Jenova Chen on how Shadow of the Colossus inspired Journey

In 2015, Boss Fight Books released a book on Shadow of the Colossus — an analysis of the game’s design and its impact on author (and now game developer) Nick Suttner, assisted by interviews with people who worked on the game and developers who were inspired by it. It’s great; you should check it out.

As is often the case, Suttner wasn’t able to include everything from those interviews in the book, so he set up a website to host extended transcripts. He wasn’t able to get to all of them, though, so when I mentioned I was doing an oral history for the game’s 20th anniversary, he offered to send over a couple of bonus recordings for us to transcribe and host here.

Below, you’ll find the first of those two, as Suttner talks to Thatgamecompany creative director Jenova Chen about his breakout adventure game Journey and how it was influenced by Shadow of the Colossus. As you might expect from an interview conducted a decade ago, some of the references are a bit dated — I’d nearly forgotten about Farmville — but a lot of the discussion feels as relevant today as it did back then.

Nick Suttner: Like Ico, I think Journey leans a lot on wordless communication and relies on very expressive animation and the expression of players through their play, rather than more traditional dialogue and storytelling. For you, I’m wondering what key design tenets are key to accomplishing that, and what lessons you need to keep in mind to maintain such a vision for that sort of thing.

Jenova Chen: There are two reasons. The first is I’m not American. I [wasn’t] born with English as my first language. So if I would want to make a game with strong dialogue, it’s not going to work. I mean, just the jokes — people are not going to pick up the jokes, and culture-wise it’s just not going to be as nuanced. As a foreigner making games in a foreign land, mostly for American, European, and Japanese [players] — except for China, which is my old home country — I have to pick a way to communicate internationally. And sometimes, language is actually a big barrier to create misunderstandings, so I feel like [being] abstract is actually our friend.

The other thing is, Journey is a game about two real people’s emotional connection. And I think to many extents, the Ico relationship is much stronger because you [can’t] understand what they’re saying, and your imagination fills in what’s happening there.

To your point about being a foreigner somewhere working on a game, do you think if you were still in China that you wouldn’t necessarily be making games that were more universally communicative? Do you think you’d make games that rely more on traditional dialogue?

Chen: Well, I grew up in China. There’s a lot of things I feel very passionate about as an activist. I would have a much stronger voice about what I want to say if I were to make a game for the Chinese audience. But a lot of the issues, the social issues we have in China, do not apply in the Western world. So when I focus on the world at large, my number one goal is Do not waste our players’ time.

So, first we want to keep the game short and dense, but also I really don’t want to say something that’s meaningless for people. When it comes to messages that can be applied to global players, I learned my lesson from Pixar, from Studio Ghibli — they focus on things that [are] more universal. The relationship between mankind and nature, war and peace, childhood nostalgia, the dream of flight. [Those] kinds of things that I feel like, regardless of which culture you’re from, you are all sharing on the same Earth.

Speaking sort of to making games dense — but sort of not — like Shadow of the Colossus, Journey really lets players be in these wide-open landscapes with ultimately not much to do until they choose to progress the story forward. Was it ever hard to put that trust in players to put their imagination onto it and get lost in the experience and keep things moving, and not just feel aimless?

Chen: [laughs] Well, there are two things. Many people think Journey and Shadow of the Colossus are very similar. That’s because both games are going after an emotion — the emotion of awe. The sense of awe is almost a religious feeling. In the modern day, this emotion [has] become less and less experienced. Awe is when you don’t understand something, when you feel that the mystery is so big that in contrast you are so small, so insignificant, so that you have exposed yourself towards something divine. [...] We have to make the player feel small and so a large landscape is very effective in making you feel that. And that’s also how church works — most churches have such a high ceiling, that makes you feel small and makes you feel this moment you share with God

Even the beginning shrine in Shadow of the Colossus feels very much like a church, maybe to put you in that mood. Do you feel that awe is essential to that sense of mystery — that those go hand-in-hand?

Chen: Yes. Mystery comes from awe. If you [feel] you understand everything; if you can Google everything; [if] all the answers are already there — it’s no longer a mystery.

For you, in communicating that scale to the player, are there any things beyond the obvious that you use to extract that feeling of awe in people?

