Uru Live

Myst Online's gameplay is a massively multiplayer online game, where players interact with others to solve puzzles and advance the story. Players communicate with others using a "Ki", an artifact which provides a special interface. Each player has their own personal Age, called Relto; unlike in public areas, each player's Relto is different depending on the player's tastes. In public areas, any action a player takes is persistent and remains part of that world — kick a stone in one player's game, for instance, and the stone will be moved when any other player enters the area.

Myst Online takes place in fictitious caverns below Earth's surface. Thousands of years ago, a race known as the D'ni practiced a craft known as The Art. By writing special books describing a location, the D'ni created a link to that world. The D'ni had their own number system and language distinct from the humans dwelling above them.

After completing Riven—the sequel to the bestselling Myst—in 1997, developer Rand Miller and his company, Cyan Worlds, began development of what would become Uru: Ages Beyond Myst. Initially, the game was to have been called Myst Online and have been a multiplayer-only title, but game publisher Ubisoft pushed for a single-player dimension. The online component, called Uru Live, did not ship with Ages Beyond Myst; in 2004, Uru Live was suspended entirely. In 2006, Cyan developed a stand-in for Uru Live, called Until Uru; this replacement was hosted by players in servers known as "shards", and did not have content updates or official support.

On May 9, 2006, Cyan Worlds and GameTap announced at the Electronic Entertainment Expo that Myst Online: Uru Live would be returning in the holiday season of 2006. The GameTap version did not require any physical purchase: all the game content was downloaded through GameTap, which was subscribed to for a monthly fee. A major reason for the resurrection of the game was the fan support. According to GameTap's vice president of content Ricardo Sanchez, "One of the reasons [GameTap was] so attracted to Uru Live is that it had this persistent group that kept it alive during the dark days of it not being a product."

Myst Online was generally well received by critics. The game has average critic scores of 77% and 83% at aggregate sites Metacritic and GameRankings, respectively. The Ages' varied visuals and strong aesthetic design were praised, as were the ambient sounds and music. The world that persistently changes depending on player actions was also lauded as more sophisticated than other MMOs.

Complaints from Uru: Ages Beyond Myst carried over to Myst Online; for example, Robert Washburne of JustAdventure found that the interface was still clunky. Charles Onyett of IGN said that those who had played through the previous Uru content would not find many changes: "As a result, Myst veterans uninterested in plugging through Uru's content again will be left with a dearth of things to actually do, shifting the onus of gameplay creation to the community." Onyett continued that the only reason to subscribe to the game was the dedicated fan community and the potential for the game to expand. Sarah Borger of GamesRadar noted that most puzzles could be completed without the help of other players, making the game "a pretty chat room".