I'd like to tell a story of the first time I played 'Journey' on my PS3.

After traversing alone across a mysterious desert for about 30 minutes, I was just starting to get a grip on the gameplay. Now that I was finally used to being alone, finally at terms with the vast expanse the environment provided to explore, I caught a sudden glimpse of another character that looked almost exactly like me. It stood in the same robe I was wearing and had a long flowing scarf around its neck, like mine. And it began to start running around on its own a short distance away.

I immediately assumed it was an important NPC (non-playable character) or something meant to have some significance to the story, as it was the first real encounter with "something" other than myself since I started playing.

I was already in the middle of exploring something so I made a mental note to double back and check the character out when I was finished, so more or less ignored it for a minute while I went back to searching for some secret.

All of a sudden, I realized the character was now following me around! It completely left where it was and came directly up to me! The game had no obvious way to interact with other characters to this point so I started trying to play with it by jumping on it, using the 'action' button to talk (make little pings and beeps with symbols over my head). After doing this it seemed the character started playing along back with me - mimicking my jumping and beeping back its own little wordless symbols back at me—neat! I thought it was pretty novel and then all-of-a-sudden, it just ran off.

Fully intrigued now, I thought that maybe it was trying to tell me something / bring me somewhere! I immediately started to follow it but despite its seeming sense of urgency, it didn't seem to be doing anything important, it was just sort of... playing... I watched it jumping up on to rocks, then back down again, running around in strange patterns. I just sort of stood there, or slowly followed behind and watched it for what seemed like a while. As soon as I stopped following it, it would come back and check on me to see if I was still around, 'signalling' to me with its little wordless pings. Then, if i ran off the other way, it would return to follow me, always keeping within a certain distance of me.

Not much later I fell off a cliff down into this area and didn't really know how to get back up. Suddenly, this mysterious character jumped into the hole with me and started beeping to show me the way out. It finally clicked that this had to be a real person! The way it acted / reacted to everything I was doing was simply too surreal to be AI / programmed. That realization was nothing short of awe inspiring... and so I followed them!

They got me out from being stuck and then we basically... journeyed... together.. for many levels. There were times where we were sneaking around monsters trying not to be seen, times where we were solving puzzles together, and times where we would just stand and beep at each other simply because that was the only real way we could communicate.

Near the end, we were climbing this epic mountain together and the snow was blowing in our faces and we were taking refuge in these little nooks and crannies together. The orchestral music would swell and we would time our movements, trying to brave up this snow covered summit, running back to one another to huddle together and stay warm—the weather overtaking us the whole time. Eventually it was too much, our movement slowed until we could barely move, and we dropped into the snow and remained still. Shortly after we both died, first them falling into the snow while I helplessly watched, and then myself. The screen dissolved to white and we reappeared in this incredible new place, with floating islands, remarkable blue sky and the ability to fly. Still together.

We finally reached the end of the game and it was clear we were supposed to go through this giant archway, into the bright white glow of this heaven-like area. My partner wasted no time and was through the arch as soon as we reached it, but I couldn't do it.. I didn't want to end the story! I just stood at the archway completely mystified about what was going to be through it—deciding if I even wanted to know. I had this moment where I was so moved by everything that had happened up until that point, I didn't want it spoiled in any way. The whole experience to that point was so surreal and so magical that I felt like walking through that archway could potentially ruin it.

And so I just stood there... I watched my partner walk deeper and deeper into the light... this complete stranger that I had just spent the last 2 hours with. This person that I somehow connected with on an almost spiritual level, yet without ever even speaking a single word to each other...

Then, they were gone. Swallowed by white light and lost in my memories forever.