Chen: For me, it’s about minimalism. If you put the player in the middle of Tokyo — yeah, Tokyo is large, but it’s busy. When it’s busy, you’re more likely to be distracted rather than feeling intimidated. To intimidate someone, you need very exaggerated artistic stylization. Either making something really, really tall — I mean, that’s how gothic buildings make you feel; it’s like they’re cheating to make you feel the perspective is wrong [and] the building is almost falling onto you. Or you make something feel really, really empty, and then you can have a sense of epicness. So if you put someone in a jungle, they are never going to feel [that] everything is big, because all the views [are] blocked. So yeah, you do have to use visual design to communicate that feeling. [The] camera is also very, very important. The proportion of the width and height of the screen is super important. You know, 2.3x1 film is a lot more epic than 16x9. The wide perspective gives you a stronger sense of being in the middle of something. So all these things are important, and sound is important. The more you can bring people into the canvas, the more they will feel the world is large.

You tend to make, for lack of a better word, third-person games. Is that so you’re able to place people into the world in that sense, and compare their avatar to the world around them, versus experiencing it from a first-person perspective?

Chen: Yeah, first-person perspective is interesting because if you’re playing [an] Oculus experience, you pretty much feel, OK, you are taking the role of the eyes of someone, but your body doesn’t really count. I guess with Oculus you have two hands that [are] involved. But there are a lot of times [when] you want to communicate a kinesthetic expression. With our character [in Journey], we wanted to give you a sense of low gravity, a floatiness of the character. And that doesn’t come through if you don’t see the character floating up into the air and falling down slowly. I mean, you might get some kind of a quick jump feeling, but without seeing the character, you would not be able to guess whether that’s a boxer jump or a martial artist jump or a dancer jump. You couldn’t pick up [that] flavor, and we thought it would be more useful to give the player a role when they can see their character has no arms, their character is either man or woman. Their character has no face. It puts them in a different role, but not like a character. This is more of an avatar. The avatar suggests certain abilities. If I’m wearing an Oculus, or I play a first-person view game, I always just assume I’m a human. I assume human capabilities.

In Shadow of the Colossus, Wander is a fairly generic character ultimately. He’s a sort of plain warrior, and he’s very single-minded, and he’s dressed sort of plainly. I’m curious if you have any thoughts in terms of whether it could have been more effective if it was less clear that you’re a man or a woman, or that you’re a man trying to save a woman. How does that sort of gender neutrality work for you in games, and do you think you’re able to reach a larger audience through that?

Chen: Yeah, well again, gender neutrality is, for me, a must problem because it’s an online game. When you play online games, when the other player is potentially a real human being, a lot of times the tension is, Oh, are you a girl or not? If you play MMO games, this is always the tension. So I don’t want people to ever even worry about that. I want people to feel […] a relationship between two human beings. So that is kind of why Journey had to be genderless. But for Shadow of the Colossus, I think the main character being a young man is kind of like a stereotype, you know? Saving the girl who’s in distress, right? I think it’s just assumed, the role the player is supposed to play. Then, of course, the player automatically hops on a horse, going out to kill the giants. That’s kind of like the default role, but then there is a twist later, so that’s interesting.

One could say Journey is about this companionship in a lonely world, which you could say about Ico as well. Do you feel games should be nourishing in how they provide companionship, and is that an important role for art in your life — being able to connect with it and empathize in a way that feels like you can project it into your real life and it’s not just escapism?

Chen: So, in a way, I think making Journey was my reaction [to] playing World of Warcraft. When I played World of Warcraft, I was hoping to have an escape from the busy study life in grad school. And I did make friends in the game, but I felt the friendship there was very materialistic. It’s based on when to raid, what to drop, what food to pick up, where to stand during the raid. It felt like a military experience.

I was really lonely because it’s all work and study. I [didn’t have time or money to socialize]. So I was hoping to have my social experience be achieved in World of Warcraft. I was trying to talk to people, make friends, and talk about things that [weren’t] in the game. The general reaction [wasn’t friendly]. People don’t tend to talk about [those kinds of things], unless everybody’s waiting for [someone] to come to the raid and there’s nothing to do. Then they talk about their family. But then as soon as the game starts, it’s just doing our military drill.

