Neyyah

Just to warn you, there will be more than a few comparisons with the Myst series in this review. Probably unfair to this game, I realize but hey, you gotta go with what you know, right?

Also, slight spoilers ahead. Anyway, let's talk about...

DEVELOPER: Defy Reality Entertainment

PUBLISHER: MicroProse Software

RELEASED: September 2, 2025

RATING: N/A

AVAILABLE: Steam

PRICE: $24.99

Neyyah (pronounced NEE-yah, not NAY-yah as I originally thought) is a game whose development I'd been keeping track of with a bit of interest for a while since I first saw teasers being posted on social media. Just based on the screenshots alone, it looked like we were in for a nostalgic trip back to the late '90s with photorealistic graphics akin to the original Riven. Once we get into the game, we soon see that not only are the gorgeous graphics a callback, but it's got the slideshow movement and characters portrayed in live-action FMVs to match!

Sadly, what we'll also soon see is that every positive this game has is marred by some misstep of one degree or another.

No sooner do we click "New Game" and select a "Journey Mode" - essentially a difficulty setting, although there doesn't seem to be much difference between the three choices - than we're immediately treated to a glimpse of the strange hodgepodge of a setting that is the world of Neyyah: a strange melding of fantasy elements with things more at home in a sci-fi or even more contemporary work. A world filled with Spirit Guardians, exotic flora and fauna, and mystical iconography, while at the same time housing cameras, microphones, and computer monitors where you can read about emails (referred to as such). There's even explanation for why such a mix exists if you can dig through enough of the lore in the game. More on that in a bit.

We barely get a chance to take in our new surroundings before we are greeted via hologram by a man named Vamir, who tells us that "basically, (our) arrival was foretold by an ancient spirit, and (our) mission will change the fate of the world". However, he's a bit light on the details as to what this world-changing mission is, instead chucking a few strange words at us like "Jalood" and "Pelska", before telling us to go to Neyyah and "save us all".

"You must help us with this highly important mission which I will tell you nothing about." Gee, thanks for that...

After a bit of exploring, we come across another man named Mason, who inadvertently lets slip that we're supposed to trap someone named Smollax...before promptly getting himself blown up for no readily discernable reason. Presently, we procure a portable Pelska Portal (for which we must provide power) and a pack of Payeetas (ok, it's a case, but I was having fun with the alliteration) and we're soon on our way.

The Payeetas are the first of a few aspects of Neyyah which I feel could have been either implemented better or even done away with entirely. Many of the devices you'll find around the world will have a plaque depicting a series of symbols and an associated color, and you must insert the Payeeta with the matching color and symbols into the device to power it. Now, it would be one thing if you had to go out and find the required Payeeta somewhere in the world, bring it back, THEN plug it in. Annoying, maybe, but at least the Payeetas would feel like they have some purpose, because as it is, with the exception of two orange ones required in the latter part of the game, every single Payeeta you need is given to you in the case; all you have to do is open it up, select the Payeeta you need, then pop it in, making them nothing more than an unnecessary extra step.

Payeetas: Portable Power Pearls

I mentioned earlier that everything positive this game does is offset by some degree of mishandling. Here's a few examples.

At some point during the game, you manage to power up the aforementioned Pelska Portal, and from then on you can use it to instantly teleport yourself to any of the five main areas of the game. The catch is that you can only use the portal when you're looking at a particular symbol referred to as an Active Point, with several Active Points hidden throughout four of the five main areas (the fifth is essentially a hub through which you can get to the other four), and the Active Points have to be powered up first. That's not my problem.

My confusion is from the way the teleportation works. You'd think if you can only use the Pelska Portal within sight of an Active Point, then logically, you'd only be able to teleport between Active Points, which I would actually have been fine with, as it would have been a handy shortcut system. Instead, when you teleport to an area, you only ever teleport to the entry portal of that area, and often this was well out of the way of where I was trying to get to, leading to more backtracking than would seem necessary and essentially defeating the purpose of having the Pelska Portal.

There's an Active Point inside this old light fixture, but it's not enough to just be standing near it; the Active Point has to actually be on screen before the Pelska Portal will work.

