For any fan of Cyan Worlds' famous Myst series, Obduction is absolutely a must-play.
For anyone who never played those but is also a fan of 3D puzzle games that challenge the player to think critically, explore the environments, and pay close attention to detail, Obduction will probably satisfy.
For anyone else...Obduction will likely do nothing but frustrate.

I am a member of the first group, so naturally I really enjoyed this game despite its inarguable shortcomings and flaws.

Pros:
- The environments are beautifully designed. Even though the graphical quality itself isn't super realistic or state of the art, it still looks great and just realistic enough to be perfectly believable.
- The sense of accomplishment and satisfaction that comes with solving a complex series of related puzzles is immense.
- The game never holds the player's hand. Even when you are given explicit directions by one of the few NPCs, you are still trusted to be able to figure certain things out on your own. This is simultaneously a pro and a con, as I'll explain later.
- The puzzles themselves can be quite intimidating at first glance, but never so much that you can't dive in somewhere and figure out the basics of what needs to happen at the very least. Overall, the puzzle design of the game is quite good, although I wish more of the puzzles had the same complexity as one of the late-game challenges.
Edit: That late-game challenge I refer to is BAD for a variety of reasons not involving its complexity. Just for clarification.
- The story is mainly told through reading books, notes, and journals. These are rarely particularly long and most of them can be safely ignored for players who don't care about the story. The plot is fine and compliments the gameplay, despite not being anything amazing.
- The general vibe of the game is extremely similar to that of the Myst games, which gives the game an extremely nostalgic but also refreshing feeling. It really is the closest thing to a modern day spiritual successor for Myst that we have gotten at this point.

Cons:
- As I stated earlier, the fact that the player's hand is rarely held sometimes works against the quality of the game. For example, the main NPC whom you interact with will occasionally instruct you on what to do next, but conveniently leave out really important details that the player will absolutely not be able to figure out on their own without exploring at random. I'm talking about a certain part of the game where a bunch of immovable equipment is blocking a door, but then inexplicably disappears to allow you passage through that door. Apparently the NPC had moved the equipment out of the way while you were off doing another puzzle, but doesn't think to tell you this when it comes time for you to pass through that door.
- The game's most interesting puzzles are sadly dragged down slightly by frequent loading screens. I personally never found them to be significantly irritating, and the time per loading screen never goes for longer than about 15 seconds, in my experience. But that still adds up to a lot of time just waiting on the game without being able to do anything due to just how frequently these screens appear in certain sections of the game.
- This kind of goes hand in hand with the aforementioned point, but I feel that it warrants its own con. A large portion of the game requires the player to do lots of backtracking. This is made worse by the fact that the player character only has two speeds: walking and running. Thankfully the caps lock button allows you to stay toggled to the running option, but after a while it still feels like you should be able to move even faster. There were too many points in this game where I dreaded the path I'd have to follow because I knew it would take me a long time to physically get to my destination. (Maybe this con could have been alleviated had I played in the optional point-and-click movement mode, but I am not sure.)

For members of the other two groups that I mentioned at the beginning, there is a solid chance that you won't enjoy Obduction at all due to the problems. But being a fan of Cyan Worlds' older games, I was easily able to push through the negatives and have a thoroughly rewarding experience.

2024 Update: Second Wind's Design Delve series claims that the final puzzle of this game is the worst puzzle in any game ever made. Not sure I agree with that, but still...lol.

After finishing up both Myst and Riven: The Sequel To Myst (actual name), I was curious what else developer Cyan had worked on. Of course there's a number of Myst sequels following Riven, but 2016's Obduction is what really caught my eye.

Much like Myst, you play a nameless, faceless protagonist whisked away from their ordinary life to a strange alien world. The opening narration clues you in to what's going on: you - and others before and after you - have been abducted by an extraterrestrial seed, plucked away from various points in time and transposed to Hunrath, a human settlement that was once a part of Arizona. The world you find yourself in is an amalgamation, the landscape shifting from one alien plain to the next. There are four species being collected for some unknown reason, and it seems a war has broken out between them. The human faction has battened down Hunrath, and under the instruction of a survivor named C.W., it's up to you to reverse Hunrath's defenses and send everyone home... Or you can follow Farley's trail, trust in her research, and send Hunrath and the other cells someplace different...

