Cyan's new Myst game has been cancelled, but we've got a glimpse of what it could have been

Ava is a fan of all things relating to The Sims and Dead by Daylight, to immersive RPGs, MMOs, and cozy games

Cyan Worlds, developer of the 30-something-year-old Myst game series, has revealed that its prototype Project Anglerfish will not move forward "for a variety of reasons." The news was shared in a video on Cyan's YouTube account titled "A path not taken: Project Anglerfish" on Sunday, July 26.

In the three-minute clip, Development Director Hannah Gamiel, and Creative Director Eric A. Anderson shared that the project was worked on "over a year ago," with the team spending "about four months developing a new prototype for a game in the Myst universe." In a surprising turn of events, though, fans of the series are given a glimpse into what could have been through a teaser trailer originally only meant "for publisher eyes," noting that Cyan is "still proud of the work the team did."

The story game's teaser presents an eerie, mysterious atmosphere, with what would be the player character traveling into a book, the destination of which is known as an "Age." Tasked with collecting another book for a mysterious, deceptively plucky green-cloaked man, the environments shift between clean and elegant to ruinous and almost horror-like. It's an intriguing trailer with a particularly intense, brilliantly-acted last half, and looks like something that would have easily eaten up a few hours.

While Project Anglerfish looks like it'll become yet another game that won't see the light of day, Cyan notes that they are "still hard at work on other new Myst universe things," and that there is "more on that to come." For now, though, fans will have to dive back into Myst's 2021 remake and the Age of Rime update to tide them over.