To connect or to disconnect!

Reading this article will help you understand the various ways of losing a Companion. It provides info on all the mechanics of connections and disconnections between players online.

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## About this article

* Information and tips, how to avoid disconnects, etc.
* How different dusts looks like
* How to reconnect if you lose your Companion
* how to connect with a certain person
* Hints for each level, areas where you can't connect, reconnect hints, etc.

**"AutoLobby"**: Automated player connection system.

## General information about connection

*Journey* does not support a lobby system or a "play with friend option".!

* There is no cross platform play **except between** **PS4** and **PS5** players.
* **PlayStation Plus Premium** players can connect to **PlayStation 3** players, via cloud gaming.
* **Epic Games version** connection system **does not work** on this version (except in rare individual cases).

The purpose of the game is to connect to someone you don't know and travel towards a common goal together. Becoming attached to that person along the way is a unique, emotional experience.

Each platform has some specifics about how the connection works. Knowing these specifics is required in order to connect with a certain player. Normally the game will connect any two players that are around the same area.

### Dusts

*Main article:* Dusting / to dust
   If the connection to the game or internet is lost, each player sees the other one fade to dust. If you see someone dust, that does not necessarily mean they left the game. It may be that your or their internet connection is weak.

There are many reasons for disconnects, and it takes experience to see what might have happened. Even then, it's still a guessing game unless the other player confirms it later.

Read further to learn more about why, when, and where dusts happen.

### First place to get connected

In the Broken Bridge (BB) level, after jumping down from the ledge at the start of the level (although a connection may happen before jumping if you stand in just the right place for the trigger).

### Two players cannot connect if...

One is a first run and the other is a White Robe (unless playing on iOS).

Tip: Write down or take a photo/screenshot of your Companion's Chirp symbol while playing in case you lose them. You can find their name in the Companions Met Along the Way list at the end of the game associated to their Chirp symbol, and eventually you may try contacting them.

#### White shine in peripherals

Keep an eye on the edge of the screen; a white shine indicates where your Companion is.

Sometimes it may appear messed up, a Companion around a corner can cause the shine to appear on the wrong side.

The size of the shine indicates how close they are.

You might not see them or the shine, if a Companion is standing behind a rock or is very far away, Chirping will give them a visual signal to find you; turn your camera 360\*; search the area...

If you are flying in front of your Companion and the shine stays the same size, they are following you. With some experience you can rely a bit on that and do not have to turn around to look where they are constantly. Although you do not see them, keep on chirping their Scarf or they will fall, see Tandem Flying.

#### Chirp as signal

    Sometimes you just concentrate on something else and lose sight of your companion. Remember a Chirp can help them to find you again.

Chirping is a good helper to find each other again, always and everywhere!

Sometimes the figure itself is barely visible, so a big chirp or many small while walking on, will help your Companion to see where you are.

#### Actions that DO NOT affect connection:

* Activating the normal Glyphs (the Goo-activating Glyphs in the Tower level can cause a disconnect)
* picking up Symbols
* calling the Flyers
* activating the smaller Banners in Broken Bridge
* interacting with Carpets

#### Actions that DO affect connection:

**Starting the vision without Companion**

Walking into the light circle at the end of the level (History Lesson place), without giving your Companion the chance to reach it in time,

* will often cause a disconnect.
* can be seen as "i have to hurry, no time to wait for you" or as "i am not up for travelling together".

If they do not or can not follow within ~ 20 seconds, you might be alone after the vision.

**Solutions:**

When your Companion is gone, after you watched the vision:

* if you assume that the Companion is waiting around the Shrine, quickly try to get at least 1-2 War Machine length between you. This animates the game to search again for a possible Companion. A shine might appear, indicating that you reconnected. This works rather seldom, more often players tend to try to reconnect in the next level. This might be more commonly used, since you will never know if your Companion is waiting or going on. But sooner or later they probably will move on. Just walk into the next level, search for a nice place a bit away from the entrance and wait for them. (if they wait in the other level, you might get another player meanwhile though).

#### Distance

If you don't know the connection rules well, do not run off or stay behind. Stick together and regularly check where your Companion is! Sometimes they suddenly sit down to meditate, because real life (toilet, phone, cat.. :) ).

Especially on arranged Journeys, you can experiment and be bold. Get experienced!

Rebi's famous video about connection, it explains how the connecting works and where you cant connect with a Companion. It's more about how to connect with a specific person (friend), but the general connection rules still apply for random Companions.

Disconnect by distance is often rather, hitting a trigger that causes that disconnect.

Example: Tower level: If one player is somewhere else (getting a Symbol maybe), while the other activates the goo-activating Glyph, it can easily cause a disconnect.

