Realising you’re lost is a moment of pure, cold, panic. Time inches past as thoughts tumble uncontrollably – was the last turn wrong? Why are there no signs in this town? And how did you get on this road in the first place? Because it’s definitely not on the map, and you don’t like the look of the house it’s leading to. Take this feeling and now imagine you’re a fluffy little being who’s not only lost, but surrounded by large, two-legged, metallic creatures, none of whom are impressed when you knock something off a table, and you have something close to the dilemma faced by the poor protagonist cat of Stray.
Stray review
- Developer: BlueTwelve Studio
- Publisher: Annapurna Interactive
- Platform: Played on PS5
- Availability: Releases 19th July (tomorrow) on PS5, PS4 and PC
On the surface, this is a game that tells a simple science-fiction of a cat who, after falling into the city’s underbelly, Lion-King-style, must escape a mysterious place with the hope of reuniting with their family. But beneath that is something more.
Still, when it comes to simply recreating the experience of being a cat, developer BlueTwelve Studio has done a wonderful job; playing as a cat feels unique, while also being surprisingly easy to master. It’s all the little features, though, that truly capture a cat’s essence, from knocking items off ledges to the little pawprints you leave behind after walking through wet paint, or how the controls invert when you investigate a paper bag. None of these are purely cosmetic things, either, with each screensaver-like moment coming to serve a purpose in your journey. Meowing, for example, can attract enemies so you can trap them, while scratching at a blind can reveal a window to climb through. Even sleeping goes beyond the sheer cuteness of the moment by causing the camera to zoom out, so you get a wider view of your current location.
Stray is constantly encouraging you to explore like this – to discover how high the cat can climb. Helpfully, the act of navigating the city itself is also an incredible amount of fun. Your ginger paws weave across rooftops and clamber up the sides of buildings one air vent at a time, while exploring through the feline perspective emphasises just how labyrinthine the city is, with the possibility of dead ends or danger around any corner. Nearly every object you encounter can be climbed or jumped on – why take the stairs, when you can run along the handrail after all? While ziplines (you hop into a little bucket, in case you were wondering how a cat might manage that) provide a quick descent from high places, giving you a good look at your surroundings as you fall. You’ll quickly learn that there are multiple ways to reach certain locations, especially in the slums where you may find yourself abandoning the alleyways in favour of the roofs. As your confidence grows, you’ll spend less time planning your routes, instead jumping naturally, much like how a cockey alley cat would out on the real streets of your town.
The only, very small, hitch to your roleplaying is how you can’t customise or change the cat’s breed, but this doesn’t stop you from embodying the type of cat who lives within your soul. Are you a snuggle beast always on the lookout for robots to rub against or sleep on? Perhaps you’re a dedicated climber? Or maybe you’re a force of chaos – prepared to scratch every wall, knock down every book pile and meow constantly through every cutscene.