Journey: Great Game or Greatest Game?

I tend to be pretty predictable with my choices in entertainment. 95% of the games I own involve you shooting bad guys, or at least stabbing them or hitting them over the head. I'm not one for teleology, but I firmly believe that all of cinema was engineered so that we could arrive at Die Hard. If I'm going to read and enjoy a book, it better have a sense of humor about itself, or at least about the story it's telling.

But occasionally there are outliers. When I told my dad about how I got into Minecraft, he was perplexed, because it doesn't have any guns in it at all, yet I found myself drawn to its simple graphics and its ability to let the player creatively work within a system. Once I mentally prepared myself, I was able to watch A Separation and be drawn into the machinations of the characters, marveling at how so many people could be both right and wrong at the same time.

Which brings us to Journey. Released this year, it's a game made by Thatgamecompany, a developer with only one other game on its resume, Flower. From the first time I heard about it, I was intrigued. Its premise is as simple as you can get: you play a robed wanderer in a nameless desert, and you are tasked with reaching the summit of a far off mountain, visible after you crest the first dune. The game is devoid of all dialogue and there's no text save for the title and the credits at the end. This is why it works.

Journey is a game that's deceptively simple, and it's this stark aesthetic that makes it memorable. The visuals are evocative without being overwhelming, and the score is beautiful and helps to set the scene without intruding on the meditative state that most of the game lulls the player into. The game works as art because of this simplicity. It can remain focused on delivering an experience rather than attempting constantly to wow players with set-pieces or flashy graphics.

Journey is a game that is heavily imbued with meaning, but it never forces what that meaning is onto the player. There's no moral or message here beyond what you take away from it. Of the several reviews I've read of the game, they describe it as an exercise in solitude vs. companionship. For me, it came across as a commentary on the cyclical nature of history. As I learned more about the ruins I was exploring and the role I was supposed to play, I began to question what exactly I was trying to do here. Without getting into too many spoilers, at a certain point you learn that your character's task may have been pre-ordained long ago, or perhaps has already been completed before. It doesn't help any that the trophy awarded for completing the game is titled "Rebirth".

As an artistic piece, Journey is intriguing, offering implications of significance without ever explicitly stating what it all means, which in my mind is a hallmark of many great works of literature. As a game, Journey is timeless and unforgettable. There are plenty of games that I think everyone should play, but when I say that about Journey, I don't mean it in the sense of "everyone who likes video games should try this game." I mean everyone, as in pretty much every person I know. The controls are simple enough that anyone can work their way through it, but more importantly, the tale it tells is universal enough that everyone can take away something unique from the experience.