Many objects in the game can be selected and examined in a full three-dimensional view, allowing the player to discover possible hidden drawers or features that aid in puzzle solving.

Exploring the town, they find it seemingly empty outside of holographic pre-recorded welcoming messages from its mayor Josef Janssen (Patrick Treadway).

Further exploration reveals that the town is called Hunrath, and that dozens of humans from across the 19th-21st centuries had been brought here, in the same manner the player was, for unknown reasons.

The Trees periodically drop Seeds that travel through time and space and swap spherical areas from one linked world with another.

The four species found ways to harness the Seeds to transfer themselves between their worlds at will, allowing for collaboration and to try to find a means home.

The Mofang felt the other species were holding them back, and developed a weapon of mass destruction capable of devastating the other spheres.

He implores the player to help provide water to each Tree in the four cells and restart the power systems in Hunrath to allow him to return them back to Earth.

Otherwise, they disable the weapon and start the process of waking the sleeping residents, including Farley (Caroline Fowler), a major character and former mayor of Hunrath.

Following its announcement and Kickstarter, the team discovered that fans were very open to the new direction, showing great interest in Cyan's puzzle and adventure approaches.

[6] Obduction was formally announced on October 17, 2013, via a Kickstarter campaign headed by Cyan co-founder and CEO Rand Miller.

[3] Though Cyan had estimated it would take around $2.5 million to complete Obduction, they set a lower goal as to avoid appearing greedy, according to Miller, hoping to bring in at least a multiple of the initial request.

[3] Taking inspiration from his earlier material, Miller remarked that the setting of a mysterious alien world would parallel the beginning experience of Myst.

[8] The campaign ended on November 16, surpassing the stretch goal of US$1.3 million, meaning that the game will also have support for the Oculus Rift.

[5] Though they initially wanted to move away from being too Myst-like, treating the title as a spiritual successor, they found that during development they were naturally brought back to structuring the game similar to Myst.

[4] Cyan later pushed the release by a month to July 26, 2016, citing a major Unreal Engine update as one reason for the postponement; the extra time enabled them to implement a virtual reality version for Oculus Rift systems.

[16] For this version, Cyan was well-aware of issues with motion sickness associated with fully immersive games, more so for their larger spaces they created for Obduction.