So I was hoping to create a game where, when I [was] escaping, I could also have an emotional connection and I could make a friend with meaningful social exchange. To me, social exchange is not like, I go to Farmville; I click on your like. That’s a numeric exchange. Social exchange is about having an emotional connection and an emotional exchange. If I see beautiful scenery and I brought you to see it, we both have shared a moment in life and we’ve felt the same thing at the same place. So I wanted a game where I could have these meaningful social exchanges with people, even though they are online strangers.

It’s interesting to hear the contrast of the actual source, because it’s sort of the opposite end of the spectrum of how to interact with somebody online.

Chen: Right, but then it’s still part of an escape. We did want to communicate something we feel is very truthful about life. 

One place where the book touches on Journey is Wander’s relationship to Agro the horse. To me that really felt almost like playing with someone else, like there’s this real entity. It’s hard for me to think about Agro as anything but real, versus just being this computer horse that runs around and follows me. Do you have any thoughts on why that may be, and what tricks one can use to build that sort of relationship with an AI character?

Chen: I would say number one, the horse is not a human being, so it’s a lot easier than [using] a human being as AI. And number two is, the horse itself has really good execution. A lot of it — AI in the end is not about its intelligence; it’s about its expression. I mean, a lot of people [make] a big deal about the Halo enemies because they would say, “Oh I’m scared.” Just the fact you’re saying that — they did research making everything feel like the AI is 100% better, even though it’s the same logic. And the horse has a lot of interesting animation, and he certainly has the basic needs of an animal.

We have tried all kinds of AI stuff. We noticed that quadrupeds [are usually a lot easier to develop] than bipods, because you’re not very familiar with the way the quadrupeds move [in real-life so you aren’t] able to tell if the animation [is] uncanny. The other thing is — we tried to assimilate fish. That’s way easier than the horse. Everybody thinks, Yeah, that fish is pretty convincing. So I think Argo probably has the intelligence of an NPC character, except he is only a horse. That’s why we feel he is so well done.

Like Team Ico, Thatgamecompany to me feels like — and please correct me if I’m wrong — a studio very much driven by the vision of yourself, and Kellee before as well. At least, that’s how it’s been presented outwardly. I’m curious if that’s actually been the case, and if so has there been any conflict over how to accomplish that vision? I’m thinking of this in the context of Team Ico and what I’ve read about that studio’s structure, which seems pretty unique, so I was curious about your own experience.

Chen: To start a project, when I describe what I want from the game, that is coming from me. But once it becomes the game, like How does it look, how does it sound, how does it play, how does the game load, how [do] the graphics look — it’s everybody. And everybody’s so egotistical, so there’s a lot of fights. [laughs] So I wouldn’t say that’s one man’s vision. It’s almost the result of the entire team fighting for what they think the game should be. You know, [Journey] was supposed to be in a forest initially, but now it’s a desert. The game was supposed to be in kind of classic Western ruins, but eventually they became Middle Eastern. And a lot of changes happened in the game.

I get the sense that you’re pretty happy with the results, though. If it changes so much, does it still feel like it sticks to your original vision, or are you OK with it becoming something else? 

Chen: Well, like I said, I’m one of those people who fights a lot on every single detail. There will be changes [like how we added the graves of other players near the end of the game]. That was two weeks before shipping and I had a huge fight with the team. Some people were threatening to quit. It was not easy.

It seems like sometimes that’s what it takes — sticking to your guns for the parts that are most important, even if it’s going to take everyone else longer to appreciate where you were coming from.

Chen: Sometimes other people stick to their guns even more than I do, and I back off, right? I think that kind of, I would say, competition is kind of like natural selection. The strongest will stay in the game.

I wanted to finish with some general questions about Shadow, just to see if you have any specific thoughts. Do you have any favorite moments that you remember from the game, or a specific colossus or a place in the game that has stuck with you in a particular way?

Chen: I really liked the moment when — actually one of the early bosses — there was a bird. And the bird landed in this water garden in a very graceful way, and that’s the moment where I started to feel like, Why am I killing these beautiful creatures? It was kind of powerful, but of course the killing of the bird is very surreal. It was just an awesome experience. I mean, yeah, later there were bigger, more badass flying creatures and water creatures, but you are only really impressed by your first surprise.

