrus' cold pride.

9. Tay. The most mysterious age ever. Creepy and tribal in a gothic sense. Richard Vander Wende's strange dark concoction. You only get a glimpse and it is hauntingly inviting. There's so much more I want to know about this age.

10. Ahnonay. The greatest reveal in the series. From a tiny island to uncovering the ultimate truth of the age from inside out is the most euphoric experience in the saga.

11 Edanna. One of the most unique and memorable ages in that its entirely nature based. More awesome however is that the whole age is but one massive tree growing out a shallow ocean. Simply breathtaking.

12. Kadish Tolesa. One of the weirdest ages ever concocted by Cyan. The whole age is an endlessly tall and endlessly expansive tree bathed in purple light miles above ground. One wonders if the tree is but the single plant organism on the age, possibly covering the entire planet.

13. 233. One of the most sinister looking ages in the series. A caustic sea of barren double-mountains against a red sunset. Tidally locked planet? Gehn's office is rich and opulent and conveys so much about his love for D'ni society.

14. Todelmer. The ultimate space age! This one really stands out with its breathtaking space vista and time manipulation puzzle. This should have been on the Myst V box!

15. Stoneship. Definitely one of the most iconic ages in the series. A ship fused with a rock amid an endless foggy sea. Nothing more poetic.

16. Channelwood. The basic cool forest age. A maze of walkways and huts above the ground amid the trees makes for a highly memorable age. Not to mention Achenar's freaky voodoo temple with its mechanical sacrificial altar.

17. Gahreesen. The ultimate fortress age that makes Mechanical look pathetically tiny by comparison. Fit with double rotating fortresses and prison section makes it doubly cooler.

18. Tomahna. Nothing more calming that Atrus and Catherine's warm lush desert home in its brilliant art nouveau architecture holding an observatory and the famous greenhouse/study area.

19. Er'Cana. Who likes rust, alpine canyons, rust, cool machinery, and more rust? Me! This is one of the more subtle ages design-wise with a great industrial atmosphere.

20. Voltaic. The electric sand age bathed in warm sunlight and powered by electricity and steam. One of the more visually subtle ages that is remarkable for its unique architecture.

21. Mechanical. The original fortress age. Who likes gears? Small but made great by its repetition of gear motifs and great music. The brothers' rooms and caches' are great to explore because of all the toys and doodads in them that reveal a lot about their individual personalities.

22. J'nanin. The rocky island/basin dotted with strange growing tusks. Very original age. Windy and refreshing in its oceanic beauty.

23. Noloben. The quintessential beach age. Small but definitely memorable with its sunny sky and grassy isle where the large bahro mound rests, converted into Esher's lab.

24. Laki. A large gladiatorial age with an arena and sandy beaches. If the graphics weren't so hit and miss here the age might have been much higher on the list. Still one of the more original ages.

25. Eder Kemo. Great garden age with a wide variety of exotic alien flora. Small but memorable mostly for its nature and its set of rock glyphs that are eternally mysterious.

26. Direbo. What can you say? Its a beautiful garden age. Great ambience, but too small.

27. Eder Gira. A hot volcanic age. Not very big but still lovely in that exotic kind of way.

28. Selenitic. Like sound? No. Then screw you. Yeah, its cool simply for how alien it is, but otherwise one of the weaker ages, ESPECIALLY because of the dreaded mazerunner.

29. Serenia. Definitely beautiful but entirely cliche, especially for the Myst series which has always had a more romantic and dark aesthetic. The age just feels out of place like it belongs in an Atlantis themed game or something.

30. Relto. Nice, but kind of pointless. The sea of mist is a cool idea but otherwise its not an age I ever spend time on.

31. Eder Tsogahl. Small but nice and relaxing. The floating polen is quite pretty though.

32. Tahgira. Kind of pointless prison age. Nice snow but very small.

33. Eder Delin. Graphically kind of bad but it has a cool seasonal cycle.

34. The Pod Age. Cool concept, horrible implementation. Different unique biomes but with malfunctioning wildlife that rarely ever shows up. Bad timed puzzle. Better in theory had the animals been more frequent.

35. Minkata. Huge open world desert. Great for clearing one's mind but boring after the third visit. Impossibly obtuse puzzle. Cool night section and music, but otherwise one of the worser ages.

36. Jalak Dador. Stupidest idea Cyan ever had. Understandably it was towards the end of MOUL when they were running out of money and their staff was low. Small sandbox arena, but pointless without clear instructions on how to organize games with others. The journal doesn't help much either. Ironic name makes it that much worse. Worst age ever.

