Ten years later, Jenova Chen reflects on Journey
Brendan Sinclair
Managing Editor
Thursday 10th March 2022
This weekend will mark the tenth anniversary of ThatGameCompany releasing Journey on the PlayStation 3.
A sombre and wordless adventure through a desolate environment, Journey was a rare offering at the time, an independently developed game with clear artistic aspirations given a prominent spotlight from a major platform holder in Sony.
Players' goals were communicated simply, a beckoning mountain in the distance with a beam of light emanating from within a rupture at the peak, a path of plant-like constructs that recharge the player's limited flying ability creating a path to who knows where.
The story was likewise less explicit than players were used to, with hieroglyphic-like cutscenes sketching out the demise of a lost civilization. The player character was similarly a rough sketch of personhood, a robed entity with pointy, angular legs, no arms, no discernable gender, and no facial detail beyond its eyes.
Even the game's approach to multiplayer did its best to spell out as little as possible, pairing players together without the usual indicators of online play and minimizing their communications. There was a button they could use to make their character chirp, useful for calling attention to an area or letting players know where each other is, but that was about it. There were no user names (until the end credits), no matchmaking lobbies, and no chat functionality, voice or text.
Journey's mountain gives players a destination throughout the game
The game was a critical and commercial success, eventually garnering Game of the Year awards at the Game Developers Choice Awards and DICE Awards, as well as from numerous media outlets including IGN and GameSpot.
To mark the
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