As Eric Layman interviewed thatgamecompany’s Kellee Santiago, I hopped into the Journey E3 demonstration expecting a lot, and knowing very little. Nearly instantly, I forgot that I was thousands miles from home and surrounded by a hundreds and thousands of sweaty dudes. I was in a vast, sprawling desert, with no one to tell me where to go or what to do.
Unfamiliar with the mechanics or the premise, I quickly realized that Journey was meant to be played simply for those little moments of discovery and awe. And for those looking beyond the traditional game, Journey instantly becomes something special.
Like flOw and Flower before it, Journey provides an experience that is likely to be polarizing. The prototypical gamer generally gravitates towards games with traditional core mechanics – but Journey has no shooting, no killing, and no space marines. As a cloaked desert wanderer, I could jump, float, or let out a magical bellow that interacted with other objects in the world. Some objects seemed to circle my character and allowed temporarily flight. The more I discovered, the more I wondered. Discovering where I was going and why I was going there in Journey was perhaps more fulfilling than anything else E3 had to offer.
The simple act of wondering why I could fly was just as meaningful as the act of flying itself. It’s as if Journey beckoned me to wonder as much as it wants me to progress through its environments – and that is an experience that is not often offered in video games. Journey did not challenge me with witty mechanics or dastardly platforming challenges – it simply challenged me to experience. Journey took my mind and wrapped it around some sort of unidentifiable truth. Finding that one semblance of in-game truth became more important than finding the end of the level.
