A Journey Like No Other December 29, 2012

I picked up Journey: Collector’s Edition on Boxing Day. Since then, I have played through Journey three times and unlocked nearly all the trophies in the game. It just grabbed me in a way that I very rarely get grabbed in this day and age. I don’t know if it’s the gameplay, art style or music that has made this game such a classic among gamers and reviewers alike. It warranted such an amazing fan community, high review scores and a few Game of the Year Awards. Needless to say, I enjoyed this game, and I have a few ideas why. But I’m getting a little bit ahead of myself here.

Journey is a Playstation 3 game developed by thatgamecompany, the same company that made flOw and Flower. In all of the research I’ve done about the game, the game’s developers wanted to make it clear to players that their goal was to retell the story of The Hero’s Journey with this game. This is one of the classic staples of storytelling. The Hero’s Journey, as described by game designer Jenova Chen, is told in three acts. The story’s hero is not some overly muscular person out to save the world, the hero is simply the story’s protagonist, and can be anyone. The hero has to travel a great distance to a very important destination and return back to where they started. On their return the hero will bring something back with them from the journey which will either help themselves out our help their entire community. In the game, you play as the wanderer. You do not have the ability to speak. You have indescribable features as your clothing covers your entire body and face. Your goal is to make it to the peak of a mountain in the distance. To get there, you need to cross an entire desert. Along the way to the peak I realized I found one of the best experiences I’ve ever had with a video game.

As I started to play the game I started making up my own theories as to what it was that I was experiencing. Here I was on this great journey trying to climb a small hill off in the distance. My character stood up and as I crossed the first hill I saw the mountain for the first time. It was far off, and looked miles away. A beam of light protruded from the peak, a product of some almost otherworldly energy. I just knew in my heart I had to make it to the top of that mountain. I pressed on, unaware of where my path to the top would take me.

As my journey continued it became more perilous for my character. Occasionally, I would see another person like myself making the same journey. Occasionally they would join me and assist me in where I was going, but most of the time we would have different personal goals and would end up parting ways with each other as I continued on.

The final stretch of the game was the most grueling for my character. The mountain had frozen and the heavy winds were slowing my progress greatly. The enemies that I had been able to avoid in earlier chapters were now more intent on harming me. Their paths had slowed down and their area of sight had increased. The game was not phasing in other players. I would have to complete this section alone. As the mountain grew colder and colder the wanderer’s speed slowed to a complete stop. I fell to the ground, deep into the snow. The game faded to white.

Suddenly I was presented with the gaze of my ancestors, the very same ones that I had encounters with along my journey. They were all ready to help me reach the summit. My character’s spirits renewed, the sun became bright, the sky became blue, and I literally could fly to the top! As I reached the peak, the game faded to white once again and I saw my character become one with the light. Their spirit had been released and shot out of the peak of the mountain like a star! As the credits rolled the wanderer’s spirit traveled back through all of the land I had crossed, and returned back where it had all started. The game’s completion trophy unlocked, but what I had gained from the experience was a lot more than that.

My game finished, I started to have a good idea about what it was that I had experienced. The hero’s journey is a three act structure. Jenova Chen said another way to look at it would be like the cycle of life. This is the structure which made Journey possible. In the first act, you are born, in the second you are in your prime and in the final act you die. Journey is told in that same way. In fact to me, without knowing any of this beforehand, it felt to me like my path was that of a lost spirit making the final journey to the afterlife. To a lot of people, death is simply a part of rebirth and to me it felt like the wanderer represented the spirit of a person trying to reach paradise, and in the very end, as they reach it, their soul is released to the world.

Along the way you meet other travelers on your path. They seem to phase in and out without much fanfare. They can stay with you an assist you in your journey or move along at their own pace after their own goals. You cannot speak to each other and the game will not reveal who they are until the very end, but you will immediately feel a connection with them. You’re both traveling the same path. Your goals are the same. Jenova described this experience to being very similar to two people when they meet in a forest and they come across each other when hiking the same trail. You’ll never know everything about the person you encountered but you’ll know immediately you at least share the love of hiking and desire to hike.