#### Strong disconnect triggers

As mentioned above: The danger with distance mostly lies at hitting triggers, its all experience.

* See also hints above
* Specifics about triggers are mentioned at "Specifics per level".
* Depending on level and area you can have a rather big distance between you, without disconnecting.

* Sometimes it might be enough that they actually see the activation, to get the same state.

#### Identify lagging Companion

Walks/Flies slow and suddenly runs for seconds or "teleports".

Its hard to charge their scarf, the chirp-bubble might reach them on your screen, but in their reality they are too far away (or the lag itself cancels the charging).

If they dust, it's most likely that the game just couldn't keep up with your different "speeds".

 Keep in mind, that probably both players are laggy to each other.

#### Reconnect?

Its depending on level and the cause of the disconnect.

Strategies:

* Walk a bit around the place where you disconnected (create distance to re-establish connection).
* Go to next area/section/level and wait for them.
* Activate something and hope they will activate the same.
* PS4 players could try to refresh connection.

* See also Do's and Dont's above.

Here some examples:

* Both go a bit further in the level, try to activate certain things at same time to change the current state of the figure (like a glyph in the Tower or a bridge part in BB, as described in the video, connections in UG after activating the first WM are difficult/impossible)
* If Companions internet broke down, they could just give up and close the game or stay at the place and wait for the internet to come back. If you are still around and some disctance between them, a reconnect most likely will happen (PS4 might have lower chances).

* "i guess i (they) hit a trigger and then i could not find them" --> depending on level, guess which trigger they activated and activate it too or on the other side, wait for them to activate it.

#### Automatic connection is sometimes disabled

Keep in mind that occasionally the game disables the "AutoLobby", which is what automatically connects / disconnects players based on distance and triggers.

While AutoLobby is suppressed, you will never connect to anyone if alone, and in many cases will never disconnect if you have a companion (unless they quit, crash, go to another level for a long enough time, etc).

Known situations in which the game will disable AutoLobby:

* After activating any History Lesson statue / light circle. If they deactivate again because nobody is near them, then AutoLobby will be enabled again.
* During any History Lesson cutscene itself (companions still disconnect if one of them takes too long to enter the History Lesson, of course). AutoLobby is enabled again after the cutscene, except in Sunken City (SC) and Underground (UG) .
* A short time after a disconnection.
* Other level-specific situations where you can "never connect" are due to AutoLobby being disabled, see below for specifics

 ~~It may be possible to connect to someone even if AutoLobby is disabled, but it is likely that this only lets you re-connect to a companion that disconnected a very short time ago. It may work differently in different places in the game, and maybe is different across platforms.~~

### PC: you don't disconnect immediately upon "quit to title" !

On PC, if you were to meet a certain Companion and then go to the main menu/quit to title and clicking "continue" within about 1 minute or so, you would still be connected to that player! Even if the other player activated important triggers in the current level you could still connect.

This allows to have one player with activated goo in tower level while the other one has no goo. Or one could see invisible banners the companion is flying on top of, and so on, as long the lobby flags are the same for both. activity between players only resumes when both are back in the level, temporarily losing connection.

It may not work upon re-entering a level from the Chapter select hub.

This also works in Paradise level, and if both players were to get stuck OOB for example they could just click the "restart level" button that appears in the menu in this particular level and stay connected. This also works even if only one person restarts.

### Specifics per level

#### Chapter Select

*Main article:* Chapter Select (CS)
Can not meet Companions here, therefore no disconnects

#### Broken Bridge

*Main article:* Broken Bridge (BB)
You can't connect to a player while you are on most of the starting platform, the cliffs next to it, or the hallway behind it; however you can connect if you are "north" of the two broken pillars on the platform (towards the mountain).

If someone has different parts of the bridge activated than you, you will not connect with this person. Also, you will not connect if one of you has watched the History Lesson cutscene and the other hasn't.

Disconnects by distance are rarely reported in this level.

The smaller banners that don't activate the bridge don't play a role in the connection process. Same goes for symbols picked up.

Some people use a certain pattern of activating bridge parts to either meet a specific person or trying to raise the chances to meet a random player.

Often people try to meet each other in this level.

If you meet someone that promptly dusts on you, maybe several times: Activate a bridge part, so when they try the next time, they will not connect to you when they enter the level.

#### Pink Desert

*Main article:* Pink Desert (PD)
**Known disconnect point:**

Around the area at the tower with the Symbol on top.

Often people reported about losing a Companion right after picking the Symbol or along that line from West to the East side with ruin where the shooting star falls. Flying around that area to get some distance between you, might help to get reconnected.