Edit: Added missing ages.

I've NEVER played/seen URU nor End of Ages, so a lot of these rankings confuse me.

I can only agree with you for Ahnonay, it's been the most thrilling map of my Myst experience.

BenMech wrote:I've NEVER played/seen URU nor End of Ages, so a lot of these rankings confuse me.

Then hop on in! Its definitely the biggest and most in depth Myst game from a lore perspective, and one of the better ones too. I give it a solid 9 out 10. Its the second best Myst game after Riven in my opinion. I only wish Live had continued because it was ahead of its time. The idea that you could log in during a month and be part of a story that was played out live with actors, while being able to affect the story and the course of D'ni history was in and of itself amazing. No MMO has attempted this kind of persistent interactive storytelling before or since.

The only analogy I can think of is if you could log in to Game of Thrones during each season with thousands of people and interact with the main characters, potentially affecting the plot, while being able to live in the world and go to battle along the side of Jon Snow.

I really think Uru should make a comeback. Maybe if fans formed their own company and developed a new version with Cyan's blessing. I'd love to see K'veer in Unreal 4.

What about J'nanin and Narayan?

OOPS!

I'll put in a list too if I may, although I think I'll only make it a top ten, otherwise we'll be here all day.

|ᴖ| Narayan, well this is definitely an age that would rank higher if it wasn't so damn small! This age is just as if not more out there as Spire, and it really pulls it off a lot better, the reveal as it goes from the dark grey frosted age from within the shield, to the soft and dramatic pink of the sun is one of the better reveals in the series in my opinion.

= |ᴖ| Okay so I cheated, but how can you not include Myst in this list, the age that started it all, the only problem is that it is too small, and subsequent editions, far from expanding the island to make it more of a place that you could imagine people living, actually made it smaller! I mean look at it in RMME, it's so small the buildings barely fit on it and it's reduced to about a dozen trees!

|-F| Teledahn, one of the only ages from later games that really got it to me, this ages screams Myst from every aspect of it's design, from it's towering mushrooms, to it's impossible gantry walkways! This is an age that I'd love to see redone with a better rendering engine so we could all see how beautiful it could be.

|←| Channelwood, trees poking up out of a shallow sea, with huts way above the surface? Sounds like a paradise for an adventurer! As long as you're not afraid of heights, or rickety swingbridges. Also, one of the few original ages with a proper name!

|–)–| Stoneship age, one of the first ages that really made me get it, Stoneship was visually striking, had very ingenious puzzles, and only got better in subsequent playthroughs in RealMYST and RealMYST Masterpiece.

|+| Spire, okay, so it's implementation was floored in a lot of ways, but you have to give kudos for being gutsy enough to set an age in a floating tower of crystal and rock!

|—| Rime, It's not a very big age I know, but it was a nice addition to Myst, and is a beautiful age with its snow and the aroura.

|г| Edanna, the opposite story to Voltaic for me really, I don't like it as much as I used to, but still very much an age I enjoy.

K| Voltaic, this is an age that I hated when I first played Exile, but now it's sweeping canyon and contrast against the deep blue sea is one of the sights that I look forward to!

D| It's a toss up between 2nd and 3rd, but I've got to give it to Amateria, the age is one of the most beautiful in the series, with it's architecture and lovely lighting in the permanent sunset with storms rolling in. And all of that is before you get to just how much damn fun it is!

||| Riven - What can you say? It's visually beautiful, dramatically stunning, it's got one of the most in depth plots of the whole series, and was the first time where the surrealistic adventure felt like you were really in it. Is it any surprise that the best game also had the best age? Considering that you spend most of your time on it, probably not!

Tomahna would of course rate in this list, however, as it is on earth it didn't seem right to include it. Same for the Cleft, As I mentioned, most of the ages from Uru and Myst V didn't really do it for me. Some of them were nice, but they didn't have that same Myst feel.

I think the Uru ages are way better than the Myst V ages, with the exception of Todelmer. Teledahn, Garrison, D'ni , Er' Cana and Kadish feel right at home in the saga. Er'Cana has amazing sound design and music. Its the most Riven like place in Uru.

I can't put mine in a specific order, but my favorite is probably Edanna due to all the interesting plants and animals. My least favorite is Selentic, due to every time you go, you have to run the maze

As I said, I used to really like Edanna... until some git pointed out how improbable it all was, which kinda ruined it for me...