What do you think of when you think about Journey? Personally, I think about crying profusely at the end.
Today marks 10 years since Journey‘s release. How time flies, right? To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the game, Austin Wintory, the original composer of the Journey soundtrack, decided to drop a “total reimagining of the score”, working with the London Symphony Orchestra and cellist Tina Guo (who also worked on the original soundtrack).
In 2012 @thatgamecompany + @SonySantaMonica changed my life forever. The last decade has been nonstop gratitude for everything JOURNEY did for me. To celebrate 10 years here is a total reimagining of the score feat @londonsymphony / @Tinaguo. I hope you enjoy; it’s been a dream💞 pic.twitter.com/P5ZrWGXYRi
— Austin Wintory (@awintory) March 13, 2022
Journey feels like one of those ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ games. Released in 2012 and developed by Thatgamecompany, Journey was called ‘a game about nothing’, and that would be about right. There’s no clear-cut story, no dialogue, none of that. You simply wake up in a desert, and must go on. The game was also ‘multiplayer’, and I say that in quotes because the only kind of multiplayer was that you would surprisingly happen upon people also playing the game, honking at them, and then venturing through the land together. For a game with no straight forward story and no words, it touched a lot of hearts, and it did so not only through its simplicity, but its incredible score.
Oh my god, the music of Journey.
The soundtrack was composed by Wintory, who had previously worked on the soundtrack for Thatgamecompany’s Flow. Wintory’s work on Journey also saw him working closely with the game’s sound designer Steve Johnson in order to make the soundtrack feel directly linked to gameplay, which proved to be a game-changer. The game won multiple awards for its soundtrack, including at the BAFTA Game Awards, an Interactive Achievement Award at the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences, and at the Game Audio Network Guild Awards. It was also the first ever game to be nominated for a Grammy. So yeah, you could say the music for Journey is pretty fucking incredible.
The reimagining has also shone a light on just how simplistic the original score is, with Wintory replying later in the Twitter post about the original composition.
The original score is not actually orchestral! It’s all soloists (5 of them, mostly cello though) and lots of synth pads. As you reach the end game, I add in a small string ensemble.
The idea was to put those notes through a grandly symphonic filter, to see how it sounds!
— Austin Wintory (@awintory) March 13, 2022
I may be a big dummy, but I had no idea the original score wasn’t orchestral. It felt so full. And now I’m listening to the new version, and I’m crying. Thanks a lot, Austin Wintory, I’m crying.
Traveler – A Journey Symphony is available to stream/buy now, and if this wasn’t a reminder to play Journey again, maybe it’s time to play Journey again.
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