As a result of an accident, the cat ends up in a mothballed underground city inhabited by robots. Together with his new friend, the B12 droid, he is looking for a way to return to the surface.
Genre: quest, adventure
Developer: BlueTwelve Studio
Publisher: Annapurna Interactive
Age Rating: not assigned
Translation: text
Platforms: RS, PS4, PS5
Played on: PS5
Similar to: Machinarium ~ What Remain of Edith Finch ~ Cyberpunk 2077 ~ Inside ~ short films regarding three robots from “Love, Death and Robots”
Hooray, comrades, the day has come: we finally have a cat simulator in a decent environment. Not a craft in the spirit of “I’m a bread” and not a role-playing game with an anthropomorphic little animal, but interesting adventures of a cat, where the hero cannot be simply replaced with a rat, turtle or lapdog. The catness of the protagonist is done at a good level – he can yell annoyingly, sharpen his claws in the most inappropriate places for this and sleep for hours, curled up in a ball. And most importantly, to poke your curious nose into places where Corvo, Ezio and Faith will not climb in their lives.
Although, as an experienced cat lover, I have to admit that they definitely didn’t squeeze out the main character’s harmfulness: you don’t have the option to shit in slippers, or outrageous selfishness, or fastidiousness in food. Of the negative qualities, only the ability to drop objects from the edge was left. The protagonist is shamelessly idealized from the tips of his mustache to the edge of his tail, and instead of an insolent red muzzle, we have here a quick-witted savior of robotics. Cute, fluffy and adorable.
According to the plot, the local robots have evolved and began to copy the behavior of people. That’s just because of the appearance of the city, it is hard to believe in it. According to fragmentary in-game information, it turns out that at least three centuries have passed since the death of people, but the city looks like it was left only a couple of months ago: yes, it is dirty and neglected, but by no means ancient and not falling to pieces. In addition, it has some kind of off-scale number of air conditioners that work, consuming a bunch of scarce electricity, and which the robots definitely do not need. Well, but the cat is free to climb on them.
Exploration is arguably one of the game’s greatest strengths: cats are naturally curious, making it natural to rummage around every corner. Yes, you have to go somewhere and save someone, but it will have to wait – I haven’t been on that roof yet! The developers understood this very well, and therefore made sure that research was rewarded – either with a piece of information regarding this world, or a comfortable place to sleep with an excellent view of the surroundings. A great example of human-narrative resonance.
The second strong point of Stray is its visual design. The robots are mostly cute, the city in the inhabited parts is incredibly cozy, and the camera regularly chooses such angles that it remains only to silently take a screenshot. If you might walk around Night City from Cyberpunk 2077 for hours, then here you will explore every gateway. I was lucky enough to play the PS5 version – and it’s something with something: when you put the cat to bed, the gamepad begins to purr, providing you with the ultimate cat ecstasy. But to sharpen claws, when the triggers noticeably resist, it was strange.
Local animations deserve a separate discussion. There are extremely successful ones – I would like to note the jumps that reproduce the cat’s plasticity as plausibly as possible. But there are also unfinished ones, when the paws of a mustachioed hero float in the air, instead of interacting normally with the surface. I suspect this is due to the fact that it is rather difficult to do motion capture with cats – I have not seen any other glitches, the game looks as polished as possible.
The Stray genre is closest to quests – a lot of simple tasks in the spirit of “how to go further” and “think regarding how to get it.” Moreover, in spirit, this quest is closest to the wonderful Machinarium – also a sad world full of funny robots. But in general, Stray does not cycle on any one genre – there are horror stages where you have to run away or fight with zurks (these are overgrown bacteria that have learned to devour both organics and metals), and several stealth sections. And the stealth here is also feline – often you have to hide from enemies in cardboard boxes.
The story in Stray is short and rich in clichés – you can easily predict all the plot twists, and if you don’t get distracted by searching for all the memories and helping the robots, you’ll fly through the game in five hours. This is criminally small, you want to spend much more time here. But, alas, before us is just an indie project from a tiny European studio. BlueTwelve Studio was able to create a AAA-quality project, but to provide it with AAA-length is already beyond their capabilities.
Stray delivers exactly what the trailers promised: the ability to walk as a cat through a city populated by robots. It really looks like an interactive episode from Love, Death and Robots – both visually, and in tone, and setting. The game from BlueTwelve Studio is not a revolution in terms of gameplay or technology, but if you love cats, then be sure to play it: the industry has never provided us with such an exciting and cute opportunity to run following an impudent mustachioed red face.
