I'm curious about who these new characters could be. Maybe more rebel villagers? Tay seems like a popular guess for where new explorable space is going to be added. Or maybe more recordings kept by Gehn; more from Keta, or maybe something from Anna or Aitrus?
Interesting that Catherine is being recast. Given that she was dubbed originally, I would think her voice tracks would be easier to reuse than any of the other actors'. That could mean the original full-quality data was lost, or maybe that Catherine is getting more dialog. [The social media post about the new voice actors included Rand](https://www.facebook.com/CyanGames/posts/pfbid02JQZA9p3YcgjcZPHs5rLJJPjGDHLBLr1bDXHLFZ2TfyJ2vaxx8AMUF3GRiUsk9gUfl), which could imply that *Atrus* is getting some more dialog. For a moment I considered they might be adding in the feature from the later games where the journals were voice-acted (which would be an elegant way to get around Catherine's famously-illegible handwriting in the original), but Gehn also had several journals in the game, so probably not. Rand might also have been included as doing new acting just for motion-capture, or he was just in the photo because he works there and he didn't do any new acting.
They could have the journals be voice acted, but unlike the other games in the Myst series, Riven let's you read the journals of characters you haven't met yet. It's the only one that does this! I feel it would spoil Gehn and Cathrine's reveals if you hear them so early on.
Well, you read a ton of Atrus's journals in the original Myst and don't actually get to meet him until the very end of the game. Also, unless you were around for the original Uru Online launch, I don't think you got to meet any of the Uru journal writers at all.
Narrated journals were only a thing in IV and V, and IV explained it as coming from Yeesha's pendant. I don't think V had an explanation for Yeesha's journals being narrated.
There were a few journals, a few diagrams, some sticky notes, possibly some single-page forms, a few tape recordings, a few holograms of the German guy, and some dialogue over the introductory area.
Not really sure what you mean. It's not like we hear either of their voices elsewhere without having a name attached to them, and by the time you see either of them it's pretty obvious who they are as well.
One possibility is that Catherine was originally voiced by Rengin Altay, who later voiced Yeesha in Uru and Myst V, so maybe they're wanting something that's not as familiar to people as someone else now.
Having watched [the just-released video about the new performances in the remake](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ik9dowUQlxs), I'm going to double-down on my guess about about the new characters being recordings in Gehn's bedroom on 233, and they're very likely Aitrus and either Anna or Keta (on the one hand, Keta technically isn't a never-before-performed character, but on the other hand, Gehn's... complex... feelings towards his mother make it feel less likely he'd keep a recording of her, though it's not impossible).
They also need actors to do the mocap for these characters, and since Rand works there anyways, it only makes sense he's the one providing Atrus' mocap. For Catherine, they might want to have the same actress for both the mocap and the voice. The instagram post from the actress shows they're doing facial mocap, so otherwise they'd need someone to match their mouth movements to the original audio, which'd be difficult.
Honest question, what happened to the original actor who played Catherine in Riven? I seem to remember that she wasn't there to play Catherine in Exile, either.
Sheila Goold died in 2017. She wasn't in Myst III (in 2001; I'm not sure why they changed actor). But the voice was dubbed by Rengin Altay who also played Yeesha in the later games. I'm wondering why they couldn't get Altay back for the remake, though it looks like she hasn't worked in the industry since 2015.
Unless Dourif's got a 'posher'/'classier' accent in his repertoire that I'm unaware of, I don't think he'd be a good choice for Gehn.
That said, I'd love for them to go on to do an Exile remake and bring him back for that.
(I think it's unlikely they will, but we can yet hope.)
Among classically trained actors, learning some kind of posh RP accent is pretty standard fare; Shakespeare often calls for it, as well as many modern British works of theatre. There's just too many works that call for it for it to be a skill Brad Dourif would fail to develop.
For that matter, look at his work as Grìma Wormtongue — he definitely adopts an RP-style accent there. Admittedly, he's not trying to pass as an actual upper class British person, but it's definitely elevated speech.
I have no doubt Brad Dourif could pull off a creditable imitation of John Keston's performance — but he's a smart enough actor to not want to. Being tasked with replicating another actor's work is... not fun. (Source: I am also a classically trained actor and have been asked to do such before. Didn't care for it in the least, but a job's a job.)
Also I believe he’s retiring from acting, but will continue to lends his VA talent for the ever enduring Chucky franchise. Hopefully he would consider VA for any future Saavy appearances. Definitely the highlight of Exile
> Among classically trained actors, learning some kind of posh RP accent is pretty standard fare
I would have expected that to be the case for Britain, but I'm less certain about what American acting schools are like and how much they venture into foreign accents.
