Journey

Game: Journey

Developer: thatgamecompany

Before you read this, if you can, go play Journey with fresh eyes.

(So much of the joy in the game is from the discovery, that it would be a disservice to spoil it for you. It only takes a couple of hours to play through.)

Journey, for me, was one of those games that I was very excited about in it's conception, but lost track of since. Whenever it'd come up in conversation I'd go "Oh! That game! Where's it at now?" and then forget about it again soon after.

My fleeting interest, however, was erroneous. Once I actually picked the game up and played it, I was hooked. There was an mysterious, awe inspiring nature to the game and it's world, one that is balanced with a intangible empathy and beauty that develops once you come across another player. It is a game that left me inspired and hopeful. Wonderstruck, even.

For those that are unfamiliar with Journey, the basic premise it that a star falls from the sky and your character, an ambiguous figure draped in red robes, sets off to find it. Traveling through what, at first appears to be an endless desert filled with mysterious runes and religious markers, you eventually cross through many different environments, learning the history of this place, and of your people, as you go. Over the course of this, you may come across another figure in red, identical to you, but a different player on a different PS3 somewhere else in the world. Neither of you have any control of it, and there is no way to directly communicate. Even still, with such limitations in place, invariably you two will end up traveling together, facing the elements and and trials together in search of the star.

The controls for this game are simple but have interesting implications in their use. You can do the usual, look around and move in all directions, of course. There is only one speed of movement, a fast walk of sorts, but your speed will change due to the environment you are in. Then there are two additional commands: a spherical pulse that activates the ruins you come across, and the ability to fly, that is charged from activating those ruins.

While simple in concept, they also encourage what I believe to be the two driving forces of Journey: Exploration and Camaraderie.

Exploration:

The game opens with your figure, having just seen the star fly across the sky, climbing to the top of a sand dune. Sand as far as the eye can see greets you, with the fallen star shining in the distance. That is all the introduction you are given, no knowledge of who you are, or where you are, just the implied idea that you should seek out this star. 

Right from the start I felt a desire to explore. While the world starts as dunes after dunes, I started to notice small stone posts protruding from the sand. First a few, then almost fields of them, I surmised that they had some sort of religious significance. The whole mood of the game seems to lend itself to a more spiritual line of interpretation, which I greatly appreciate as in my experience it isn't a topic really dealt with often in games. Or, when it is, it is done from one perspective. What I found I loved about Journey was that in never concretely said "This is the story" or "This thing is a ____", it leaves nearly everything up to interpretation. As I learned more about the story, my thoughts of those markers shifted. Perhaps they were gravestones? Markers of the people lost? Perhaps what was once your people? I'll never know for certain. Nor do I really want to. It's the conjecture, the guessing and hypothesizing and changing your personal answers as you discover new information that I love. It's what really drives the desire to explore in this game, for me. The desire to know what happened. 

This only intensified as I moved into new ruins and later the remains of whole cities. Each time more of the story would be revealed, yet still not clarified. Still the desire to know solely drove me on, that is, until I met another me.

Camaraderie:

I say "Another me" because that is exactly that, not only was the figure dressed exactly the same as I was, they were on the same quest, had the same information and the same skills. Even more than that, the "other me" that I met was in fact another person in another part of world playing Journey at the same time I was. I was never prompted to go online, or asked if I wanted another player to join my world, seamlessly our worlds met. I came over a bluff, and there was someone else down there activating banners while my brief cinematic cut-scene played. At first I thought it was part of the cut-scene, but it wasn't followed up, it just was.
So, disregarding my goal for a moment, I ran to the figure. Once it noticed, it came towards me as well. There is no direct way to communicate in this game. No chat, no voice, not even a way to point. How do you communicate when you have no words. ...Then it pulsed. And I pulsed back. And we communicated. No words, barely any meaning even, but a connection was formed then and there. In this vast landscape, I found a friend. Together we continued on, pulsing to celebrate a victory, to find each other, or to ping when one of us found the path. We would "talk", in that we'd pulse without any direct point, just to remind each other that we weren't alone. It was such an unreal feeling, how quickly and strongly that sense of companionship had formed. I would wait for the other person when they fell behind, as they would for me. I'd go back and find them if they got lost. It was heartwarming.
And then it got better. We learned that the pulse actually recharges the other player's flight ability. Even simply touching recharges each other's power. I say "We learned" not because the game told us, but it felt like we both realized this around the same time. The game mechanics actively encourage cooperation and instill a desire to help your companion along.

By the middle of the game, after we had been journeying together for a bit, it wasn't exploration driving me anymore, it was the companionship, the shared adventure. For me to succeed now required my companion to succeed as well. The ending levels greatly reinforce this since, as you are traveling through an icy tundra, your scarves slowly freeze if you do not find relics to activate. However, just like in the rest of the game, you can refill the energy of another player just as a relic would and this is no different in the cold. Together you work together, traveling slowly so as to not leave the other person behind, to scale the icy mountain towards the star. I imagine this area would be next to impossible without a companion and definitely would not carry the same emotional weight. If you fail alone, you just fail, but with a companion there, there is a sense that someone else relies on you that is very powerful. In the end, when you both collapse from the snow, the loss is that much more, as is the jubilation when you are both reborn to complete your journey, due to the now shared story between you and another player. Another person whom you will most likely never meet.

The shared experience is what makes an already beautiful game truly special.

Journey is a game that is made in the details, not only in the amazing visual details, but also in the nuances of the mechanics and the subtlety of the player interactions. Simple things, such as tracking the players light power on their scarf instead of using a heads up display, removing direct communication and replacing it with your simple movements and just a visual/audio ping. It completely turns the concept of "gaming" on it's head by throwing out so many of the tropes and giving the player a completely new way to interact with a game world and other players. I would wager that it is not as much a game, but more akin to an experience.

~Rin

P.S.

As for the story itself, here is my interpretation of it. In case you are curious:

Long ago, there was once a great civilization that grew from humble roots. Through harnessing magic the civilization flourished and grew powerful. However, as is often the case, such power bread corruption and soon strife overtook the culture. Through advanced weaponry much of the civilization was destroyed and the land once converted to a arid desert. The survivors escaped to the outskirts of the city, casting off their once white robes for red ones. When the star falls, your character travels to discover what happened, thinking it is a sign. Guided by the spirits of the dead, who perhaps even created the star to draw your character to them, it discovers the lost history of its people. At the end of this pilgrimage, exhausted and frozen, your character dies. The spirits express pity on your you and your efforts, and in your final moments let you reach your goal, but it is only in your mind. Upon your passing, you become a star yourself, a gift from the ancestors for your devotion.

Of course this is very broad and the story is intentionally left in such a manor as to invite different interpretations, but that is generally what I imagine happened.