Journey — the indie adventure game from Thatgamecompany — has been an Epic Games Store exclusive for a year now. Before that, it was a PS4 exclusive. Now, it is finally coming to the Steam platform. If you’re a PC gamer and use this platform regularly, that’s great news and a chance to experience one of the more unique games of 2012. And despite being 7 years old, Journey is an incredible experience all the way through.
It’s all about social experiences. And despite its heavy focus on interacting with others, you have to do it in a limited capacity. As a mysterious robed figure, you’ll travel through a vast desert wasteland. Your constant goal is a mountain in the distance. You don’t know what you’ll find when you get there, but that adds to the suspense. You’re constantly wondering why it is you’re moving in the direction that you’re going.
Along the way, you’ll come in contact with other players online. The interesting caveat here is you can’t communicate via speech or text. Rather, you’ll have to use musical chimes to transform ordinary pieces of cloth into vibrant red cloth. You can then use it to move through the levels since the cloth transforms environments in impactful ways.
It’s one of the more interesting concepts that you’ll find in an adventure game today. Despite its simple nature, Journey will take you on an emotional journey where even seemingly small interactions with others have all the meaning in the world. The developer wanted to strip back advanced systems and complicated gameplay in favor of something more emotional and impactful. You definitely notice this in the first few minutes of the game.
Every character interaction is a step closer to your goal and a chance to bond over video games in a novel way. Even the musical score is brilliantly composed and just adds to the emotions you’ll experience throughout this game’s run time. It’s great to see a game like Journey end up on Steam after all of this time.
More PC gamers will get to experience it for the first time and go on a roller coaster of emotions. What starts off as a simple story quickly expands into something marvelous that you just have to experience for yourself. Whether you like games with a lot of artistic style or just want to feel, Journey is your ticket to unique gameplay with others.
