Big Walk

People talk about these novel multiplayer games as though they're reinventing human communication or uncovering some obscure truth about our species, and I think that's a lot of hyperbole. Sorry if I'm raining on anybody's parade here. But Journey was not that deep. I mean, I don't think we do it a favor by acting like it was. It did tell us something about communication, but in a narrow sense--it demonstrated what you can do with your online experience when you don't provide a means for 13-year-olds to say slurs in it. Give a group of people a surface and something to write with and someone will draw a dick 100% of the time; Journey pointedly asked, in a way few games had, how we might put players in situations that encourage positive feelings toward one another on purpose. I've been playing Elden Ring online, despite everything, and I feel similarly about it in that it doesn't allow unsolicited PVP and incentivizes helpful messages. You're contributing to a body of knowledge.…