On the 15th of this month, Journey will usher in its ten years of release on the PS platform, the game's dark and wordless adventures in a desolate environment, Wind Traveler was a rare product at the time, it is an independently developed game with clear artistic ambitions, and it has received prominent attention from Sony. The game achieved significant commercial success after its release, eventually winning the Game of the Year Award in the Game Developer Choice Awards and DICE Awards, as well as in numerous media outlets including IGN and GameSpot.
Chen Xinghan recently gave an interview to Gamesindustry, who said that when making the game, the team never thought the game would get such a positive response, and when the game was first released in 2012, the team began to see a large number of letters and emails, where players were sharing their stories about the game.
Chen Xinghan also shared some of the contents of the letter that year, when a player wrote to say that their relatives had just died before playing the game. They feel like the wordless partners in the game are saying goodbye to their loved ones who have just died. Chen Xinghan believes that when they play games together, these painful memories make them feel sad. Games can help them let go because they know that their loved one will go to a better place. Chen Xinghan never thought that this game would have an essentially therapeutic effect on players, but it could help people and change the lives of many people. It was the biggest surprise for him. These heartwarming stories also benefit from the addition of multiplayer design to Wind Traveler.
The player character in the game is a rough sketch of the character, with no arms, no recognizable gender, and no facial details outside the eyes. Chen Xinghan said that the gender and age identity in the player's character design were removed, and the character's hand was removed so that the player would not use violence, push and beat each other because he found it funny; the game also removed the player's personal property setting so that the player would not avoid theft and resource competition. A lot of people have a very negative view of the meanness and aggression of online players, especially in voice chat. But Chen Xinghan believes that it is not those people who are despicable, but the environment that brings despicable behavior. For example, people who shoot each other in Call of Duty might play Windwalker in the next minute. And these young people will come to the forum of the game to write an apology letter to strangers for their halfway departure. The team wanted to put players in an empathetic environment that made them gentle and compassionate.
Personally, chen Xinghan said that he felt very lucky about the game. People always think of struggling artists. But artists grow up often lonely and eccentric, and they tend to think outside the box. It's a lonely life. But works of art can connect the artist with the viewer, allowing them to communicate what the artist puts into life, cares about, dreams, and fantasizes about every day. The artist also came into contact with many people through the artwork, and the audience heard their own expression and admired their own work like a child... Loving your child is like an extension of I love you. Chen Xinghan felt that he was loved and felt that he was not alone. It was a wonderful experience. This gratitude also gave him the inspiration to create games in the future.
What happens in the artist's mind and life will affect the game, and Wind Traveler is a very difficult game to make. Chen Xinghan and his team's struggles in the development process are also reflected in the game's ultimate struggle level. It is a mirror of the staff behind it. A large percentage of these people leave the company before they can enjoy the fruits of their work. At the time of the game's release, the studio had been struggling with it, and was still in debt of $200,000 at the time. But the crisis was short-lived, with the company taking up to six months to start getting some of its sales from Sony, and the studio raising millions of dollars three months after launch, but the cycle was so long that a whole bunch of key talent left the studio. But fortunately, some of the people who left ended up returning to the company.
Despite the progress, Chen is still sensitive to how the rest of the world views the gaming industry. When announcing a $160 million investment round last week, he made it clear that the team's mission was to elevate the game to a legitimate art form... And will continue to work towards this moment in the game world. But Chen Xinghan also said that the situation has changed a lot in the past few decades, and games have been regarded as art by people who grew up playing games. On the other hand, there is still a long way to go before games are mainstreamly seen as an art form. He believes that "Wind Traveler" will make some people still have the art form of the game, although it is very small, but it also makes Chen Xinghan very happy, and he is very grateful for what has happened in this decade.