The Cyan collection includes over 100 hours of video, charting the development of the original Myst in 1993 all the way through to Myst V: End of Ages in 2005. The archive provides a preposterously in-depth look at the trials and tribulations of developing games in the ‛90s, and includes deep-cut interviews with Cyan team members alongside expansive behind-the-scenes production footage.
Phillip Shane, the director of an upcoming documentary about the Myst series, first unearthed the forgotten recordings in 2022 after rummaging through Cyan's storage room. VGHF clocked the discovery after watching a video posted by Shane on Kickstarter and saw an opportunity to help preserve and digitize the collection.
The process, according to VGHF library director Phil Salvador, was harder than expected and required additional help. Some tapes were in VHS format, but most were recorded in Digital Betacam, a format used for video production in the late ‛90s and early 2000s. It meant overall quality and framerate were higher than standard formats, but the equipment and knowledge needed to handle them was harder to come by.
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"Once everyone switched over to HD video, they got rid of their Digital Beta equipment," said Salvador in a video explainer. "This was only ever a professional format, it was never a consumer format, so we can‛t just go to the thrift store and find a used Digital Beta player."
VGHF got in touch with non-profit Moving Image Preservation of Puget Sound, which provided vital support in preserving the archive. The tapes include B-roll footage of the team working on Riven in a garage, hours of motion capture and live-action recordings, and dozens of sit-downs with developers. According to Salvador, only a couple of minutes of those interviews were included in a Riven documentary that released in 1998.
Some other videos of note include audio recording sessions, a marketing focus group meeting for Riven, and the full 16 hours of live-action filming for the game.
"Needless to say, it is extremely uncommon for a game developer to have held on to videos like this for so long," added Salvador. "But Cyan cares about their own history, and this collection is actually kind of a record of the company itself. We get to see them starting out in a garage, and then we have video of them building their new headquarters where they‛ve been ever since 1995."
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The Cyan Collection is available on VGHF‛s digital library, which the team launched in early access on January 30. 2025. In February, VGHF co-founder Frank Cifaldi told Game Developer that "we need more internal champions" and "advocacy for access" within studio structures to help preserve video game history.
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Game Preservation