Neyyah has its own numbering AND lettering system to decode, and I was instantly excited to try to translate both and see how they would be used in the puzzles. Credit where it's due, I think the numbering system was implemented well, but the letters (called the Ghalahanti alphabet) less so. The game does give you enough clues, I feel, to be able to translate most if not all of the Ghalahanti letters; it's essentially a cipher substitution, where each letter of the English alphabet is replaced by an angular shape with a certain number of dots. But, while I personally enjoy working out how to translate numbers and letters in games like this, I also realize it's not everyone's cup of tea and, again, to the game's credit, you will eventually find a special pair of glasses that can be used anywhere you see Ghalahanti to have it immediately translated.

If it was just a case of the Ghalahanti letters being all over the place, and its translation was optional, that would be fine. It would make for a nice addition to the lore - not that it needed any addition, but we'll get to that. No, where the miscue lies is the prominence of the alphabet, combined with the facts that your character will actually make a note that they need to find some way of translating it AND you find those glasses which do exactly that, because it makes it seem like the alphabet is more important to the gameplay than it is, when in actuality, it's only used for one puzzle, and even then you only need TWO of the 26 letters. By that point, why not just leave a clue to those letters in a journal somewhere, and do away with the glasses?

An example of the Ghalahanti alphabet

Finally, speaking of journals and lore...hoo boy, strap yourselves in, friends. Now, I don't mind a bit of extra reading in a game to help add to the backstory and get me invested in the lore. But with Neyyah...it's just too damn much!

There's a section in your inventory with space for EIGHT journals of varying sizes, and there's way more books, journals, and notes to read besides those (many of which require revealing the writing with salt - yet another case of having a needless extra step). In a welcome bit of foresight, since some of the handwriting can be difficult to read, the game lets you switch at any time between "Original Text" (handwritten) and "Clear Text" (typed)...but YE GODS this game could have done with a pass or two of proofreading!! There were SO MANY instances of either the Clear Text getting handwritten letters wrong (confusing an "f" for a "t" or what have you), or adding words that weren't in the Original Text, or just straight up misspellings. At one point during my playthrough, I genuinely began to wonder if AI had a hand in writing the journals.

Misspellings aside, there's an insane number of names for people, places, and things to keep track of. One of your inventory journals is a list of flora and fauna, each with its own name. Four of the five main areas have alternate names depending on what journal or computer screen you're looking at. Hell, Neyyah itself seems to go by one or two different names of its own, either "Niyashka Site 28" or possibly "Fayamore". Throughout the game, you'll encounter NINE different types of portals (TEN if you count your Pelska Portal), EACH with their own name. And these are just examples of the things that you'll see in the game. Many of the people, places, or things that are named in the myriad of journals won't make an appearance at all.

(UPDATE 10/8/25: A patch note from September 21st mentions fixes of spelling errors, so it's probable they've been dealt with.)

There's also more than a few "red herring" devices - things the game will let you interact with and look like they'll be important later, but they'll never come into play at all.

Now, why is this abundance of lore a problem? Well, there again, I must refer to the Myst series. The original Myst introduced you to only the things you needed to know about. You met Atrus, Sirrus, and Achenar. Catherine and D'ni were mentioned, but only briefly. You were introduced to the concept of Linking Books and Ages, with one journal each to give you a bit of backstory, and that was it. Then, Riven '97 came along, took what you already knew, and added to it. D'ni was fleshed out a bit more with their numbering system being integral to the gameplay, while introducing you to Catherine proper as well as Gehn.

Then, Exile came and added onto that. Then, Revelation added onto that. Finally, End of Ages was released and (perhaps to its detriment) added more onto that. The lore naturally built up over time, as you got a chance to get acclimated to each new bit of it. Conversely, it feels like Neyyah is trying to give you five games worth of lore all in one go, and it's overwhelming, distracting, and even a bit disappointing when I eventually realized that I would never see many of the things mentioned in the journals.

To sum up, Neyyah is without a doubt a beautiful game to look at. But that beauty can't hide the fact that it tries to do too much, and either barely or just doesn't succeed in much of what it does.

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