Freeing Carpets in Pink Desert far away from your Companion, might lead to disconnect, as well as distance since you might hit some triggers.

 You can help and report about disconnects in this level, tell us about distance, triggers activated, the place where it happened etc.

Carpets picked you up: slide for some seconds and activate the screensaver, then move camera around to see when they enter. Or wait in the rest area, with no banners activated.

#### Sunken City

*Main article:* Sunken City (SC)
Common here is to just lose sight of the Companion while sliding.

Since you are both sliding at approximately the same speed and the level is rather narrow, a disconnect by distance is rather rare.
Though, players can get stuck for some seconds at rocks; you can slide slower by pressing the "walk-back" button.

* At the rest area / round area with carpets to free and a symbol:
	+ When Companions entered the level separated, its advised to not activate Banners and wait for your Companion to drop down into the area too. Banners need to be the same for both players, just like in the Broken Bridge Banners case.
	+ Tests have confirmed, that Banners activated do matter for a later reconnect. e.g: trying to meet in the Sunset Hall does not work if one flew over the area and the other freed the Carpets.
	+ If you fly up to the wall to the next slide, but your Companion has problems getting there, do not start sliding. You do not know how long it will take them to get to the slide. The distance created between you sliding down and them in the rest area might cause a disconnect. However you can help them up or wait for them to make it on their own.

* Same counts for the last stop after the horizontal slide. If one skips through the hall at the end and slides, while the other was pushed into the hall --> distance.
* At the sunset hall: Your Companion can be in the hall with you, even if you do not see them. They slid into the shadow or walked to the back side of the hall, no shine on the screen. Try chirping so they answer. Searching around in the hall for longer time though, creates more distance to the sliding player.

* At stops you can wait for a lost Companion.
* **Reconnect:** It is reported, that reconnecting at the pit at the end of the level does not happen often. They rather meet again in Underground.

* "AutoLobby" is disabled for the rest of the level after the History Lesson cutscene, which most likely makes it impossible to connect to anyone, although it might be possible to re-connect with a Companion who was disconnected due to entering the History Lesson a little late.

#### Underground

*Main article:* Underground (UG)
Its rather impossible to get a Companion while you are in most areas after the Ambush Room, where the first War Machine comes to life.

Distance is a bigger problem then normal at the War Machine rooms. If a Companion goes ahead and activates other WMS, a disconnect might happen. Though this is also experience. A Companion can sit somewhere and the other quickly activates a machine and flies back, with no disconnect.

It seems, reconnect does not to work at the Shrine, although the WMs are gone at this point.
Recommendation, go to the Tower level and hope your Companion does this fast too, before you connect to another player :)
Its about guessing if your Companion might has the same idea or is maybe new to the game and starts searching around at the end of the UG.
However, if you were in an arranged journey and can communicate directly with the other player, it is possible to meet again in UG - see below.

    **Ambush room:**
**Disconnect by hitting triggers**. If one player is still in the corridor before the attack happens and the other player is ahead and gets the attack animation, a disconnect is most likely. It might help to actually look at the attack, so the game creates the same status for both of you: WM gone.

    This situation can happen when a Red Robe with full scarf or White Robe hurries forward, while leaving a Red Robe with empty scarf behind (they have to walk).

**Flyers eaten room:**

Staying behind after the ambush while the other goes to the flyer room, is problematic. Disconnect most likely happens if their eating-animation ended and you are still at the corridor.

Not connection related hint:

If you see your Companion chirping at the place where the flyers were and they are being lifted / scarf charged: It means that they saved the flyers in their point of view, same is valid if you saved the flyers for your Companion of course. Its not a glitch or hack.

**Possible connection after War Machine triggers:**

Meeting in the War Machine rooms is very difficult / probably impossible because "AutoLobby" is disabled in the areas past the first Ambush Room, and disabled in the entire level once you have triggered the cinematic camera-view change near the shrine at the end of the level.

However, even if you have gone past the first Ambush Room, you can still meet companions if you go back near there or further back - as long as that camera change near the end was not triggered yet.

If you have only triggered the first ambush and not yet triggered the WM flying past the window in the hallway, you can wait anywhere before the first turn of the hallway after the ambush room, and you should be able to meet other players once they trigger the first ambush. ( The WM-flying-past-window trigger might not actually matter for this, but the "flyers eaten" trigger almost certainly does  )

If you have activated any other WM triggers, you can still backtrack past that first part of the after-ambush hallway and connect to other players, but only if they have activated the same WM triggers. So it's still very unlikely for this method to let you reconnect to a random companion or connect to someone new, but if you can directly communicate with your disconnected companion (because you were on an arranged journey/etc), then you can both just make sure you did the same WM triggers and go back to the first ambush room to re-connect.

