Matt Nava

A screenshot from the upcoming game Sword of the Sea showing a vista of sparkling waves tiered into the distance with a pyramid structure standing tall above the rest of the landscape. The Wraith tears across the oceanscape at high speeds while upon a hoversword.

Get ready to surf across glistening emerald waters and uncover stunning secrets with your hoversword.

🏄 Sword of the Sea launches on August 19!

Watched it last night. Sooo good

Don’t miss this exclusive interview with @mattnava.bsky.social about Sword of the Sea at Summer Game Fest!

"I expected this studio’s next game to be an engrossing adventure, but I didn’t expect it to rip this hard."

In the middle of a desert with ruins in the background, the Wraith makes a sharp turn on their hovering sword.

We went hands-on with Sword of the Sea at Summer Game Fest and came away viscerally refreshed and excited to play Giant Squid's upcoming game when it releases this August. Our impressions: gameinformer.com/preview/2025...

A photograph of Shuhei, Matt Nava, and Tina Kowalewski at the demo for Sword of the Sea at IGN Live.

Former PlayStation president @yosp-jp.bsky.social hails upcoming PS Plus day-one release Sword of the Sea as their “favorite game”

www.videogamer.com/news/former-...

@mattnava.bsky.social @tinaheartgames.bsky.social

Day of the Devs Summer Game Fest Edition Featuring Sword of the Sea

Join us today for an in-depth look at Sword of the Sea with Creative Director Matt Nava during @dayofthedevs.org: Summer Game Fest Edition 2025.

#SwordoftheSea

There's some more gameplay footage in here 👀

So proud of our team!

#SwordoftheSea

if only a pr person with incredible foresight saved three (3) whole sgf play days appointment slots in case anyone would want to come see us after seeing state of play. hit me up if you’re interested.

Forever grateful for my ongoing partnership with @giantsquidstudios.com and @mattnava.bsky.social - I adore this game and am lucky to be part of it. 🙏🙏🙏🙏

See you August 19!!

BIG NEWS Sword of the Sea comes out AUGUST 19th! Check out our new trailer!!
So excited to finally share this!

Ride a hovering sword over shifting seas of sand, magma, and ice in Sword of the Sea. "From the visionary artist behind ABZÛ, The Pathless, and Journey, and featuring a beautiful score by Austin Wintory."

ATTENTION INDIEDEVS
Show off your art style

Happy 13th birthday JOURNEY :)

Lovely, those turned out great! Thank you for sharing, and the kind words.

Wings are extremely hard to rig in 3D, especially if you want to be able to fold them nicely. For The Pathless, we actually had two wing rigs working at the same time to get around this problem! If you look closely, you might can spot the swap.

#Animation #VideoGames #GameAnim #ThePathless #Eagle

Fantastic, thank you for folding it and sharing! Nicely done!

Blueskyで origami についての投稿を読んでいて折り図をみつけました。JOURNEY TRAVELER というタイトルで、一般的な旅人のイメージなのかなと思いながら折りました。
出来上がってからタイトルを検索してみたら、『風ノ旅ビト』というゲームの自キャラだったんですね？！ ゲームキャラにそっくりなので驚きました。

So cool !
Thanks for revealing the folding instructions.
#origami

Thanks! Yeah I’d say its an intermediate level of difficulty as far as origami goes. Its not too complex but its not as simple as most beginner models. Definitely achievable!

YouTube video by Tavin's Origami Instructions Let's Fold: Origami Traveller from Journey (PS3 game)

And theres even a video someone made a long time ago showing how to make it. Cool, thanks again Tavin!

youtu.be/U-48dD187wE?...

The res is a bit small on that instructions image so here's a link to a higher res version.
freight.cargo.site/t/original/i...

3 Origami Journey Traveler paper models, standing at different angles.

Visual instructions for how to fold the origami Journey Traveler, designed and illustrated by Matt Nava (me!)

Posting about Journey made me remember the origami Traveler I designed. If you want to try folding one, the instructions I drew are here!
Many people folded my design years ago, a truly wonderful thing to see. Now there are more really nice designs out there others have made.
Share if you make one!

PS Blog Game of the Year Awards 2024: polls are now live Vote for your favorite games from the past year across 19 categories.

Our game Sword of the Sea is nominated for Most Anticipated Game of 2025 and Beyond in the PS Blog Game of the Year Awards- Cast your ballot now and help us ride this wave of excitement!

#PSBlogAwards #SwordoftheSea

blog.playstation.com/2024/12/02/p...

We are very lucky to have you on the team. Keep on fighting!

Haha yes that was me. Wow great work!

A close up of the early character design for Journey, standing in a windy dust storm. This is a frame taken from an early mock trailer we created to help convince Sony to move ahead with the project in the early days of its development.

A close up of the final character design of Journey, standing in the desert. It's face mask design is very similar to the early character designs I did for the "Ninja" character.

To greenlight the game, we animated a mock trailer. It featured the Ninja. The animation played a big role in getting Journey funded, so this character ended up being very important. Thank you, To-Chan. And thanks to all the fans who gave it more life over the years with their stories and art.

Frames from a walk cycle I animated to allow the "Ninja" character to be playable in early versions of the game Journey.

In early tests, players expected to be able to use the Ninja's arms to climb walls, and even punch other players. Eventually I removed the arms of the character to give players a better expectation of their abilities in Journey. It took me several more design iterations to discover that solution.

An early visual design test for Journey, where I hand painted shadows and projected them on the terrain. The scene depicts a sunlit canyon, with the early character design standing in the foreground. In the distance, a very early version of the final destination of Journey can be seen- the mountain with a vertical passageway in it.

Internally we called it the "Ninja." Fans discovered the character after the game shipped and dubbed it "To-Chan," imagining it to be the "father" of final traveler character.

An early pencil drawing sketch I did exploring the design of the Journey character. It features a cloth hood with pattens on it, a scarf, and a face mask.

An early pencil sketch I drew exploring the character design for Journey. At the time I thought we may want different players to have different looking outfits, so there are two different looking robed characters, standing in a dusty plain.

We also decided early that cloth would be a tech-focus for Journey- This character was one of the first to explore how we could drape cloth on the character in an interesting and achievable way. Interestingly, it was the design of the face mask that survived most.

A screenshot from an early level I created for the game Journey. Instead of using vertex baked lighting or light map textures, I painted a textural gradient and mapped it to surfaces using UVs, to create the sense of light and shadow. The scene depicts a dim, cavernous architectural space with tall columns receding vertically into the darkness. The early Journey character stands in the foreground, its red shawl contrasting against the blue tinted space.

Our programmers we concerned about the cost and low-quality of realtime shadow rendering at the time. I was asked to design a visual style that wouldn't rely on it. I tried hand-painting the lighting, with a flat look- this character was designed to fit in these abstracted backgrounds.