Companions

A companion is another player-controlled Wayfarer. Companions are typically met randomly while playing online, and are more-or-less anonymous until after the credits. A player may only be connected to one other player at a time.

In order to stay connected, players have to stay somewhat close to eachother, and exit levels at the same time.

Conditions for Meeting
Journey has a matchmaking system that is designed to connect players together. This matchmaking is done by an external server (PSN for PS3 and PS4, Amazon Web Services on PC and unknown for iOS. However after two players get matched and connected, the communication is peer to peer, that is directly between the two players. It happens over a UDP connection at least on the PC version.

There are certain conditions required for successful matchmaking:


 * Players must be in the same level
 * Major events - such as releasing a dolphin - must be the same for both players. For example, if the first part of the bridge is repaired for one player, then it must be repaired for the other player, too.
 * Players must have a reasonable amount of in-game distance between each-other - about two War Machines worth.
 * Players must be in the same "lobby." Lobbies are virtual "rooms" that the the server uses to divide players in order to better manage the server load, in case there are a lot of players online.  These rooms are invisible to the players, and no setup is required, though it can make it difficult to meet a specific player, at times. Complete restart of the game can move you to a different lobby - this is useful if you want to meet a friend.
 * First-time players will (almost) never meet a White Cloak.
 * They're not supposed to meet, but there have still been reports of it happening on rare occasions.

If two players disconnect from each-other, the game will try to re-match those players.

Companion Pointer
If you are connected to a companion and they are not in your line of sight, a white glow will appear at the edge of your screen. The direction of the glow points you toward your companion, while the intensity of the glow helps you know how close they are. If your companion is far enough away, it may be hard to see the pointer.

Playing with a Friend
While the connection is meant to be random, players have found ways to encourage the system to match them with a specific person. While there's a chance that the players may still meet with someone else, or that there will just not be any connection, the odds of meeting the person you want can still be increased dramatically.

If, after using all the tricks, the players still don't connect after around a minute, it could be that they're in different lobbies. If this occurs, it's recommended that one or both players re-enter the level and try again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3krjaWyn9pc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSoGx4qUq74

Disconnecting
Aside from game crashes and other network interruptions, two players will disconnect if there is too much in-game distance between them. However, in Paradise, it's possible for players to stay connected, no matter how much distance there is between Wayfarers.

Dusting


Dusting is what normally occurs when the connection is lost between two players. The model of the companion (from the view of either player) sits down and turns into dust.

However, sometimes unusual results can happen, such as Ghosting, the Black cloth glitch, or even infinite flight.