“How does walking tell the story?”

I played “Journey”, an indie walking simulator developed by Thatgamecompany and published by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was originally released on the PlayStation 3 and is now available on PlayStation 4, Windows, and iOS. The game targets a broad audience, anyone looking for a reflective, meditative experience that emphasizes emotion over action.

 

Mechanics of the Game

The game starts in a desert. From the very beginning, it doesn’t tell you what to do. Standing alone in the middle of nowhere, I followed my gut and moved toward the nearest visible object, which I believe is human nature. A few interactions with the environment confirmed my decision. Slowly, I was drawn from one place to the next. The game designers made good use of sparse artifacts in the otherwise empty space to guide players along an intended path. The emptiness, and the sense that my life hung on the next visible thing, created a special relationship between me and the environment. I wasn’t pushed forward by any quest marker or dialogue; I could have gone anywhere. But the vast emptiness and the feeling that there’s nothing else out there made me want to follow the path. It felt calming and safe.

The mechanics are simple. Besides using the joystick to move, there are only two buttons. You can easily try them; there’s no punishment for experimenting. Although I was slightly annoyed at first by the limited control, I soon accepted it and felt free using them. Early on, I learned to release the trapped flags/carpets and activate them, which helped me fly and reach higher places. The terrain, including ruins, broken bridges, towers, and more, was carefully designed so that these simple mechanics were all I needed to get through the world.

Activating the flags/carpets to navigate the terrain.

The shrine at the end of the first chapter.

 

Evoking Emotions

Not long after the first chapter, I encountered someone who looked exactly like me. I wasn’t sure if they were another real player or just an NPC. We wandered together. At one point, we both struggled to climb a sand waterfall, but we figured it out. We moved on. Sometimes the other one walked ahead of me, sometimes I walked ahead. We just followed each other. Over time, I felt a kind of warmth from having this silent company.

Then we continued our adventure, completing one chapter after another. One time, we reached a huge dark room. As we moved forward trying to find an exit, a large mechanical monster began to stir. That scared the hell out of me. I didn’t expect this peaceful game to suddenly bring so much tension. It made me realize how much impact the environment alone can have on how we feel. Because the beginning of the game was so quiet and non-threatening, the designers lowered our guard and made moments of fear even more intense, effectively managing my expectations and evoking emotions. While hiding from the monster, I stuck even closer to my companion, feeling a real sense of attachment and shared vulnerability.

Keeping close to my companion while hiding from the monster.

 

Implicit Storytelling by Exploration

As we walked through different scenes (some peaceful and calm, others broken and breathtaking, or dark and unsettling), I started to notice visual clues about what might have happened in this world. The flags/carpets I freed seemed to lead me to shrines that revealed small pieces of the backstory. The story is never directly told, but through exploration and observation, players start to piece it together. This method of storytelling, embedded narrative, is subtle and powerful. The core aesthetics of Journey are Discovery and Sensation, and they’re expressed clearly through how the environment speaks without words.

 

Violence Not Allowed

Because of the simple mechanics, there is no real room for violence. The only hint of it is when the monster appears and seems like it might attack me. That’s a big contrast from many other games where violence is a part, if not the majority, of the gameplay, e.g., using weapons in Horizon Zero Dawn, starting wars in Civilization VI, etc. In Journey, the lack of violence pushes players to focus on exploring the world through walking and observing.

This also changes how the story is told. In Horizon Zero Dawn, you uncover history, but often only after beating powerful enemies. In Civilization VI, the story is written by the player, and if you choose violence, then the story becomes one of war. In Journey, with violence removed, the story becomes one of emotion, companionship, and mystery. What players do, and how they do it, is completely different because of this choice. The absence of violence changes both the tone of the game and the meaning of the experience.