Stray (video game)

In Stray, the player traverses the environment by leaping across platforms and climbing up obstacles.

Stray is a third-person adventure game.[1] The player controls a stray cat, leaping across platforms and climbing up obstacles,[2] and can open new paths by interacting with the environment, such as climbing in buckets, overturning paint cans, operating a vending machine, and clawing at objects.[3][4][5] They solve puzzles to progress the narrative, often involving moving obstacles.[6][7] Optional activities include sleeping, meowing, and nuzzling up to non-player characters, most of which elicit a response.[2][8] Some levels have open-world elements, allowing the player to roam at their freedom.[6]

The player is accompanied by a drone companion, B-12, who assists by translating the language of other characters, storing items found throughout the world, providing light, and hacking into various technologies to open paths and solve puzzles.[9][10] Throughout the game, the player finds several of B-12's memories, providing more context for the story.[6] Most of these memories are optional, but some are unlocked through story progression.[11] The player can collect badges, including several optional throughout the world, which are displayed on the cat's backpack.[5]

The world is populated by robots, who often employ the player to locate objects that reveal more information and progress the narrative.[12] Some robots provide optional tasks, such as Morusque, who plays songs upon being provided with music sheets found around the slums.[13] The player can interact with most robots in the world.[6] Stray features two types of enemies who can kill the player: Zurks, a large, mutated bacteria that can swarm and devour the cat;[11] and Sentinels, security drones who will attempt to shoot the player upon spotting them.[12][14] For a portion of the game, the player can attach a Defluxor to B-12 to destroy the Zurks,[15] though it can only be used for a limited time before B-12 overheats and requires a brief period to cool down.[14] The player can evade Sentinels by avoiding their sight lines, indicated by glowing lights.[16]

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's 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. Realising humanity's legacy now lies with the Companions and the cat, B-12 sacrifices itself to overide 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.

Stray was influenced aesthetically by Kowloon Walled City, which the developers considered the "perfect playground for a cat".[17]

BlueTwelve Studio founders Koola and Viv[lower-alpha 1] began working on Stray in 2015 as they wanted to pursue an independent project after working at Ubisoft Montpellier.[18][20][21][22] They maintained a development blog for the game, then known as HK Project.[23] After they shared some footage on Twitter, Annapurna Interactive reached out in April 2016 to publish the project;[21] Koola and Viv had only developed some early scenes, but had a strong direction for the final project.[24] Annapurna, which had not published any games by the time the deal was formed, assisted in building the company over the years, providing occasional feedback but largely leaving creative freedom to the developers.[19] Funding for the studio was confirmed in April 2017, and the development team grew to five by the end of 2017.[24] From early in development, Koola and Viv knew they wanted to maintain a small team of developers,[25] as they prefer working with direct communication.[26] The small team meant the game's scope reduced over time, with focus directed towards elements the developers considered important.[24][26] After revealing the game, the team wanted to focus on production and only begin marketing when development was nearing completion; they found the reception to the reveal added to the pressure of delivering a polished experience.[25] The game uses Unreal Engine 4.[27]

Stray was heavily influenced aesthetically by Kowloon Walled City; Koola and Viv liked the city's organic construction, and found it interesting to approach as artists.[17] They designed some graphical tests of the environments and buildings,[19] and found the city was the "perfect playground for a cat" due to the various paths and views.[17] The development team found gameplay as a cat led to interesting level design opportunities, particularly regarding platforming and puzzle elements.[28] They encountered artistic and technical challenges in balancing interesting game design with the open world, as typically decorative items—such as pipes and air conditioning units—are explorable paths in Stray.[17][29] The in-game location Antvillage allowed the team to experiment with vertical game design and provide several path options for the player.[30] The team decided to avoid standard platforming challenges early in development, after watching players consistently miss jumps, which they thought "didn't feel cat-like". According to producer Swann Martin-Raget, the movements of a cat feel smoother, which led the team to create its guided movement system while still allowing for freedom of choice.[31] The team found the DualSense controller's sounds and vibrations added to the physicality and interactivity of playing as a cat,[25] and the low camera angle led to deeper observation of the environment than a human protagonist.[32]

