Obduction

Obduction's artistic triumphs made up for its technical trials, and its so-so story couldn't eclipse the real joy of exploring and understanding its fascinating alternate worlds. Myst fans and anyone else who loves the exploration-and-puzzle genre...

Obduction is not for everyone. It’s a game that doesn’t tell you a lot about what’s going on, with the exception of the two possible climaxes. It’s also a game that intentionally misleads you, and expects you to bang your head up against a wall until you figure out the solution (or use a walkthrough, I guess.) But for me, it wound up being one of 2016’s most rewarding experiences. From start to finish, it’s a downright joy to play, and a title I won’t soon forget.

Players seeking an adventure through fantastical worlds, with a slew of mechanical and spatial puzzles, will discover that Obduction is a gold...

Obduction manages to capture what made Myst and Riven such great adventure games with an amazing atmosphere, mysterious story and challenging puzzles that engage players from the very beginning. With no hand holding whatsoever, Obduction can be a...

A beautiful, if simple, puzzle game that remains faithful to Myst without feeling...

I often got real, physical headaches while playing Obduction. Towards the end of the game, I'd regularly get completely stuck when trying to solve a puzzle, decide I was missing something vital to its solution, and proceed to run back and forth through...

Obduction’s gradually unfolding setting is compelling, and its narrative answers your big questions while leaving enough ambiguity to uphold a sense of mystery. A few exceptional puzzles reproduce the best of the genre’s glory days but the gameplay moments filling the space between them are too uneven and unrefined. Since it comes from the same creative talent, Obduction clearly takes some pages from Myst’s book, but these excerpts only result in flashes of greatness rather than a true successor.

It would be easy for a game like Obduction to feel like a solitary, lonely experience, but the trick of the thing is that it doesn’t at all. In the story, although you are mostly alone, you are surrounded by signs of life: tiny slices of normality in an impossible place. In the play of it, I was always aware that Obduction is a thing meant to be beaten — that unlike so many things in life, each instance of confusion will eventually be paired to clarity.

Myst's spiritual successor Obduction drags its heritage into the modern age with aplomb, though the puzzles aren't quite as fiendishly hard as Riven's.

A hallmark of excellence. It may have some flaws, but they are negligible to what is otherwise a supreme title. How we score:  The Destructoid Reviews...

The opening few minutes of Obduction, a new puzzle-adventure game from the makers of Myst, are essentially a lie for all intents and purposes. A deep, crackling female voice narrates the events unfolding in front of your eyes, adding background and...