We’ve talked a bit about how some of these things, in Ico especially, have gone on to influence other work and your own work, yet with Shadow, actually — I think Journey has been influenced maybe more that most other games I can point to, and I hope you don’t mind me projecting that on it. But I’m curious why so few developers have tried to emulate Shadow, especially in an industry that so often borrows from other games.

Chen: Well, I [think back to a story I heard, where someone says] this world is filled with light products and dark products. You know, good food and trash food. They say regardless of the quality, trash food always sells. But only really, really high quality good food sells. Mediocre good food does not sell. They say it’s the same thing for film. For games, as well. So if you want to mimic one of the top [of the] line, highest quality, positive games, it’s a lot harder than mimicking junk food games. And junk food games [do] sell, so it’s a lot easier to make profit [that way]. […]

Also, Shadow’s biggest achievement is the coherent vision, and that’s a lot harder to copy. You can copy the surface, but you can’t copy the soul. [If] you have a soul yourself, then maybe you can steal some of the other things. And if you don’t have a soul, then I don’t think you can really make a game at the level of Shadow of the Colossus. Honestly, I don’t think Journey’s anywhere close to Shadow. It’s just really incredible.

I know you’re humble about it, but Journey’s pretty incredible too. And I think it’s interesting they live in that similar place where they share some inspiration but they are these singular experiences that would be very difficult for anyone else to develop. 

Chen: Well, I’m saying that because, even today — after seven years making Journey — we are trying to do [things] that Shadow of the Colossus did with their camera, with their controls, and it’s just incredible. And they were able to pull those things off on a PlayStation 2. We have no way to do it. It’s just like so much distance to what they did. I mean, in many ways, we cheated [with what we did in Journey].

With Shadow, there’s really been this culture — and I don’t know how much you’ve seen this on the Journey side — but there’s really this culture of secrets and trying to find meaning in the world. Of course, some of that is because there’s not too much told to you so your imagination can run wild. But do you see anything else there for why Shadow feels so wreathed in mystery?

Chen: We have pretty much the same [type of] secret-seeking community. And because Journey is an online game, there are a lot of people who have replayed Journey over 50 to 100 times. Sometimes I do wonder what are they doing with their life, but most of these people like to be the shepherd. They like to carry new people through the land, and they like to take these people to these glitchy places so they can see some of the world that was not supposed to be seen. I think for games that [are built to have a sense of mystery] that’s always something people will talk about and discuss. But I think Shadow actually has even more questions unanswered than Journey [does]. It has more characters and factions, so definitely there’s a lot more to talk about. And particularly, it seems to be related to Ico, so you can [tie it into the larger] universe. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone had [written] a fan novel for the whole universe.

Yeah, I haven’t even gone down that rabbit hole, but there’s a lot there. Even googling some of the art in the game, yeah, the fan stuff is amazing. But I saw the Flow creatures in Journey, so I’m sure there are some shared universe thoughts there.

Chen: [laughs] Well, I can tell you there wasn’t any connection [between the universes there]. It was just an Easter Egg.

As a creator, when you talk about people showing off unfinished parts of the game to other players and trying to peek behind the curtain, how do you feel about that?

Chen: I think that just simply shows they love the game so much they want to spend more time in the game. They want to have more content, except we don’t have any. If they find glitches, that’s at least something new for them, so I’m happy that they found them.

We touched on this briefly, but you talked a little bit about minimalism earlier, and I’m curious what that means to you as an artist. Is that something you strive to keep in mind every day? And is that your aesthetic, or was that just the aesthetic for your previous games, but not necessarily something you’ll go back to in the future?

Chen: I always want to go back to it, because as an artist, you use the medium to express yourself. And to me, minimalism is about reducing the number of the singers in the choir group. When you have 100 singers in a choir group, it’s hell to conduct and make sure everyone’s on the same pitch so that singing can be crystal clear. […] When you reduce the number of singers it’s a lot more likely that they can reach a perfect harmony, and so you can actually hear what the artist is trying to say. A lot of the AAA games, they put out big, epic opera — it’s really impressive so at that point you’re not really there to hear what they’re trying to say, you’re just there to be impressed by the formality and by the sheer scale of it.

But again, I think of myself more as an artist. I have something to say. I have something I want the player to take away after playing the game. And it’s a lot more likely that voice will be heard if you keep things minimal.