40 Fun Facts About Journey (Video Game)

In Journey, what does the cloaked traveler's trailing scarf, marked with glowing runes, let the player do?

Fly briefly is all it allows: each leap drains the scarf's glowing runes, and drifting strips of red fabric top them up again.

In Journey, what is the only way two players who meet in the desert can communicate with each other?

A musical chime is all they share: speech and text were left out so that preconceptions could not come between two strangers.

Journey's creative director Jenova Chen took his English name from a character in which classic role-playing game?

Final Fantasy VII supplied the name while Chen was in high school, because he wanted one that would be unique among thousands of Jason Chens.

The Journey soundtrack was the first video game score ever nominated in a visual-media category at which awards?

The Grammys shortlisted it for Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media in 2013, a category usually filled by film scores, though it did not win.

Jenova Chen said that 3 of the 25 people who tested Journey did what on completing the game?

They cried, Chen revealed in a 2013 conference talk; the team had spent an extra year reworking the game because it did not yet stir the emotions they wanted.

In Journey, when does a player finally learn the usernames of the strangers who traveled alongside them?

After the credits, the game lists everyone who shared the trip, so a companion stays anonymous for the whole adventure.

In Journey, what distant landmark with a glowing crevice at its top is the cloaked traveler's ultimate destination?

A mountain is in view from the very first dune, and the route toward it is divided into sections that the traveler crosses one after another.

Which indie studio developed Journey as the final game of a three-game contract with Sony?

Thatgamecompany grew from seven people to eighteen while making it, and a project Sony expected to take one year took three.

Critics who reviewed the acclaimed Journey had few complaints, but those they had centered mainly on which aspect?

Its short length drew the grumbles: a full playthrough lasts only two to three hours, though one GameSpot reviewer called that perfect.

In Journey, how does a player earn the right to swap the default red robe for a white one?

Collecting every symbol unlocks it, over one playthrough or several, but the new robe still has to be put on in the chapter-select area.

In Journey, what can the scarf of the white robe do that the default red robe's scarf cannot?

Recharge on the ground is the perk: a red-robed traveler has to find fabric creatures or a companion to refill the scarf.

Journey's Transcendence trophy, earned by the same feat as the white robe, is the game's only trophy of which grade?

Gold is awarded just once on Journey's trophy list: eleven of the other trophies are bronze and two are silver.

In Journey, what does a red or white robe gain each time its wearer completes the game, up to a fourth tier?

More embroidery appears with each finished run, so veterans can spot a newcomer by the single yellow line at the bottom of the robe.

In Journey's later levels, the hostile creatures that hunt the traveler and rip pieces off the scarf are made of what?

Stone forms these roaming guardians, ancient automaton weapons left over from the war that ruined the desert civilization.

Which solo instrument represents the player throughout Journey's score, emerging from a sea of electronic sound?

Cello solos stand for the traveler, in a score its composer likened to a big concerto in which the player is the soloist.

Which Shanghai-born soloist played on the Journey soundtrack and its full orchestral re-recording a decade later?

Tina Guo also shaped the ending: a concert piece that closed with the orchestra falling away to leave her playing alone inspired the game's final moments.

Which British ensemble recorded Traveller, a tenth-anniversary reworking of the Journey score for some 130 performers?

London Symphony Orchestra sessions for the album were funded and co-produced by the composer and Andrea Pessino, co-founder of the studio Ready at Dawn.

Excerpts from Traveller, an orchestral reworking of Journey's score, were played in 2022 at which British festival?

The BBC Proms programmed a 15-minute selection at the Royal Albert Hall, ten years after the game first came out.

Which company, founded as a division of a film studio, published the 2019 Windows and iOS versions of Journey?

Annapurna Interactive was set up in 2016 as an arm of Annapurna Pictures; the ports themselves were built by a team called Inline Assembly.

Journey's art director Matt Nava went on to found Giant Squid and direct which 2016 underwater exploration game?

Abzû traded the desert for the ocean, a setting drawn from Nava's love of scuba diving, and brought back Journey's composer for the score.

