DISCLOSURE: This game was reviewed on the following platform: PC – Check out our Review Policy page for more information.
Growing up I always loved cats. They’re cute, fluffy, and just independent enough to be a low maintenance but loyal companion. And it’s this independence that makes a cat a perfect protagonist for a game set in a cyberpunk dystopian future. I know, it sounds crazy, but hear me out.
Stray is not just another cat game
Stray is set in a (hopefully) distant future where humans are extinct and cats run free. Our protagonist is a sweet little orange cat who begins his adventure alongside three of his friends outside of an abandoned underground city. Tragedy strikes, and he is separated from his pack mates and plummets into the city below. We meet up with a flying drone named B12, who tells us he was an assistant to a scientist prior to human extinction, but his memory has been corrupted. We team up and work together to find our way home and to restore B12’s memory.
Each chapter takes place in an area of the city, and once you leave a city there is no going back, which is important to note if you’re a completionist and achievement hunter. I don’t want to get into spoiler territory, so I will mostly talk about The Slums in terms of environment, but trust me when I say that it’s hard not to go on an endless tirade about how beautiful each and every environment in this game is.
The Slums are decorated with garbage and neon. The walls are plastered with graffiti in an unknown language, and hundreds of posters. The buildings are worn like the older parts of a city, and foliage breaks through the cracks in the concrete, similarly to other post-apocalyptic games. The entire city is enclosed, so there is a sense of perpetual night time, which adds to this sense of anxiety and loneliness as you play as a little cat.
But despite the lack of living creatures, The Slums are full of life. This is where we meet Companions. Companions are robot servants for the now extinct humans who populate the underground city. Some of the Companions feel a little samey, which is often the case for NPCs, but for the most part they are full of life and personality. They each have unique fashion sense, they decorate their homes, they have hobbies. The Companions offer up some world building and exposition, they give you plenty of side quests and assist with moving the story forward.
But where’s the challenge?
You get a really unique platforming experience as you traverse The Slums. You begin on ground level, and soon discover that you can climb the buildings using awnings, air conditioners and almost anything that sticks off of the side of a building. This is where being a cat comes in really handy. Our little orange friend is incredibly nimble and has no issues jumping, climbing and eventually making his way to the rooftops. A dog couldn’t do that.
Aside from platforming, exploring and puzzle solving, you also have to deal with the formidable Sentinels and The Zurks. Sentinels come in a bit later, so I’m just going to focus on Zurks, I don’t want to spoil the whole game for you! The Zurks are orange glowing mutant bacteria and are the only other living creatures you will encounter during Stray. They tend to attack in large swarms, and there is nothing (initially) that you can do to fight back, so you really have to get creative and think about your moves. There are some challenging high speed encounters in the early chapters that left me with an unbelievable amount of tension.
Wow, just like my cat
As a lifelong cat owner, I can’t speak about this game without gushing over the tiny details that make our protagonist feel just like my own cat. Early in the game you come across some paint cans on a ledge, and the game gives you a prompt to knock them off. Obviously I knocked each and every one. There is a mechanic to scratch rugs, trees and couches, there are many surfaces that you are prompted to sleep on and countless other interactions with the world. One of my favorite interactions is to rub yourself on the legs of a sitting Companion. Most of these do nothing to push the story forward, but they encourage the player to explore each and every part of the intricately built world.
I think that the use of the cat was a really fun and unique way to explore the cyberpunk genre. With cats being pretty much just wild animals that choose to live with us, it’s very believable that they would outlive us in an apocalypse, and that they’d have no trouble exploring the world.
Stray Review
Summary
Overall, I think that Stray offers an immersive and unexpectedly emotional experience. I initially thought it was just going to be a gimmicky cat game, but it far exceeded my expectations with its storytelling and game play. I played it on computer with keyboard and mouse and I would probably recommend playing with a controller, as some of the platforming and sequences became a bit challenging with those controls. But otherwise I found it to be an incredible experience.