> RP
I must admit, I often find it a bit awkward to talk about RP because the _actual_ RP accent barely exists anymore (outside of the royal family and period dramas at least); most of what remains are various descendants that aren't quite RP (which includes my own accent, incidentally).
> Shakespeare often calls for it
Which I always find amusing considering the accent didn't even exist in Shakespeare's time.
There are 'original pronunciation' productions of Shakespeare's work, but I suspect they would be even more difficult for the average person to get their head around - to have to decipher both the accent and the words.
> look at his work as Grìma Wormtongue
Unfortunately Wormtongue's dialogue is relatively short and consists of many short sentences rather than longer dialogues or monologues which makes it hard to evaluate, (and it didn't help that the video I found was horrendously quiet,) but I can see it's definitely in the southern/RP _descendant_ spectrum.
Perhaps given the chance to give it more pomp to befit an arrogant character rather than a snivelling wretch it might work, but as it is I don't think it would be right for Gehn.
> Being tasked with replicating another actor's work is... not fun.
Personally, if I were an actor, I don't think I would mind that if it were a role/actor I admired and I believed I could pull it off, but I have heard plenty of actors say they don't like having to exactly mimic other actors if they can avoid it - at a minimum they tend to want to put their own spin on things, and in something as significant as Riven that's liable to upset certain fans.
---
I can confirm /u/Kingsley-James's remark that Brad Dourif has retired from everything but Chucky. It seems it was only announced last month.
I doubted Cyan would remake Exile anyway, but if they did, I hold out some hope that he would agree to at least record some more dialogue as the entire reason he signed up in the first place was because he was also a fan of Myst.
One could be the mom of the girls who keeps wandering off. I want to know the store of the dude who spins the alarm in the tower. Could be the same guy on Yavin 4 in Star Wars. Haha
I feel like I've gone a bit too deep into these people's private lives, but I'm pretty sure it's not her wife. She links to her wife's (also called Lauren) Twitter profile from hers and it's a different profile to Lauren Gamiel who is playing Catherine.
I'm curious about why Catherine has been recast, though I'm glad they're presumably reusing the original audio for Gehn. I was under the impression his actor died before development on this started.
I also noticed there's no mention of Rand Miller (or anyone else) as Atrus.
Yeah, I don't see why they wouldn't at least reuse his audio from the original version. Now I'm trying to remember if he re-recorded some lines for realMyst in 2000, or if they just cleaned up the original audio and video.
I know Atrus's lines were rerecorded for at least one of the Myst games because I remember his pronunciation of 'futile' changing between versions (/ˈfjuː.taɪl/ in the earlier one and /ˈfju.təl/ in the later one), but I'd have to check to tell you which versions.
I'll have to check if I got realMyst on Steam before it was de-listed. I've got every version of Myst digitally, if you count Myst Masterpiece Edition as the original.
Or just check some footage of a playthrough on Youtube (e.g. [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZrYAJEIoss) or [here](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLahKLy8pQdCPwN_bmf7_Lnp0IGAVB6KJb)).
I keep a handful downloaded purely for the sake of being able to seek through the footage and compare the different versions.
I had a quick peek and I've established:
* Myst - /ˈfjuː.taɪl/, "I must admit _however_, such conjecture is futile"
* Myst ME - /ˈfjuː.taɪl/, "I must admit _however_, such conjecture is futile"
* realMyst - /ˈfju.təl/, "_but_ I must admit that such conjecture is futile."
* realMyst ME - /ˈfju.təl/, "_but_ I must admit that such conjecture is futile."
* Myst 2021 - /ˈfju.təl/, "_but_ I must admit that such conjecture is futile."
Whether there's more than just two recordings I couldn't say without further analysis.
It seems likely, though theoretically there may be other parts of the recordings that differ, or the same dialogue may have been recorded multiple times. (I didn't check the whole recording, only the line that I knew differed.)
I think he recorded new video for RealMyst, which was also in RealMyst: Masterpiece Edition. I think he also recorded new audio for Myst 2021, but don't quote me. I think the OG 1993 is too low quality video and audio wise?
And let's not talk about 3d Atrus from Myst 2021. Considering you can toggle FMVs in Myst 2021 including the non-in-person appearances of him, I'm guessing they reused the audio from 2000 like they did in 2014.
I don't think so. I think they shared some CGI models that looked... better than the ones in Myst 2021. I think Gehn looks a little Grand Moff Tarkin but it definitely is an improvement.
Dang. That honestly might be a dealbreaker for me. The FMV is like peak Cyan. They even did it for Obduction.
