Cyan Announces New VR Adventure ‘ZED’, Development Led by ‘Myst’ Creator

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Cyan, the studio behind iconic adventure games Myst (1993) and Riven (1997), are putting their stamp of approval on a newly announced VR game from Eagre Games, a studio led by original Myst artist Chuck Carter.

Dubbed ZED, the adventure game is currently under development by Eagre Games and New England-based Skymap GamesZed will be the first game published by Cyan Ventures, Cyan’s newly formed publishing arm.

Image courtesy Cyan Ventures

Outside of his work on Myst, Carter has worked on 25 other games including many in the Command & Conquer series, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2, and Pac-Man World Rally. Carter is also known for his work on a number of non-game projects such as art for TV series Babylon5, NASA, National Geographic, and Scientific American.

Image courtesy Cyan Ventures

To create Zed, the studios have also assembled a cast of industry talent including writers Joe Fielder (Bioshock Infinite, The Flame and the Flood) and David Chen (Metal Gear Solid series, Narcosis). Long-time games industry voice actor Stephen Russell (the Thief and Fallout series) will be lending his voice to the game.

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Here’s Cyan’s description of what to expect from Zed:

ZED is the story of an aging artist, lost in regret, and the haze of dementia. Inside the dreamscape of this creative mind come undone, players reassemble the artist’s fragmented memories into a final, lasting legacy: a loving final gift to his unborn granddaughter.

Making its debut with VR support for Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and non-VR support for PC, ZED is a surreal trip, with an unexpected narrative that unfolds across fanciful, fractured lands. Spanning regret, reconciliation and redemption, it’s a bittersweet story that’s both deeply personal, and undeniably universal.

Zed is slated to release in Spring 2019, targeting Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and non-VR support for PC.

A Steam page is now live, although there’s no pricing information or specific release date yet.

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Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 4,000 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • get lost

    “ZED is the story of an aging artist, lost in regret, and the haze of dementia” It seems boring , dull and uninteresting. I bet it will take about 2-3 hours to beat the game and it will cost $39,99. We need VR games like: outlast 2, the evil within 2, red dead redemption 2 etc…

    • HomeAudio

      We need games as Subnautica, The Forest, Elite: Dangerous, Project Cars 2, In Death, Seeking Dawn – that are long, polished and practically you can play it as long as you want.

      • Raphael

        I like games without end or high replay value.

    • Totius

      I totally agree with you. But those games are impossible without big money..

    • Rosko

      Well Obduction was one of the more involved vr games i played, Firmament looks like it will be similar in terms of content. Seems odd to take aim at Cyan one of the few Devs actually investing in decent one player experiences. You are unlikely to get a big budget game like rd2 in VR any time soon so just try & enjoy what you got.

  • DanDei

    I hope they implement better Anti-Aliasing this time. Obduction’s VR version was almost unplayable to me, because you only had TAA which made me feel like I am actually looking for my contact lenses in a blurry world, or you switch it off and are left with massive pixel noise on all edges.

    • Rosko

      perfectly sharp for me but had to put pixel density at 1.7.

  • HybridEnergy

    Looks awesome, hell of a cast making this.

    • Eagre Games

      Thank you!

  • Raphael

    Nice to see this developer continuing with VR. AAA production.