Journey's story arc was designed to follow the monomyth theory of narrative set out by which writer on mythology?

Joseph Campbell called the pattern the hero's journey; the developers also mapped the game's sections onto the stages of a human life.

Journey's developers cut everything that did not fit, likening their approach to a garden of which country?

Japan's gardens were the model: stripping the game back was meant to let the emotions the team wanted come through, and to make it feel intuitive.

Journey's desert setting and architecture are largely based on which region, with added Chinese and Tibetan influences?

The Middle East struck Jenova Chen and art director Matt Nava as an ideal midpoint, a setting that felt neither too Western nor too Eastern.

What was the name of the discarded Journey prototype in which players tried to draw a large monster away from others?

Dragon was scrapped because players found it too easy to ignore one another and chase their own objectives instead.

Jenova Chen admitted in a 2013 conference talk that the final months of making Journey had driven the studio into what?

Bankruptcy left some developers unpaid for a time, a risk the team ran when it cut back overtime to avoid burning out.

Journey's Mirage trophy rewards finding a hidden Easter egg that references which earlier game by the same developers?

Flower is honoured with a single bloom tucked into a pit in the desert; touching it plays a sound from the earlier game.

Which free-to-play 2019 mobile game was the next release from Journey's developers, arriving seven years later?

Sky: Children of the Light was intended as a spiritual successor to all of the studio's earlier games, and began life on iOS.

Journey's studio was founded in 2006 by two master's students from which Los Angeles university?

USC classmates Jenova Chen and Kellee Santiago, both on its interactive media program, set up the company as they finished their degrees.

At which 2013 ceremony did Journey win eight prizes, the most of the night, including Game of the Year?

D.I.C.E. voters also honoured its game direction, art direction, online gameplay and sound design, and named it Casual Game of the Year.

Which honour, created to recognise excellence in radio broadcasting, later went to Journey for interactive narrative?

A Peabody went to Journey in 2021, nine years after release, with the jurors describing the game as quiet, abstract and spiritual, yet riveting.

The Journey Live concert tour, in which musicians react to a person playing the game, was funded on which platform?

Kickstarter backers met the goal for a four-city tour within hours, which let the ensemble add more cities.

On the original console version of Journey, players could move the camera with the analog stick or by doing what?

Tilting the controller worked because the pad was motion-sensitive; left alone, the camera simply trails behind the traveler.

In Journey's ending, what leaves the traveler's destination and retraces the path all the way back to the first dune?

A shooting star passes other travelers still heading the opposite way, then settles where the game began, and the player may set out again.

In Journey's backstory, the vanished desert civilization destroyed itself in a war over which source of power?

Magic cloth, the same material as the traveler's scarf, powered the civilization, and wall art along the route charts its rise and fall.

Which designer, later a co-founder of Funomena, produced Journey in place of studio president Kellee Santiago?

Robin Hunicke came from Electronic Arts, where she had been a designer on The Sims 2 and lead designer of MySims.

Which console received a 2015 port of Journey with sharper graphics, free to anyone who owned the original download?

PlayStation 4 players got a version handled by the British studio Tricky Pixels, which called porting the game an immense technical challenge.

Journey's Reflection trophy is earned by doing what alongside another player for more than 20 seconds?

Sitting and meditating together earns it; another trophy, Return, rewards starting the game again after a week-long break.

Journey won a 2013 prize for video game animation at which ceremony, best known for honouring animated films?

The Annies honoured Journey in the same season that it took five BAFTA prizes, among them Artistic Achievement and Online Multiplayer.

Journey's Adventure trophy asks players to pass through 15 gates while surfing across what in the Sunken City?

Sand carries the traveler downhill through the ruins in one long slide, and only gates that match the trophy's icon count toward the total.

Which vocalist is featured on the final track of the 18-track Journey soundtrack album released in April 2012?

Lisbeth Scott's closing song was nominated for best song in a game at the Spike Video Game Awards, where Journey won for best indie game.