#### Tower

*Main article:* Tower
Disconnect happens when activating the Glyphs for the goo / fog while the Companion is somewhere else.

It doesn't mean they have to stand on the Glyph platform, just approximately nearby or "in sight". Standing in the middle of the Tower while the other is activating should not cause a disconnect. If they fell down or hovering around in the goo, it might disconnect you.

If that happened, the Companion should quickly activate that Glyph, this should make you reconnect as long as the other player did not already activated the next and is still around.

*"The perimeter of the 2nd glyph in Tower is a bit special. I had heard according to an acquaintance who is familiar with game making, the programming is divided around it, so it is easy to disconnect if you activate it a bit away from your companion."*

*If attempting tricks with disabled "AutoLobby":* In most levels, one player can stay near an activated History Lesson statue and their companion won't disconnect no matter how far away they go or what triggers they do, but in Tower they will still disconnect if they are far away and trigger a goo-activating Glyph.

#### Snow

*Main article:* Snow
You can connect almost everywhere in this level.

* At the Patrol Fields it's mostly impossible to connect to anyone in the first and last sections, basically anywhere near where you can be caught by a WM ("AutoLobby" is disabled in those areas). However, it is possible to connect in most of the middle section where the WM's don't hunt for you. Some landmarks there where you can wait and connect to people include: the broken WM parts near the ice cave, the whistle stone and area around ice cave entrance, the ice cave itself, and the whistle stone before the 2nd WM patrol area.

* At the Cloth Bridge, you can look down and see Companions that just enter the level or if someone was further already, they connect with you at the bridge.

* Death-March: There is a "trigger-line" for the dying, you can still walk for a while, but death will happen even when just standing at a place then. If your Companion didn't cross the line yet and you die, probably alone in Paradise then.
* Some Companions take a risk and stop walking after crossing that dying-line. They want you to trust them and come to them, to die together. If the distance gets too big though, both will be alone in Paradise. If both just stand there, the mountain will vanish more and more as usual when walking forward, then you die.
* Reaching the dying-line and then going *backwards* down the mountain often results in disconnection if you go too far back, even when you are right next to your companion. If your companion starts going backwards after the dying line, it may be a good idea to just stay there and try to signal for them to come back to you, since if you just follow them downhill there is a good chance you'll disconnect anyway.

#### Paradise

*Main article:* Paradise
**Disconnects by distance do not happen in Paradise.** **Connecting to someone in Paradise is not possible.** ("AutoLobby" is disabled for the entire level)

If you did not die together in the Snow level, you will be alone in Paradise.

In this level it is rather easy to lose your companion because of the mist. Also forgetting about having a look at the Companion, because you just enjoy the flying and views. It has happened to all of us!

Common attempts to find each other again are:

* Flying forward and back even to the end of the slide, while constantly chirping loudly. The loud Chirp in Paradise is huge and it might be even seeable while you are still in the mist.
* Flying forward and back causes another problem though: what if the Companion decided to wait at the very end, since its really hard to miss each other there. They might give up waiting and just finish the *Journey*. You might want to check at the very end first and then fly back to the level, while searching for Chirps and do big Chirps yourself...
* Try to not fly in the mist, it will make it hard to see your shine on the screen. Unless your Companion follows well...
* Good places to stand for a bit and Chirp loudly: at the Jellyfish area, on top of the the middle rock with a plateau. On top of the gate before the Whale Pools or the last gate before the light picks you up and similar high places where the camera might lead a players view.

## References

1. ↑ Summer 2022: Article about the new PlayStation plus system: https://blog.playstation.com/2022/03/29/all-new-playstation-plus-launches-in-june-with-700-games-and-more-value-than-ever/ "Customers who had an active PlayStation Now membership when the new PlayStation Plus membership service launched were migrated over to PlayStation Plus Premium." https://www.playstation.com/en-us/ps-now/
2. ↑ Test done by User:Ravingmadness and User:Juest in May 2022 on Steam. One activated none, the other all or some Banners. No connect in Sunset Hall, if same Banners are activated --> connected.

~~More tests about activating certain same or different banners should be done. As well as trying a later connect in the pit, with different state of the Banners.~~
3. ↑ Ravingmadness, 2020-12-08: Just saw a stream. At the moment of the ambush i recognised a shine. The streamer walked forward and upon entering the flyer eaten room, the WM was already eating the flyers. The companion was standing at the end of the corridor too. I guess it was a lucky connection. :)
4. ↑ PipimPipim, 2020-06-11 on discord.