Very rarely in games do you have as clear an end goal as you do in thatgamecompany’s Journey, (released March 12th, 2012) when the very first thing you see after walking out of the little valley you find yourself in is the iconic distant mountain, with the beacon at the top. There’s no words, no dialogue, nothing spoken to tell us that that’s our goal, the design just leads us wordlessly to pursue it. In its simplicity, Journey tells a familiar story without feeling repetitive or overdone, and without burdening the player with unnecessary set dressing. And it’s fun to boot!
When I say this game is wordless, I mean it. No spoken dialogue, no written language, no in-game chat, nothing. Instead, everything relating to the story is implied or suggested using a combination of environmental storytelling, visual cues, and musical motifs to give players a sense of direction and purpose in a game that otherwise leaves things up to interpretation. The music swells when you see the mountain for the first time, flying through the air or racing down sand dunes, immersing the player in that moment of gameplay, letting the mechanics and visuals carry the weight. And it works, you can feel the change in tone of different areas of the game, with the fast, joyful descent into the underground in stark contrast with the ominous subterranean tunnels, prowled by these large, dangerous looking snake creatures, almost mechanical in nature. You don’t need to be told to hide from their gaze, everything in the environment screams danger more effectively than any in game pop up could.
And yet, your character marches onward. This wordlessness (not silence, notably. The musical score is nothing to sniff at, working double time in the absence of words) extends to the players as well, with the only real sound you can make being these soft, bell like tones as your only means of verbal communication with other players. And you can run into others while playing online, people on their own journeys who cross over to yours. Communication may be limited to making soft boops and beeps, but people latched onto it nonetheless. Running circles around each other, sitting and jumping, and pausing to let your nameless companions catch up if you get too far ahead. For every toxic story of gamers you might read or hear about online, you can point to a wordless comradery developed in moments in this and other games, a moment of humanity across languages and space, binding together people across the world.
The game rewards this kind of interaction, and will actual record the usernames of everyone who shared the Journey with you, highlighting them in the credits to help remind you that behind the screens, behind the controllers, are the real world people who went with you across the sands, and through the snow, helping to make your trip just a little bit easier. And that tends to be one of the takeaways from this game. Even if you can’t understand each other, even if you have no words at all, the mere act of being together, of crossing paths, can make all the difference.
Originally written and published on StropsE.com, February 18th, 2021