As with Myst and Riven, the atmosphere and art design is incredible. Letters, recordings, and NPCs are scattered about, but the aftermath of the war and systematic freezing of the human populace leaves the world barren and lonely. As C.W. tells you near the end of the game, it's perhaps fortuitous that you didn't spend as much time here as the others. Of course, I have no intention of spoiling the story. Its twists and turns were genuinely enjoyable, and I found the history of Hunrath and the other alien species to be just as fascinating as anything in Myst. If you like the writing and world building of Rand and Robyn Miller, then you're going to sink into Obduction like a warm bath.

Unfortunately, as you may have assumed from my score, I didn't have a very good time playing this! I'd like to take a moment to apologize to the Miller's and ask that they consider sparing me. I've seen how they build puzzles in their games, they're smart people and I'm sure if they really wanted they could find me. So let me preface my complaints by making it 100% clear that I played the PlayStation 4 version of the game on a PlayStation 5, and uh, maybe this caused some problems!

The performance is dire. I cannot think of any game I've played on the PS5 (as of this writing) that has been this lousy with stutters or hanging. Load into a new area? The game is gonna seize up. Turn a corner? You're droppin frames. Walking in a straight line with a minor amount of particle effects on screen? Ha ha ha... yikes! Load times are atrocious and frequent, owed in no small part to the level of Link to the Past-style world-hopping you have to do to solve puzzles. You'll also get reoriented after jumping between worlds, so sometimes you'll need to rotate a portion of one level by jumping into another only to find you rotated it too much or too little or in the wrong direction, requiring you to constantly jump back and forth until everything is perfectly aligned. There's a maze puzzle near the end of the game that requires you to do this so much that the constant load times nearly made me bail. I resorted to just looking at a guide to keep everything to an absolute minimum, and most videos explaining how to navigate the puzzle take anywhere from 25 to 40+ minutes, so just imagine bumbling your way through and screwing up sections of that. In my case, I had twisted around portions of the maze so much that I had to painstakingly realign everything to become simpatico with the video I pulled up just to ground myself enough to follow along. Look, I'm a very stupid person, if you get to this puzzle you might find it laughably easy. I am writing this review from my corner with my pointy "dunce" cap on, there is nothing you can accuse me of that I haven't already internalized.

The controls are also a lot more clumsy than they ought to be when playing with a gamepad. Some objects have very precise points that need to be clicked in order to interact with them, and the mine cart (which you need to ferry around Hunrath frequently in the early parts of the game) kept causing an issue where I could no longer toggle between interact and free roam modes, which required me to pause the game and move the analog stick in the direction I wanted to face as the game was fading out of the menu in order to orient myself correctly. Myst on the Sega Saturn controls better than Obduction does, and that's insane.

Again, to be fair, I played the PS4 version on the PS5. There could be some compatibility issues when playing the game cross-gen. It's also a point-and-click puzzle game, which is inherently going to feel better when played with a mouse and keyboard, and presumably the load times are going to be much smoother if you've got it installed on your PC's SSD. If you're curious about Obduction, then I implore you to play it on PC and not on console. It will probably help to know that the PlayStation version rarely goes on sale. The only reason I picked it up was because it did for the first time in years, and because I still lacked the money to upgrade my GPU at that point in time.

