Today, I want to talk about Journey. No, not the 70s/80s rock band that has been permanently ruined by a certain musical TV show that shall remain nameless; I'm talking about Thatgamecompany's upcoming PSN release that has so far been perplexing press with its bewildering simplicity. For a long time, I've been confused as to what Journey even is. I've been reading previews since it was first announced, which have, up until recently, danced around the question as to what the game entails.
It seems that the clue is in the title. Journey is just that; a journey that you embark on and nothing more. What we know so far is that you play as a robed figure in a desert. There are no quests or objectives other than heading towards a mountain in the distance. There will be obstacles along the way, but presumably nothing that could cause you to die. Jumping is limited in a power-up fashion, so the main challenges are going to be earning the jumps you need to continue on your way. The game is online, and features co-op with other players. Strangers that you meet on your way will be able to assist you by boosting your jumps.
For the moment, that's about all there is. It sounds incredibly simple, and you may scratch your head as to how it's going to compete amongst games where you, you know... do stuff. Of course, this is in development by Thatgamecompany, who released the enigmatic Flower in 2009, a game that had you guiding flower petals through the wind. I didn't personally play it, but when you consider the premise and then look at the high review scores it received, you start to understand that this a company you have to have a little faith in, and not judge Journey until you've actually sampled it yourself.
According to an interview posted on Joystiq back in July, the overall aim of Journey is to provide a new kind of cooperative experience. Every character will be completely anonymous and there'll be absolutely no communication outside of a simple non-verbal shout. By removing all speech and personality from each player, Thatgamecompany may have created the perfect online experience. I'm no stranger to the colourful personalities that the anonymity of the internet has bred. I've played World of Warcraft for years, and during several lapses of judgement I've been involved in a lot of groups of random players. While you can mostly ride out the resulting bumps in the road, every now and then you run into someone who seems determined to make it as difficult as possible for everyone involved. I wonder how those same situations would have gone if all our characters looked the same and the only communication was a non-verbal system (raid icons?) that purely served to facilitate teamwork. Journey seems to be exploring that reality.
In that sense, Journey is more of an experiment than a full game, but it'll certainly be interesting to see how people react to it, and to actually try it out myself. I'm usually quite hesitant to play online games with strangers as I tend to feel pressured into playing perfectly, so as to not feel judged as a simpleton when I make a perfectly reasonable mistake, as opposed to when playing with friends where I can feel much more relaxed in my idiocy (ask my old WoW guild about the "slowly reversing into fire" incident, it's always a favourite). Perhaps being completely anonymous with no worries of griefing could take the edge off.
Last I heard, Journey was set for release later this year. I look forward to satisfying my curiosity.
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