In the middle of life you are a little bit lost, you don’t see the light from the mountain. And then a teenager is risk taking and adventurous and fun, exhilarating. You can fall and roll down and it doesn’t hurt. You are born into the world not knowing everything, everything is fresh and new. I think when we were arranging the world, we were trying to create an arc that is mimicking the different stages of life. "I think all of my games are very experience based.
Abzu story explained full#
It's a snapshot from a DICE 2013 speech given by Jenova Chen about Journey, the speech is fully available here:Īlso, you can read this part of an interview to Jenova Chen about Journey (the full interview can be read at ): It's an amazing concept, this game is priceless. Look into what labryiths really are from ancient times and look up what Abzu means in Sumerian. Eventually after we make DNA by swirling and twirling in spirals we reenter the game and enter a state of "beginning" again. Then the lower dimensionality of the ego has no power and you can blast right through, breaking the remaining chains of the ego and setting forth amazing growth and new spaces inside yourself to explore. Eventually you ascend to the point where you have remerged with the higerself when the great white shark is your friend. As you ascend in the game and consciousness images of the star of david/merkaba everywhere in holy buildings because you are closer to the "god source". Then the ego little ego buddies (which are manufscuted by the "machines"are a help for a while but then gets out of hand and takes over and the machines kill the great whit shark (the higher self). THAT is why the little robot gets killed by the great white in the beginning when it trys to cross a void. The game is about overcoming the ego and merging with the higherself. It is apparent to me that the game is a virtual labyrinth through which a person ascends through the stages of consciousness back to the "god source." It is about evolving physically (turning into a frog/amphibian etc ) and consciously (away from lower dimensionality which is displayed in the game as machine pyramids. This is an interesting and thoughtful opinion but I must say I disagree. Actually, given Journey and Abzu stories, I think Abzu can be considered as a prequel of Journey! even though the real meaning was so simple (yes, there was a specific meaning intended by Journey creators, eventually explained by Jenova Chen himself). Isn't it a beautiful story? Please don't tell me I'm the only one who got it! I hope it will not happen the same as with Journey, where people developed thousands of totally crazy ideas. In the final chapter, both, he and she, the diver and the shark, swim together as a single being, followed by all those fishes (sperms), destroying the landmines (infertility problem) and turning all dark triangles (infertile uterus) into sources of life, until they get together into the last triangle, leading to the conception. Conception is a journey to be walked together! In her next dream, instead of giving the ovule (her gift) to create a new life, she gives it to her partner to revive him, to revive his confidence. Eventually, the uterus, the big triangle, kills the shark, so the conception is impossible, and the woman "dies" of sadness with him.īut she eventually gets through it. Landmines attack the shark, representing the male seed. Landmines are some infertility problem (cyst, endometriosis, etc).
Note that both the woman and the shark are travelling TOGETHER to the triangle (her uterus). Those big triangles (also depicted in her suit) represent her uterus. Small robots help you to cut those nets to keep on advancing through tunnels (breaking the hymen, losing the virginity), and at the beginning of the game, the shark (the male sexual partner of the woman, also representing his seed) eats/kills one of them. The main character, a woman, goes over several game stages whose ending is always the same: she gives an egg from herself (an ovule), and then she creates life. This is the key to get the game's meaning.Īnd it's what Abzu is about: creating a life, the conception. Note that "Ab" means both "water" and "semen" in Babylonian. All cultures where water was scarce gave this "source of life" meaning to water, and life started in water after all (although Babylonians couldn't prove it, sure). In Babylonian religion, "Abzu" ("distant water") was both a mystical place (some underground water source), and also a kind of ceremony where water revived the gods. What's the real meaning of the story told by Abzu? Here is my guess: It's a woman's struggle to get pregnant!Ībzu creators said they wanted players to see the main character as "her", and they said that the game was a kind of journey into yourself, to know yourself.