Journey's latest trailer keeps us believing

by Ben Gilbert on Dec 10th 2010 10:06AM

Journey isn't a game about transforming a landscape with the power of wind, or experiencing aquatic evolution, but about guiding your cloaked, scarf-wearing avatar through a world -- either alone or with another, unknown person -- and forever pushing towards the mountain in the distance. The game's latest trailer encapsulates a lonely tone and showcases Journey's gorgeous environments.

thatgamecompany president Kellee Santiago characterized the PSN-exclusive Journey as "a social experiment" in a recent interview with GTTV (much like her studio's previous two games have been), while creative lead Jenova Chen says he's hoping to evoke the feeling of awe and wonder that people experience while on a hike. Neither explains what the deal is with the scarves, though.

Journey (12/10/10)

Source: US PlayStation blog, GTTV

Tags: gameplay, jenova-chen, journey, kellee-santiago, playstation, playstation-network, ps3, psn, thatgamecompany

Reader Comments (42)

Wow I really like that fontface used in the title. The game looks cool too I guess.

I'm going to embrace this game with open arms.

see this is good game design. You dont need mega graphics with the most realistic textures or polygons. Come with a good game concept and design an art style that fits the gameplay well. This looks like it will run a smooth 60 fps and I love that. Its all about game design...and its not really being done well today - look forward to this.

@Tradio I like how you say the technical side of graphics doesn't matter as much as the style and then mention the framerate in the same e-breath.

@Roto13 u totally missed the point. My point is to design a game that plays/perform well on hardware while providing a visually pleasing experience. Its about balancing the two, thats the art of game design

@Tradio

Minecraft, Super Meat Boy, Journey, Flower, PixelJunk anything, Metroid Prime series, Super Mario Galaxy, VVVVVV, even Portal some... we're not exactly hurting for cool/fun games with a unique art style you know.

@Tradio

Though, really, as much as I love me some Halo and whatnot, I do agree with you. It's always nice to see games like this come out that really explore what they have to work with. I don't want every developer to go the artsy route, but I do love it when companies like thatgamecompany do it perfectly.

@Tradio
This is a PSN title so don't expect it to get a game looking better than God of War 3 for less than 15 bucks.
And I agree with roto, 60fps is kind of a graphics whore thing;
but I love it.

@Tradio Unless I've missed something, we have no idea what the game design of this game is. All I've seen from screenshots and videos is the character walking around and nothing of the play mechanics. I think you mean ART design and not GAME design. They are different concepts. The game can and does look extremely cool but if all you do is walk around some neat looking environments then that is awful game design. With that said, I am looking forward to what the "game" actually is.

God, this looks gorgeous.

I don't understand it but I'm intrigued! And it definitely looks amazing! Wonder how you play it though...? What's the point of it all?

@Jake5678 - I believe the only goal of the game is to make it to that mountain with the light coming out of it.

I'd play this for the Shadow of the Colossus-esque environment (and music it seems) alone, but after seeing the trailer, I have much higher hopes for this game than that. This could be incredible, and I hope their vision matches the expectations that this trailer put in my head.

I love how the actual trailer doesn't start until 29 seconds in...

Regardless, this game looks amazing. I loved Flower. Played it on and on even if I never managed to beat the corruption level without getting burned. This seems to be like a very similar experience in the strangely artistic/soothing department. I cannot wait.

Hope you're allowed to play it anyway you want it.

@zack11190
Don't stop believin'.

@Volcon

Did you just get off the midnight train from anywhere? You don't have to be born and raised in South Detroit to see that zack11190 was making a reference to some band I can't put my finger on.....

I thought it was okay, but if the developers really want to sell a lot of copies, they should add a little more gunplay, blood, sex, kick ass vehicles and rap music. Maybe make it a FPS starring Kanye West. Once they tweak it according to my specifications, 1 million seller here we come!

Of course, I'm kidding. This game looks incredible. Can't wait!

"I don't care about graphics, but omg this game is going to be amazing because it looks good!"

Have they even shown any gameplay of it to the public yet? If they have, I can't find it. All this trailer shows is the character running and standing. It's essentially the same as a pre-rendered trailer in that neither tells you anything about the game or how they play.