Contrasting elements were important to the developers, such as the "small, organic, and lively" cat contrasted against the "angular and bold" robots.[33] Viv initially created some human non-player characters, but was unsatisfied with the result and realised the high visual quality required would be too time-consuming with a smaller team.[25][32] After experimenting with robots, they found them easier to place within scenes, and enjoyed the contrast with the cat. The inclusion of robots inspired more of the story, and the team found it fitting because of their fascination with films like Blade Runner (1982).[25] The robots' language printed throughout the world was added to make players feel as though they were in a foreign location;[34] its inclusion led to the development of the world's backstory.[26] B-12 was added as the cat's companion to add additional abilities for the player, such as interacting with technology.[25] Both B-12 and the cat's backpack were conceived early in development, when the game was still known as HK Project.[24]

The gameplay experience was specifically inspired by the founders' cats, Murtaugh and Riggs,[21] and the studio's in-house cats, Oscar and Jun.[20] Murtaugh, a former stray cat found under a car in Montpellier, was the primary inspiration for the protagonist,[35] while Oscar, a furless Sphynx, provided effective reference for animation.[31] The cat animator, Miko, studied several images and videos of cats for research,[20] and worked with cat programmer Rémi Bismuth to find a balance between smooth animations and enjoyable gameplay.[35] Most of the team own cats, providing consistent inspiration and reference material. When the office cats began reacting to and interacting with the in-game cat, the team figured their choices had been successful.[17] While the game is a "love letter" to the team's cats, they intentionally avoided making a simulator game, opting for interesting gameplay over complete realism.[26] The action sequences were added to provide some stress to the player, and the team wanted to build a rhythm to maintain the story's progression.[26] The sequence in which the player can kill the Zurks was seen as revenge by Koola and Viv for a bedbug infestation they underwent.[36] The user interface was kept minimal, with directions integrated in the game world to guide the player.[36]

Stray was announced on 11 June 2020, at PlayStation's Future of Gaming event, in development for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Windows.[37][38][39] In a January 2021 Consumer Electronics Show trailer, the release window was printed as October 2021, which was later removed.[40] In July 2021, an early 2022 release window was revealed in a new gameplay trailer,[41] but the game was delayed to a mid-year release in April 2022.[42] During PlayStation's State of Play presentation in June, the release date was announced as 19 July 2022. At launch, it became available for PlayStation Plus's Extra, Deluxe, and Premium tier members.[43] Stray achieved the highest number of players on PlayStation Plus in the twelve months following the service's June 2022 rebranding;[44] it is set to be removed from the service in July 2023.[45]

Highly anticipated following its announcement,[46][47][48] the game topped Steam's wishlist charts before release,[49] broke Annapurna Interactive's record for concurrent Steam players upon release, with over 62,000 players,[50] and became the highest user-rated game of the year on the platform.[51] In July, it was the most-downloaded PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 game in North America, and the second-most PlayStation 5 and third-most PlayStation 4 in Europe;[52] in August, it was the fifth-most PlayStation 5 and sixth-most PlayStation 4 game in North America, and the fifth-most on both platforms in Europe;[53] and in September, it ranked 19th on PlayStation 5 in Europe.[54] Videos of cats watching footage of Stray went viral after the release, with the dedicated Twitter account @CatsWatchStray garnering over 32,000 followers.[55][56][57]

For the release, Annapurna Interactive partnered with several charities to raise money for homeless cats by providing giveaways as incentives for donations.[58] Two physical versions were released by iam8bit and Skybound Games: the retail version for PlayStation 5 on 20 September, featuring six art cards;[59] and the Exclusive Edition for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 on 12 December, with an additional poster and embroidered patch.[59][60] A vinyl record of the soundtrack was released in May 2023 by iam8bit,[61][62] with album art by Fernando Correa.[63] In June 2023, Annapurna announced the game was in development for Xbox One and Xbox Series X and Series S, which was released on 10 August 2023,[64] and for macOS, compatible with Apple M series devices.[65]

On 5 September 2023, Annapurna Animation announced an animated film adaptation of Stray is in development after the success of its first film Nimona (2023). Robert Baird, co-head of animation, felt the game was suitable for adaptation due to its popularity, as well as its buddy comedy and hopepunk elements.[105]

• Official website
• Stray at IMDb
• Stray at MobyGames