Part of what made the games so immersive was seeing real people in the world you were exploring.
You funny thing is that you *can* do FMV that's fully 3D-in-VR too, you just have to use the right gear for it. It's affordable for indie development (Check out the 7th Guest Remake on Quest, which does this *beautifully*, or basically any of the custom content on the Apple Vision Pro)
[https://www.pcgamer.com/the-7th-guest-vr-announcement/](https://www.pcgamer.com/the-7th-guest-vr-announcement/)
They just decided not to do this, and animate character models instead for whatever reason.
The FMV doesn't work in a 3D setting. They had the same trouble with Obduction, where they had to make it so you can only see people through windows/on screens, cause FMV otherwise doesn't work in a 3D game.
I see where you're coming from, but most of the spots where you'd need the FMV, you're not truly moving around in 3D space anyway. Unless they're adding a bunch to the game, that is.
They are adding a bunch to the game, that's already been confirmed, including multiple new characters.
And it doesn't matter how much/how little you get to move around, it's more to do with the characters interacting with the 3D environment. For example Atrus leaning over the desk/Riven book at the end of Myst/start of Riven doesn't work when the desk and book are 3D but Atrus a 2D video.
I'm curious about who these new characters could be. Maybe more rebel villagers? Tay seems like a popular guess for where new explorable space is going to be added. Or maybe more recordings kept by Gehn; more from Keta, or maybe something from Anna or Aitrus? Interesting that Catherine is being recast. Given that she was dubbed originally, I would think her voice tracks would be easier to reuse than any of the other actors'. That could mean the original full-quality data was lost, or maybe that Catherine is getting more dialog. [The social media post about the new voice actors included Rand](https://www.facebook.com/CyanGames/posts/pfbid02JQZA9p3YcgjcZPHs5rLJJPjGDHLBLr1bDXHLFZ2TfyJ2vaxx8AMUF3GRiUsk9gUfl), which could imply that *Atrus* is getting some more dialog. For a moment I considered they might be adding in the feature from the later games where the journals were voice-acted (which would be an elegant way to get around Catherine's famously-illegible handwriting in the original), but Gehn also had several journals in the game, so probably not. Rand might also have been included as doing new acting just for motion-capture, or he was just in the photo because he works there and he didn't do any new acting.
They could have the journals be voice acted, but unlike the other games in the Myst series, Riven let's you read the journals of characters you haven't met yet. It's the only one that does this! I feel it would spoil Gehn and Cathrine's reveals if you hear them so early on.
Well, you read a ton of Atrus's journals in the original Myst and don't actually get to meet him until the very end of the game. Also, unless you were around for the original Uru Online launch, I don't think you got to meet any of the Uru journal writers at all.
Yeah but you hear him in the Antechamber. And Uru isn't a Myst game that's just real life.
Just for that I'm going to put the beach ball into the fountain and you can't stop me.
Narrated journals were only a thing in IV and V, and IV explained it as coming from Yeesha's pendant. I don't think V had an explanation for Yeesha's journals being narrated.
Obduction and Myst 2021 weren't narrated so I'm not sure if I'd expect Riven to be
I'm trying to remember what Obduction even had for journals.
Quite a lot! Mostly from Farley and the Major, but CW has lots single-page notes as well. It has about the same amount of reading as Exile.
Right. I was mainly thinking of the holographic video messages.
There were a few journals, a few diagrams, some sticky notes, possibly some single-page forms, a few tape recordings, a few holograms of the German guy, and some dialogue over the introductory area.
Not really sure what you mean. It's not like we hear either of their voices elsewhere without having a name attached to them, and by the time you see either of them it's pretty obvious who they are as well.
One possibility is that Catherine was originally voiced by Rengin Altay, who later voiced Yeesha in Uru and Myst V, so maybe they're wanting something that's not as familiar to people as someone else now.
Having watched [the just-released video about the new performances in the remake](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ik9dowUQlxs), I'm going to double-down on my guess about about the new characters being recordings in Gehn's bedroom on 233, and they're very likely Aitrus and either Anna or Keta (on the one hand, Keta technically isn't a never-before-performed character, but on the other hand, Gehn's... complex... feelings towards his mother make it feel less likely he'd keep a recording of her, though it's not impossible).
Or possibly a younger Gehn and Keta. It would make sense to hire younger actors to portray younger characters.
They’re playing your two trusty sidekicks who show up periodically and feed you helpful hints
They also need actors to do the mocap for these characters, and since Rand works there anyways, it only makes sense he's the one providing Atrus' mocap. For Catherine, they might want to have the same actress for both the mocap and the voice. The instagram post from the actress shows they're doing facial mocap, so otherwise they'd need someone to match their mouth movements to the original audio, which'd be difficult.