And yet everyone talks about how it's going to be fantastic and unique and awesome and best. It all stinks of hypocrisy. Me, I'll wait to decide until they show what the actual game is. Because I don't think the entire game is about walking in random directions for no apparent reason.

@Mehbah Actually, according to the GameInformer article, it is.

That's right - they turned the worst part of every zelda game and turned it into its own game.

Did anyone else see the KH3 teaser from the end of KH2 being filmed in the background? Someone should notify that Journey dude to get off the set before somebody looses their nobody.

@Bumper Just... No. You are mistaken for Birth By Sleep.

Flower was amazing. I'm looking forward to this!

I am dying for this. I love ThatGameCompany! This reminds me so much of the book "The Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho

Can't wait for this game. ThatGameCompany is not only one of my favorite developers currently out there, but simply one of the best.

I don't know about this. I loved flower but i have no idea what is going on here.

Is Journey going to be my GotY 2011... Probably.

Screenshots don't do this game justice - wow.

@Electrium - These ones do the game some justice, but they are super high res (higher than the game will run in some cases).

http://www.flickr.com/photos/playstationblog/with/5248018063/

What a beautiful trailer - nice musical score too!

@Cloud Connected
Yeah, I love the look. I just hope the game is good. I just picked up Infinity Blade--totally different style of game--but it both looks good AND is fun. Flower and Flow both looked great and were not particularly fun. I mean, not more fun than any other game of Snake. They each had that initial thrill of beauty, but the games neither kept the beauty fresh, nor had the gameplay step up to fill the void.

After playing through them once (which took less than an hour, each), they became screensavers because they were still gorgeous looking.

Between That Game Company and the Pixeljunk series the PSN has some of the best developers out there! This looks fantastic!

Reminds me of the desolate feel of Shadows of the Colossus. Very cool.

Flower is still my favorite downloadable title, and i am hoping this game will blow me away as Flower did

inb4 C&D

http://www.journeymusic.com/

Loved Flower and Flow. I'm REAL excited for this one.

Looks gorgeous, albeit boring.
Seems to be a LOT of walking.

WOOOOOAAAA!!!

@Cloud Connected
There's plenty of comments on it in the original post about it from a day or two ago. Yeah I like it. It's very repetitive, though. It's pretty much like WoW's grind & reward system, distilled. The main reason people grind in WoW is for loot. This game has a much quicker loot acquisition and progression system, so you get your loot "fix" far more frequently. It's more satisfying. The hacking and slashing itself is pretty fun, too, but I imagine that once you max out all the items, you'd probably shelve the game until some DLC comes out. Or to show it off.

when this comes out i will give it some good ol' lovin, touchin and squeezin! :D

I have no idea what's going on in that video, but I like it

visually stunning.

Journey

Journey's latest trailer keeps us believing

Journey (12/10/10)

Reader Comments (42)

Posted: Dec 10th 2010 10:08AM mynameisjay said

Posted: Dec 10th 2010 10:09AM leemahi said

Posted: Dec 10th 2010 10:13AM Tradio said

Posted: Dec 10th 2010 10:23AM Roto13 said

Posted: Dec 10th 2010 10:29AM Tradio said

Posted: Dec 10th 2010 11:13AM sonicspike41 said

Posted: Dec 10th 2010 11:15AM sonicspike41 said

Posted: Dec 10th 2010 12:55PM eNriqeu said

Posted: Dec 10th 2010 6:30PM hoopty05 said

Posted: Dec 10th 2010 10:17AM Mach2 said

Posted: Dec 10th 2010 10:24AM Jake5678 said

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Posted: Dec 10th 2010 10:24AM ironneko said

Posted: Dec 10th 2010 10:49AM zack11190 said

Posted: Dec 10th 2010 11:04AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Dec 10th 2010 12:59PM XLM said

Posted: Dec 10th 2010 1:03PM XLM said

Posted: Dec 10th 2010 10:50AM Milf Biggenson said

Posted: Dec 10th 2010 12:12PM Mehbah said

Posted: Dec 10th 2010 10:20PM BlueRajasmyk said

Posted: Dec 10th 2010 12:23PM Bumper said

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Posted: Dec 10th 2010 2:11PM TraceurRyuk Prepping for LBP2 said

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Posted: Dec 11th 2010 2:42AM BananaBoat said

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