Myst MMO Uru Live goes open source

Cyan Worlds has announced that the Myst-based MMO, Uru Live, will be going totally open source in the future in order to avoid closing totally.

Uru Live has led a troubled existence, much to the frustration of players, having been cancelled twice and recently closed before being driven to open source in and effort to stay online.

Cyan Worlds had previously tried to keep the game afloat after closure through a Myst Online Restoration Experiment (MORE), but that too has gone under according to RockPaperShotgun, forcing the game to go open source as a last resort. You certainly can't fault Cyan Worlds for trying again and again though - the team apparently just can't afford to carry on working on the project.

“Cyan has decided to give make MystOnline available to the fans by releasing the source code for the servers, client and tools for MystOnline as an open source project. We will also host a data server with the data for MystOnline. MORE is still possible but only with the help from fans,” said a news post on the official site.

How exactly the open source system will work is a bit confused and, as Cyan Worlds admits, more than a little scary for players. Theoretically this approach could lead to a whole set of different Uru Live servers, each with different worlds and rules. Cyan however is hoping that the dedicated fans will rally to keep the project as close to the original vision as possible.

Cyan is handing over everything from game code and server architecture, with the releases starting in the next few days apparently. Let us know what you think in the forums.