In Survivor's "new era" a defining game mechanic has been the "journey" where 1-3 castaways are taken away from their respective beaches to compete for some sort of advantage in the game. However, if the Survivor 49 cast's approach to journeys has been any indication, the excitement from the players towards these risk/reward scenarios has dwindled. What once seemed like an opportunity most of a given cast wanted to jump at, has become a dragging segment that few of the players have much if any desire to partake in. So what can we make of this? And what is the future of the "journey" for Survivor 50 and beyond?
Introduced in Survivor 41, the "journey" has served a similar role to previous "X island" game mechanics in previous Survivor seasons. Often, these islands give castaways the opportunity to earn an advantage or immunity idol. The journey, however, has become a repetitive mechanic where the risks have become widely known, and the rewards have become less desirable to those who can decide if they wish to risk something (usually their vote) for one of any number of island trinkets.
The journey mechanic worked best in its earliest iterations of Survivor 41-44 when what could be risked/won on these journeys was still a mystery. In addition, these early iterations often gave players sent to the island a chance to abstain from taking these risks and preserving what they thought was a more important tool in the game, their vote. This sense of agency gave the journey more variety of outcome, and more paranoia amongst those who hadn't gone on journeys themselves.
But as the journeys became better understood by the players, the weight of losing a vote, especially amongst the smaller tribe formats of the new era, seemed less worth it. However, at the same time, production began giving players less agency on these journeys to the same couple of Fijian islands. More often in recent seasons, the players sent on journeys have been forced to risk their vote and compete. Follow that with more scenarios where players from other tribes selected who went on journeys, and you created a recipe for disaster, which resulted in the journey's apex in episode 3 of Survivor 48.
In this episode, Survivor's favorite pizza man Justin Pioppi was chosen to go on a journey by another tribe after losing an immunity challenge, was forced to risk his vote in what felt like a Vegas style game of chance, lost said vote, and the losing of said vote gave him zero agency in the subsequent tribal council and ultimately played a part in his elimination at the indecisive hands of Cedrek.
All this to say, the first two episodes of 49 have indicated a shift in how journeys are viewed by the players as a whole. It seems that only one player on any given tribe has the desire to go on these journeys. And even then, these players always use the caveat of "if no one else wants to go." The castaways seem to view the time building bonds with their tribe-mates as a much more important part of their games, especially in the early stages of the game.
This is part of what feels like a wider trend of conservative gameplay in the 40s, which peaked with the steam roll of Survivor 48. In a game where players have been taught to expect some chaos at every turn, the response has been to maintain control of any aspect of the game they can. This has lead to the return of 4-5 person alliances dominating, the consistent nerfing of the "safety without power" advantage, and now we're seeing the law of diminishing returns apply to journeys.
I'll be interested to see if/how production re-incentivizes journeys in Season 50 and beyond. Perhaps we're already seeing an attempt to by not having players even lose their vote at the most recent journey this season. Regardless, the journey's rise and fall is an excellent exercise in seeing players create new meta strategy in the course of five years.