Stray (video game)
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 If you're gamer who loves cat, then you should definitely get this game.
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Stray is a 2022 adventure game developed by BlueTwelve Studio and published by Annapurna Interactive. The story follows a stray cat who falls into a walled city populated by robots, machines, and mutant bacteria, and sets out to return to the surface with the help of a drone companion, B-12. The game is presented through a third-person perspective. The player traverses the game world by leaping across platforms and climbing up obstacles, and can interact with the environment to open new paths. Using B-12, they can store items found throughout the world and hack into technology to solve puzzles. Throughout the game, the player must evade the antagonistic Zurks and Sentinels, which attempt to kill them.
Plot
While a group of four stray cats trek through the ruins of an abandoned facility, one becomes separated from the others after falling into a chasm leading to an unpopulated underground city. The cat finds a lab where it helps download an artificial intelligence into the body of a small drone, which calls itself B-12. It explains it previously helped a scientist but much of its memory was corrupted and needs time to recover. B-12 promises to help the cat return to the surface and accompanies it further into the city. As they travel farther, the pair discover that, while the city is completely devoid of human life, their robotic servants, Companions, remain. With humans absent, the Companions have grown self-aware and have built their own society among the ruins of the city, but they likewise are trapped underground. The ruins are infested with Zurks, mutant bacteria that have evolved to devour both organic life and robots.
The pair meet Momo, a member of the Outsiders, a group of Companions dedicated to finding a way to the surface. With the Outsiders' help, the cat and B-12 proceed to the Midtown sector of the city. There, they locate Clementine, another Outsider who plans to steal an atomic battery to power a subway train leading to the surface. The trio are caught and arrested by the Sentinels, but the cat helps them all escape prison. Clementine stays behind to distract the Sentinels while the cat and B-12 escape on the subway, which takes them to the city control center. B-12 finally recovers all of its memories. It reveals that it was originally a human scientist who attempted to upload their own consciousness into a robot body, but the process went awry until the cat arrived. B-12 remembers that the city, Walled City 99, was built to shelter humanity from a catastrophe on the surface, but a plague eventually wiped out the entire human population. Realizing humanity's legacy now lies with the Companions and the cat, B-12 sacrifices itself to override the city's network. This opens the blast doors over the city, exposing it to sunlight which kills the Zurks and deactivates the Sentinels. With the main exit unsealed, the cat leaves the city and reaches the surface, sniffing the air. As the cat leaves, a screen near the exit flickers and activates.
Why It's Stray (But in a Good Way)
- The idea of making open world where you're controlling a stray cat in the apocalyptic-cyberpunk style is very interesting idea and the execution is great.
- The graphics is really nice, with realistic fur for the stray cat and the lighting is very beautiful.
- Speaking of designs, the cat and the robot character model is great looking detailed.
- The animation is really great, and there's plenty of animation, like from scratching the wall to pushing the object.
- You can mod of this game, where you replacing cat into something else, like CJ from Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, and it's hilarious!
- The story is also great. And yes, there's some dark and sad moments here and there.
- The music overall is really catchy.
- While the gameplay is linear, it has an open world area for exploration and doesn't get boring.
- Control overall is really tight and easy to learn even for kids.
- Even though there's no voice acting in this game, there's the speech bubbles for the dialogue. It's very understanding that this city is populated by robots that couldn't talk to the cats.
- The cat meowing is really cute as by pressing a button, you can meow at other cats.
- The stray cat is not a fighter or something, the cat need to survive from Zurks or Sentinels, and if they almost to kill you, you can pressing the action button to escape. You can run from them as fast as you can as long to survive in the dangerous area.
- Despite the game being short, it's not overpriced unlike AAA games. This is understandable because the game is made by indie developer to making it cheaper.
- The cat is an absolutely adorable protagonist (Awww!). Enough said!
- Just like Monster Hunter: World, the game spawned countless viral videos of real-life cats and/or dogs watching and reacting to this game, which quickly became a meme.
Bad Qualities
- As mentioned above, there's no voice work in this game.
- Lack of customization for the cat.
- The game can be quite hard in dangerous areas due to too many enemies for Zurks or Sentinels that try to kill or shoot you instantly.
- And because of this, game has one-hit kill since the stray cat doesn't has health bar.
- The game only 3-5 hours long. Thankfully, it's not full-priced.
- The ending can sometimes a bit underwhelming, depending for the players.
- The performance sometimes can be annoying, like having frame rate freeze in a second even for last-gen consoles.
Reception
 "You fucked it up!/You done fucked it up!" |
Stray received "generally favorable" reviews from critics and gamers alike, according to review aggregator Metacritic and 87% of critics recommended the game, according to OpenCritic.
The game received generally positive reviews, with praise for its artistic design, cat gameplay, narrative, original score, and platforming elements, though critics were divided on the combat and stealth.
The game received accolades at The Game Awards, Game Developers Choice Awards, and Golden Joystick Awards, and appeared on multiple publications' year-end lists. An animated film adaptation is in development.
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