JOURNEY - Complete score with text commentary

Hi everyone! Thanks for checking this out. I first uploaded this video several years ago with all the text commentary as annotations. Youtube has since erased that feature so I had to recreate it and re-upload. Feel free to help spread the word on it once again :) Thank you all SO MUCH for the years of support for this beautiful game!

I've played this game so many times and never noticed that the mountain we've been trying to reach the whole time is just a silhouette of two cloth people embracing.

About 5 years ago, my son got seriously ill, he started having seizure after seizure - he would go on to have hundreds a day. That weekend I took him to the hospital and sat with him all day, but I was eventually told I had to go home. I had just bought Journey, but hadn't yet played it, so in the middle of the night, needing something to just take my mind off all the thoughts, I put it on. That moment, 46:19 - you can imagine how I was feeling before that, I was in tears, I thought my son was going to die alone without me there and after that mountain climb... that moment gave me hope. I've used your soundtrack to help me through so much since then, it gives me strength even to this day. My son is still with us, but every day is a challenge to cope with his condition, and I honestly do not know how differently things might have gone without this music, crazy as it sounds, I genuinely think it has made a definite and real difference to my life! Thank you!

One of the best soundtracks ever made.

Basically how JOURNEY was made: designers did something beautiful; composer wrote something beautiful to match; designers decided game prototype is not beautiful enough for the soundtrack so they redo it; game is now more beautiful than soundtrack, so composer redoes it; rinse repeat. NGL that is one tried-and-tested method to create beautiful games.

I just came back to this game after a months long break. I immediately ran into a second-time player who was clearly thrilled to serve as my guide. They had no idea I was a veteran, and enthusiastically showed me all the secrets, waited for me when I lagged behind, and were right by my side when a buggy Guardian hit me. Their enthusiasm really inspired me and definitely changed how I want to act as a guide. Multiple Feet, if you ever read this, thank you for the Journey!

This will be recognized as a classic soundtrack in the future

19:54 You’re kidding, right?? The music that you have composed is the quintessential voice of the game. Without it, the game would not have been as impactful as it is. Not only did you deliver its voice, you’ve exceeded it to many levels. It’s as masterful as the story and the scenery of Journey, and it’s probably my favorite aspect of the game.

Journey made me reconsider my view on video games being considered art, and the soundtrack was a key part in that. At the risk of uncharacteristically sounding over dramatic, the experience moved me, changed me and literally saved my life. I’ve since then told others that if I had a chance to choose, this would be the final soundtrack I would want to hear before I passed.

I heard this the first time today because Journey is free on PlayStation and I can honestly say this is one of the most INCREDIBLE pieces of music I have ever heard. I almost cried at one point and I can't explain why, it just reaches into you. I don't think this will let go anytime soon. Thank you so much for this, Mr. Wintory.

The note at 48:57 really stood out to me, especially because at the end of it all, not only did your score not ruin the game for me, it absolutely made it for me. I say with no exaggeration that Journey's score is easily my favorite score in any game. It's not even close. I get chills throughout so much of it, whether it be when the music swells in Nascence or Nadir, the shift that happens in Atonement, or the entirety of Apotheosis. In fact, Apotheosis is one of my favorite pieces of music, period, and I cry each and every time I hear it. Like the game itself, this score is a complete and total masterpiece from beginning to end, and I truly cannot imagine Journey without it.

Hello Mr. Wintory, I dont know if you'll read this, it being years late. But I wanted to post a comment anyway. I want to personally thank you. Journey is, straight up, my favorite interactive experience (I dont even want to call it a game) of all time. In 2012, or 2013, i was two years out of high school, and like many people in that time of their life, struggling to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. Journey was an inspiration. I always loved video games, ever since I was a child. Journey made me realize just how much games meant to me, but it did much more than that. Journey inspired me to enroll in a college, to learn how to make video games. I now hold a bachelors of science in game design. My time in college was the single most formative experience of my life. It, like many others, defined who I am, what I like, and how I think. While I don't work in the industry, I am constantly influenced in my life by my choice to persue education in a art form that prior to Journey, had been little more than a hobby to me. You might think something along the lines of "that's great but there were plenty of other brilliant people that made journey what it was" and you are right about that. But let me be perfectly clear: your music is what made it MEANINGFUL to me. Your music is what brought out my emotions and helped me connect with everything that everyone else was trying to do. If not for your music, I know for a fact without a shadow of a doubt that had anyone else composed journey's score, i would have enjoyed it still, maybe even loved it, but I doubt I would have been so moved to change my life. You said in this video in the apotheosis portion that you were anxious or scared of ruining the brilliant work that everyone else at TGC had made by the challenge of nailing the final sequence (or something along those line). When I read that, I teared up. Because never have I heard a peice of music so recongizably elevate something to be so much more that it otherwise is. That goes for every note, from the start "the call", to the end of "I was born for this" and even when the player presses x again and starts over. I will always love video games, because you (and others) helped me realize what they can do, how they can move the soul. And I will always be thankful to you for that, and the impact you and your work has had on my life. Thank you.

A grown ass man cried after playing this game for the first time. This game is amazing. The score is the soul of it.

"The road of trials" 16:25 always turns me into a sobbing emotional mess because of how beautiful it is. This game is a masterpiece. Me listening to it's magnificent soundtracks for years after says a lot. Not a single word had been spoken during the gameplay and that goes to show how powerful music can be, it is a language of it's own kind. And the symbolism..my god the symbolism. And those viola solos..as you can see, I am in awe. People such as yourself make this world a better place.

Time to revisit an old classic

Hey Austin! Three years ago, when I was still on the equivalent of 9th grade, in middle school here in France, I had to find a subject for the final oral exam of the "Brevet des Collèges". I can remember finishing Journey and being like, that's what I'm gonna present to the jury: how art, and especially music, could change what they thought about video games, and how those latter could generate an emotion and transmit a powerful story just as books and movies. I thus featured some of your music, notably Apotheosis and Descent (that one is deeply underrated) , and I remember that they were very impressed. I got 100/100 at the end! So thank you for sharing such moving music with us, and I really like your work on The Pathless too! You're being a real game changer :D Greetings from the country of croissants!

Best game ever made

Me coming out of this video: I am a Tina stan first and a human second 😔✊

Everything about this game is both so otherworldly yet so... human. The sheer magnificence and beauty of the art, the soundtrack, and the story itself will shine on for centuries to come. It's been ten years already and it remains as my #1 game, and it always turns me into an absolute sobbing mess. May my tear ducts never run dry for this game!

Best. Music. Ever.