Jenova Chen Discusses ‘Journey’

The co-founder of thatgamecompany, Jenova Chen, has revealed a few more details about the company’s upcoming PSN title Journey, in a press conference in London this week.

Chen and thatgamecompany are known for their previous titles flOw and Flower, both of which are intended to relax the user and offer a completely unique experience. Journey is their next title up for a release later this year. The player will take the role of a mysterious character in a journey of discovery across a barren desert and ancient ruins towards a giant mountain. Other players will also roam the landscape and can tag along for the ride.

Chen revealed that the game will not allow players to play with a friend and gave reasons why:

“The sands are unknown. If you know your friends then when you play this game you’ll be thinking about ‘what is Tom or Jimmy thinking?’, and that’s not really what we want you to feel. You shouldn’t know who the other person is, and why should you care whether this other ‘journeyer’ is a 60 year old woman or a kid; that doesn’t matter. We want to keep the experience within this world, and we felt that friends could dilute what the game is about.”

Chen also said that Journey offers “a more social experience than most other online multiplayer games, even though you don’t get to speak”, with producer Robin Hunicke adding that “if you play the whole game with someone else, that means they chose you, and that is an intimate decision.”

The game lets players join with others as a companion throughout their journey, with communication limited to in-game sound effects activated by the circle button. The game will not display the other person’s PlayStation ID.

The game’s length was also revealed to be about the same as Flower’s at about 2-3 hours, depending on whether players rushed through the experience or not.