It’s been a few weeks now AFK Journeya relatively new mobile title, released during the first half of 2024 (and which we have already talked about extensively in our review), takes up the few free moments that I have left available during my days. It’s not a challenging video game. In fact, it plays itself, the result of those “idle” dynamics that dominate the charts of digital stores on our smartphones. Despite the structure, Farlight Games’ game at least has a pleasant style that, if you are easily impressed by bold and dynamic graphics (guilty), is capable of capturing in the blink of an eye. Add a partner to share the experience with and you’re done.
In what I see as a recreational prisonI found myself appreciating, despite myself, the sumptuous packaging that envelops this mostly empty package; a bottomless matryoshka that is fun to open, but whose contents become increasingly insignificant and elusive. I realize that everything I achieve has little or nothing to do with my gaming expertise. They are infinitely repeated actions, which don’t even require my command to activate them since all you need to do is press a button to make them happen automatically.
When I’m faced with a choice, whether or not to interact with the game, I usually choose the first. However, and this is where we get to the heart of the matter, the game itself has recently decided to do everything for me, outclassing my progression curve without giving me the possibility to choose how and to what extent to proceed, making it increasingly clear to my eyes how much it represents a mirror of our time.
Change of plans
I’ll start by confessing that I had only heard of the world of AFK before starting to play Journey, so I discovered everything I know little by little, avoiding going online as much as possible to try to find my way around the exorbitant amount of content that peppers this experience.
I have tested several gachas in the past and have been a Genshin Impact player for a few seasons, so I am familiar with the strategy implemented to bring players to their mill by these productions that flourish at an unlikely pace, but nothing could prepare me for the quantity of notions, events, micro-events, seasons, half-seasons, prizes, packages, chests and everything that overwhelms the game with a crowding of mind-blowing content, but which, for better or worse, with time, you manage to navigate.
The routine to follow finally appears, here comes the definitive trip: the new season, Thorns of Devotion. One fine morning I open the game and find a screen telling me that my server has reached the minimum number of days to join the season. This means that all players present on it are immediately advanced to the maximum level of Resonance (one of the thousand ranks that make up the title, this linked to the characters and equipment).
Nobody gets left behind
So, from one day to the next, all my progression, poof, annihilated by a seasonal eventafter which it is still not clear to me what will happen, whether the level will return to the initial one, whether it will be converted in another way.
The game tries to explain it, but the carefully written papyrus is not very clear in its intentions, which forces one to get lost in the forums looking for answers that the game should give me clearly beforehand. Because, yes, I can also go and dig in the depths of the internet or in the hundreds of update pages, but we have to center the point of view for a moment with that of the average player struggling with the title.
A twist like that, presented by a screen that doesn’t allow you to do anything other than click “accept” (there’s no way to back out and continue progressing on your own), leaves the player with a product where all you have to do is look at the screen and press a couple of keys to move between the menus and the map disorientednot to mention annoyed when he receives warning after warning that incites him to skip the entire main story to go directly to the narrative of the season, underlining even more how much, in the end, not even their authors believe in that dramaturgical component.
This, at least, is what I felt. Only thanks to a second character did I realize that there was a countdown to the launch of the season on the server, but in any case I would not have been prepared to be launched anyway equal to all players with a snap of the fingers (unless you’ve been a regular visitor since launch day, probably). Which makes me think twice, because if I’m impatient with this, maybe I’m not the target audience and, perhaps, the market has already given me an answer on the matter.
The need
A game like AFK Journey perfectly summarizes one of the main needs of contemporary society: the need. We feel the need to have everything immediately, without breaking a sweat. Day after day, this insatiable thirst it grows more and more, fueled by product upon product, boundless choices, infinite possibilities of ways to satisfy our senses.
Games like AFK, but we can make the same argument for “idle games” in general or for most of the structures of today’s online titles, are just more fuel thrown on the raging fire.
Without doing anything, without advertising to interrupt his game, without spending a penny (unless he wants to be competitive), in Journey the player gets lavish rewards, all different currencies that are needed in one or another shop where to buy chests, characters, cosmetic elements. The inventory quickly fills up with mysterious materials, but it’s not clear how they should be used just have themreassuring presence.
Each step is a goal to be redeemed that makes progress with unparalleled speed; every corner turned a notice of a bundle to purchase or some new feature unlocked, to keep busy that couple of extra minutes that are enough to make up the numbers in the quarterly reports. The characters are unlocked as if plucked from a tree, so much so that you can even choose which ones you want (and not which ones you prefer) to find inside the “gashapon”, completely breaking down the most attractive component of this mechanic: the surprise (but at the same time, it must be said, limiting the maniacal drive that can lead to investing not only game currency, but also real money, to find the hoped-for darling).
And the thing that scares me most of all is that myself I can’t help it. The simplicity of approach, the constant reward for the slightest progress, the awareness that there is always a tick on the progression line to collect push me to continue investing time in something that, more than ever, I am aware will give me nothing in return other than a momentary satisfaction of that generational thirst that keeps me in chains.