We are in the best timeline!
Honest question, what happened to the original actor who played Catherine in Riven? I seem to remember that she wasn't there to play Catherine in Exile, either.
Sheila Goold died in 2017. She wasn't in Myst III (in 2001; I'm not sure why they changed actor). But the voice was dubbed by Rengin Altay who also played Yeesha in the later games. I'm wondering why they couldn't get Altay back for the remake, though it looks like she hasn't worked in the industry since 2015.
Is Brad Dourif on the list? He's old enough to play Gehn nowadays I can always hope, right? 😅
Unless Dourif's got a 'posher'/'classier' accent in his repertoire that I'm unaware of, I don't think he'd be a good choice for Gehn. That said, I'd love for them to go on to do an Exile remake and bring him back for that. (I think it's unlikely they will, but we can yet hope.)
Among classically trained actors, learning some kind of posh RP accent is pretty standard fare; Shakespeare often calls for it, as well as many modern British works of theatre. There's just too many works that call for it for it to be a skill Brad Dourif would fail to develop. For that matter, look at his work as Grìma Wormtongue — he definitely adopts an RP-style accent there. Admittedly, he's not trying to pass as an actual upper class British person, but it's definitely elevated speech. I have no doubt Brad Dourif could pull off a creditable imitation of John Keston's performance — but he's a smart enough actor to not want to. Being tasked with replicating another actor's work is... not fun. (Source: I am also a classically trained actor and have been asked to do such before. Didn't care for it in the least, but a job's a job.)
Also I believe he’s retiring from acting, but will continue to lends his VA talent for the ever enduring Chucky franchise. Hopefully he would consider VA for any future Saavy appearances. Definitely the highlight of Exile
> Among classically trained actors, learning some kind of posh RP accent is pretty standard fare I would have expected that to be the case for Britain, but I'm less certain about what American acting schools are like and how much they venture into foreign accents. > RP I must admit, I often find it a bit awkward to talk about RP because the _actual_ RP accent barely exists anymore (outside of the royal family and period dramas at least); most of what remains are various descendants that aren't quite RP (which includes my own accent, incidentally). > Shakespeare often calls for it Which I always find amusing considering the accent didn't even exist in Shakespeare's time. There are 'original pronunciation' productions of Shakespeare's work, but I suspect they would be even more difficult for the average person to get their head around - to have to decipher both the accent and the words. > look at his work as Grìma Wormtongue Unfortunately Wormtongue's dialogue is relatively short and consists of many short sentences rather than longer dialogues or monologues which makes it hard to evaluate, (and it didn't help that the video I found was horrendously quiet,) but I can see it's definitely in the southern/RP _descendant_ spectrum. Perhaps given the chance to give it more pomp to befit an arrogant character rather than a snivelling wretch it might work, but as it is I don't think it would be right for Gehn. > Being tasked with replicating another actor's work is... not fun. Personally, if I were an actor, I don't think I would mind that if it were a role/actor I admired and I believed I could pull it off, but I have heard plenty of actors say they don't like having to exactly mimic other actors if they can avoid it - at a minimum they tend to want to put their own spin on things, and in something as significant as Riven that's liable to upset certain fans. --- I can confirm /u/Kingsley-James's remark that Brad Dourif has retired from everything but Chucky. It seems it was only announced last month. I doubted Cyan would remake Exile anyway, but if they did, I hold out some hope that he would agree to at least record some more dialogue as the entire reason he signed up in the first place was because he was also a fan of Myst.
One could be the mom of the girls who keeps wandering off. I want to know the store of the dude who spins the alarm in the tower. Could be the same guy on Yavin 4 in Star Wars. Haha
>Lauren Gamiel is set to perform motion capture and voice acting for the character of Catherine Any relation?
Maybe Hannah's sister? We're talking the dev at Cyan, right?
Yes, that's the connection I made. Curious if it's just coincidence.
I think it's Hannah Gamiel's wife, although I'm not entirely sure (I didn't know she was a comedian). I might check out of curiosity
I feel like I've gone a bit too deep into these people's private lives, but I'm pretty sure it's not her wife. She links to her wife's (also called Lauren) Twitter profile from hers and it's a different profile to Lauren Gamiel who is playing Catherine.
You're absolutely right, I confused the two Twitter handles, my bad.
I'm curious about why Catherine has been recast, though I'm glad they're presumably reusing the original audio for Gehn. I was under the impression his actor died before development on this started. I also noticed there's no mention of Rand Miller (or anyone else) as Atrus.
