Cyan, the studio behind the Myst series, has released a teaser trailer for a cancelled Myst game prototype — a project the team worked on for four months and then shelved.

The prototype was codenamed Project Anglerfish, and it was set within the Myst universe. Development director Hannah Gamiel and creative director Eric A. Anderson announced the cancellation in a video titled "A path not taken: Project Anglerfish," published on the studio's official YouTube channel on 26 July 2026. The trailer was originally created for publisher-eyes only and was never intended for public release, according to Eurogamer.

Gamiel said the game was cancelled "for a variety of reasons," without elaborating further. The prototype was built during 2024 and 2025, as detailed in a blog post on Cyan's website covering the studio's announcements at Mysterium 2026 — the annual fan gathering for the Myst community. It was there that Cyan first publicly shared the Project Anglerfish footage.

Myst, for those who missed it the first time around, is a puzzle-adventure franchise that began in 1993 and became one of the bestselling PC games of its era. Players explore surreal worlds, solving puzzles to uncover a story told through environmental clues rather than combat. The series has sold tens of millions of copies across its various entries and remasters.

Project Anglerfish would have been the first new Myst game in 20 years, as Kotaku noted in its reporting on the announcement. That gap gives the trailer an odd weight: a brief look at a road the studio chose not to take, after a long silence that made fans wonder whether the franchise had a future at all.

For fans, the silver lining came from Anderson, who confirmed that Cyan is still working on new games and experiences set inside the Myst universe. No titles, dates, or details were offered. But the commitment itself — from a studio that just showed off a cancelled project alongside everything else at its community convention — is the kind of signal that keeps a fan base watching.

The full "A path not taken: Project Anglerfish" video is available on Cyan's YouTube channel.