It's a shame that the structure of Obduction's puzzles conflicts with its performance to such a grotesque degree, because I otherwise find it to be a pretty competent successor to Myst. Sure there's a lot of Myst-ass Myst puzzles, meaning you'll be screwing around with base 4 a lot, and you'll probably hit a few brick walls along the way... Some of which you might phase through and go "oh that's what I was supposed to do," but hey, that's just the nature of the beast. Either you're into this sort of thing or you're not. Anyway, Cyan is working on another game called Firmament that is (supposedly) due out in May, and assuming the brothers Miller don't lock me away in a nightmare world that can only be escaped using advanced mathematics, I'll maybe check that out.

got to the villein puzzles and just gave up. absolutely dire

obduction wants to understand riven but it, if i were to be generous, did not have the resources to give consideration to things the way riven does. if i were to be less generous, it was doomed from the start. the puzzle/world design is mad inferior for one, obduction has ONE cool conceit and things gradually fall apart once its revealed to you. and even when things "make sense" in the world in a similar way to riven, i just dont care man. the way i felt herded around to do things in a walky sim way makes it hard to stop and appreciate whatever story youve got tucked in the details (and lets be real, it wont hold a candle to rivens anti-colonial narrative).

in short get robyn (and richard vander wende too) on game and world design again or else im not interested.

Finally got around to playing this one. I was sooo lost in my first playthrough I just quit and uninstalled but I powered through it and did surprisingly most of it without walkthroughs (i only needed walkthroughs at Kaptar because I kept getting lost). Decent level design, brilliant puzzle design, great if you're a spatially oriented person like myself. Discovering the mysteries of Hunrath and the other worlds was also extremely charming, and the FMV was really funny.

Downside is there's just tooo much walking. Ugh. Trust me it gets annoying especially towards the end at the Guantlet (you'll know it when you see it)

Real Cyan brilliance hobbled by what must have been some troubled production. Commits a few sins that keep it shy of greatness. Some areas appear to have been intended as puzzles but left unfinished, and kept as set dressing, leaving the player to poke around endlessly with no way of knowing whether you're supposed to be finding something or not. Still a great game with a fantastic central conceit that gives you a portal-like experience once it's revealed. Worth your time but it could have been great and it's just good.

obduction's pacing i think is stellar -- an initial framing that felt a bit "ufo-conspiracy" that then gives way into a genealogy of worlds clashing with worlds, metaphoric obductions and literal abductions. the issue with these games is at times the environmental storytelling just isn't up to par -- but with every further reveal i felt like i was rounding the corner of insight, always on the precipice, but never too far in any direction.

and i think that's what you want with one of these -- a mystery game that's much about unlocking the mechanical insight needed to finish it as much as unraveling the mystery itself. and nobody can tell you but yourself if you'll vibe with one of these or not. as per usual: at many times there are progression points that rely on you spotting a note or picking up an item and examining it -- if you miss them you'll be stuck, no doubt about it. don't feel ashamed if you need a walkthrough -- there's even a moment towards the end of the game that i think is genuinely bugged (had to do with the person in the pod) and i had to look it up. furthermore, in its greatest mechanic lies the game's greatest weakness. as much fun as it is to think about space vis a vis the seeds, the loading screens and backtracking that come with it can easily lead to frustration and a fear of experimentation. the game is poised on this being a balance the player can maintain.

as for the finale i think i enjoy a game's willingness to believe in itself, its characters and their futures. the limits of the few FMV characters perhaps is a detriment to the impact of the ending, but, i can't be upset with the overall framing. just wish in general there had been more character presence. all in all, easily worth a labor day weekend.

Neat game, great graphics, some cool puzzles and exploration - especially in the beginning of the game. The load screens can be a bit rough, and an even faster sprint speed for people not using VR would have been nice. Also spacebar is bound to taking a photo? lmao.

My only major gripe is that some 2019 update made it so that you can not logically open one specific door during a key point in the story. UNLESS, for absolutely no reason, you realize that the mayor apparently has a secret telepathic power to open that one specific door, with the only confirmation that anything even happened being that some music starts playing.

Also don't waste a lot of time going back and forth to try and make all the scenery be in their rightful places - there is no reward for doing this, and you can easily miss a path that is necessary to progress.

truthfully a bit long-winded. i understand that it's been a while since the miller brothers had worked on a game since, uh, myst v, but the pacing and design of its puzzles and exploration feels sluggish compared to classic cyan's myst and riven. almost too much information is shared right off the bat.

despite all that, the game is a gorgeous step forward in visual presentation, and it's a great indicator of what cyan can do nowadays. i cannot wait to see how new entries show what they've learned with this game