Stray Preview – purr-fect exploration and feline fun
Animals have always had their place in video games, though it’s rare that they are allowed to breathe in the same way as you’d expect from a human protagonist. Animals have either taken the role of friendly guardians that lead you from point A to point B or are shaped into whatever gimmick that appeals at the time – aka press X to pet Y. Rarely have they ever played the leading role, outside of a few standouts like Okami, Untitled Goose Game, and, arguably, The Last Guardian.
Enter Stray from Annapurna Interactive and BlueTwelve Studio, an adventure story game about a cat who gets separated from his friends and is put into a new, unfamiliar environment that’ll have players exploring the vast city jungle full of robots and a lot of interactive objects for you to play around with.
During our preview of the game, we were shown a range of different areas. For the most part, the gameplay in Stray is pretty linear, but there are also plenty of open areas that you’re able to explore alongside your droid friend, B-12. The best part? You get to explore these things while being a cat, which comes with its own perks. One is that Stray makes the familiarity of actions, such as jumping, climbing and running, feel new once more – directly making the areas you explore feel all the more unique in their relationship to your goals.
One of the main areas that we got to see was The Slums; a dilapidated collection of wooden houses and dark streets that are backlit by flickering neon lights and the bright screens of robots passing in and out. Despite how much disarray The Slums are in, you’d be mistaken in thinking that this place isn’t full of life. There are plenty of robots bustling in and out of places, and many are willing to interact with you as you pass on by. Some will give you a scratch, others will be shocked at your presence, and others may barely turn their gaze to look at you – regardless of how many times you press X to meow at them.
Then there’s the environment around you. The Slums is full of nooks and crannies that an average, human-sized protagonist wouldn’t have access to, however with you being a cat, it opens up a cool way to explore that feels directly related to your catlike abilities. You’re able to zoom in to view things, climb up pipes and walls, and move with great agility and speed. My only complaint is that your feline ability to move gracefully and at speed is often cut away due to Stray asking you to press X, again and again, to bounce from one stage of the area to another. It makes the gameplay chunky, and this is particularly felt in areas where verticality plays a key part.
Even so, this doesn’t stop Stray’s individual ‘hub’ areas from being genuinely enjoyable to interact with. As a cat you can pick things up in your mouth, and can even push objects with your tiny paws. One particularly goofy moment that was shown is when the cat knocks over a paint tin – an action that takes two or three tries due to the cat only tapping it gently with its paw. It’s a familiar movement for many cat owners. What’s more, if you decide to jump into the paint, the cat will leave little paint-stained paw prints behind it. Cute!
There are other small, interactive moments to be found in Stray to add to your cat gameplay. You’re able to take a drink of water that’s been gathered in dishes, you can claw at sofa’s and, once you’ve thoroughly exhausted yourself, can even jump up and have a snooze on the said sofa. There are also lots of other menial things you can interact with, such as messing with TV remotes, pressing buttons on machines, and even tripping robots up if they aren’t looking where they’re going. Y’know, typical cat things!
Despite playing as a fairly normal animal, the world of Stray is distinctly non-human and apocalyptic in its presentation. BlueTwelve devs said that at first robots were just easier to do for production reasons, however they quickly realized that the inclusion of mechanical beings rather than humans made the story much more interesting.
This complex relationship between cat and robot is only enhanced by the introduction of B-12, who not only understands the robots that you come across, but you, as well. It’s a symbiotic sort of relationship, where you communicate through B-12 and the wants and desires of the robot inhabitants communicate back to you. All of them have their own desires and things that they want to achieve, making you the perfect little helper to get them done. Or, if you’d rather not, you can be on your merry way and focus on progressing the story, which BlueTwelve devs speculated would be around 7 to 8 hours long depending on how much exploration you do.
As for what that story is… A lot of Stray still seems shrouded in mystery, even with this preview. Outside of production reasons, why are there robots and no humans? Are there other animals? Are you the last cat alive? Who knows? Not I.
One question that the preview did answer for me was that you can die as a cat. During an area where you run through a dingy alleyway full of pipes pumping hot air, and a scurry of creatures chasing you down, there was an opportunity for the cat to ‘die’. But instead of a pretty traumatic animal death that you’ll see in games like The Last of Us Part II, the ‘death’ leads to you being respawned instantaneously. Yeah, that may break some immersion for some folks, but I think I speak for everyone when I say that I doubt anyone is interested in seeing their feline protagonist die.
Before our time with Stray, it had me fairly intrigued. But after witnessing the loving detail that’s apparent within its world and the through its intriguing characters, I’m happy to say that it finally has my entire attention when it releases this year – as long as it can keep up the mew-mentum of making things new and exciting again, of course.
Stray releases on July 19 2022 for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4 and PC via Steam.
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