On my third playthrough, I decided it was time to get some of the last trophies that I hadn’t gotten in my first two playthroughs. I turned off the Playstation Network so I wouldn’t interrupt anyone’s game and could get through the first section without much issue. I still needed the trophy in the third area, but something inside me told me that since I had already gotten most of the other major trophies in the game, it wouldn’t hurt to log back into the PSN. I thought, hey, maybe I could find someone willing to finish the game with me. Up until that point, no one had been willing to do that. Within no time another traveller appeared in the level with me when I hit the second area. Even though my objective was to get to the third area as quickly as possible, I decided to check out this new player and see how long he wanted to play.

We had no way of communicating with each other, short of some minor gestures with the circle button, but just by looking at the other player’s robes I could tell at least a few things about them. They had a single gold band around the bottom of their robe, and because of that I could tell that the person had played through the game at least once. Since they were wearing the default brown robes, I could also tell that they hadn’t unlocked all of the game’s secrets yet, but I couldn’t tell exactly what they had and hadn’t unlocked. I decided to show the other player some good faith by pointing them to some secret spots in the second area that I had found which could help them level up their character a bit. It would have taken far too long to navigate the entire area, so I kept most of the stops short. He tagged along pretty close and within no time we had made it to the final climb up the summit.

As I had competed this path before two previous times I lead, and he followed very close to me. We took a shortcut up the mountain, and I pointed out some secret areas that weren’t too far off the beaten path from us. As the enemies swarmed around us, I thought for sure I had mastered their timing by this point, so I lead us from shelter to shelter, trying to stay out of their gaze. He followed close, and I thought we had made it out unscathed, until just as I was about to leave the area, I noticed that my partner had attracted the attention of one of the enemies, and they were headed right for him! Throwing caution to the wind, I ran for them, hoping to distract the monster or take the attack myself! The monster ended up knocking both of us to the ground and harming our floating ability. I was severely worried that this would cause them to log out of the game in frustration, but they got up, shook off the snow, and we continued moving forward into the final area.

It was a gruling final push up the mountain and we stayed as close as possible together. Knowing the game would fade to white I wanted to ensure that we both would trigger the game’s final push together and not hand me another player. We had come this far together, we were going to finish this together. That was my mantra during the entire endgame. We both passed out together, triggering the game’s final cutscene. We had made it to the final part of the game, and we were going to fly through it together. As I played through the sequence I noticed that the game’s last level was almost like a retelling of our entire journey, starting with the simple processes that the game taught in the early levels, and moving to the more complex designs towards the end.

Together we had made it to the cave at the peak of the mountain. We walked into the cave, and the game took over. In the distance I could see two figures stepping into the light together, and the game faded to white as the credits began to roll once more. As the credits rolled I waited in anticipation not just for the notification if we had completed the game’s most difficult trophy, but for the credits to tell me just who this other player was that had assisted me in the game.

The final credit rolled and I saw a single name. In the upper right hand corner of my screen a trophy display popped up. We had done it, and we had done it together. I quit the game and fired up the PS3’s message system, something I very rarely used and addressed a simple thank you to the other player. Together, we had gotten some of the game’s hardest trophies, but more than that we had one hell of a great experience doing it.

Before writing this article the player I decided to check my PS3’s inbox to see if the other player had sent me something back. They got my message, and I had a very nice response back. I checked their profile, wondering if they had also gotten the same trophy during our playthrough that I had, and they indeed had unlocked it. I don’t know who this person is, I probably have never met this person before and never will, but like two people hiking the same trail, for two hours, we had succeeded in helping each other accomplish one very specific goal without saying one word to each other. Gaming can bridge the widest gaps among cultures, as like two people on a trail have the love of the hike in common, gamers have the love of the games to share.

What an experience. I can’t wait to see what thatgamecompany comes up with next.