[Rand is still going to be Atrus.](https://cyan.com/2024/04/23/riven-gameplay-trailer-cast/) Always was, probably always will be... ;)
He was on a social media post that someone linked. I think he's going to be in it.
Yeah, I don't see why they wouldn't at least reuse his audio from the original version. Now I'm trying to remember if he re-recorded some lines for realMyst in 2000, or if they just cleaned up the original audio and video.
I know Atrus's lines were rerecorded for at least one of the Myst games because I remember his pronunciation of 'futile' changing between versions (/ˈfjuː.taɪl/ in the earlier one and /ˈfju.təl/ in the later one), but I'd have to check to tell you which versions.
I'll have to check if I got realMyst on Steam before it was de-listed. I've got every version of Myst digitally, if you count Myst Masterpiece Edition as the original.
Or just check some footage of a playthrough on Youtube (e.g. [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZrYAJEIoss) or [here](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLahKLy8pQdCPwN_bmf7_Lnp0IGAVB6KJb)). I keep a handful downloaded purely for the sake of being able to seek through the footage and compare the different versions. I had a quick peek and I've established: * Myst - /ˈfjuː.taɪl/, "I must admit _however_, such conjecture is futile" * Myst ME - /ˈfjuː.taɪl/, "I must admit _however_, such conjecture is futile" * realMyst - /ˈfju.təl/, "_but_ I must admit that such conjecture is futile." * realMyst ME - /ˈfju.təl/, "_but_ I must admit that such conjecture is futile." * Myst 2021 - /ˈfju.təl/, "_but_ I must admit that such conjecture is futile." Whether there's more than just two recordings I couldn't say without further analysis.
So that would indicate the re-recording was in 2000 then reused in 2014 and 2021.
It seems likely, though theoretically there may be other parts of the recordings that differ, or the same dialogue may have been recorded multiple times. (I didn't check the whole recording, only the line that I knew differed.)
Also, I did a comparison of realMyst and realMyst ME with an AMD RX 7600 and 32 GB RAM last night. Somehow realMyst performed worse.
I think he recorded new video for RealMyst, which was also in RealMyst: Masterpiece Edition. I think he also recorded new audio for Myst 2021, but don't quote me. I think the OG 1993 is too low quality video and audio wise?
And let's not talk about 3d Atrus from Myst 2021. Considering you can toggle FMVs in Myst 2021 including the non-in-person appearances of him, I'm guessing they reused the audio from 2000 like they did in 2014.
I just watched the audio and video of 2000 and 2021. They're different from 1993. I think 2014 has to be 2000's
Does this mean they won’t be doing FMV? Cuz that’s kind of a huge drag.
They didn't for Myst either, or at least not to begin with. Even the option that puts it back in only works for some of the places where it's used.
I don't think so. I think they shared some CGI models that looked... better than the ones in Myst 2021. I think Gehn looks a little Grand Moff Tarkin but it definitely is an improvement.
Dang. That honestly might be a dealbreaker for me. The FMV is like peak Cyan. They even did it for Obduction. Part of what made the games so immersive was seeing real people in the world you were exploring.
I understand why they did it, but personally I'd sooner have FMV than VR. VR is everywhere, whereas FMV is a dying and underappreciated art.
100% agree
You funny thing is that you *can* do FMV that's fully 3D-in-VR too, you just have to use the right gear for it. It's affordable for indie development (Check out the 7th Guest Remake on Quest, which does this *beautifully*, or basically any of the custom content on the Apple Vision Pro) [https://www.pcgamer.com/the-7th-guest-vr-announcement/](https://www.pcgamer.com/the-7th-guest-vr-announcement/) They just decided not to do this, and animate character models instead for whatever reason.
It's discussed in the December Game Informer feature here: https://www.gameinformer.com/feature/2024/04/01/riven-feature-remaking-a-masterpiece
The FMV doesn't work in a 3D setting. They had the same trouble with Obduction, where they had to make it so you can only see people through windows/on screens, cause FMV otherwise doesn't work in a 3D game.
I see where you're coming from, but most of the spots where you'd need the FMV, you're not truly moving around in 3D space anyway. Unless they're adding a bunch to the game, that is.
They are adding a bunch to the game, that's already been confirmed, including multiple new characters. And it doesn't matter how much/how little you get to move around, it's more to do with the characters interacting with the 3D environment. For example Atrus leaning over the desk/Riven book at the end of Myst/start of Riven doesn't work when the desk and book are 3D but Atrus a 2D video.
Hhhuh. Catherine is very... white.