GAMERTIMES

THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR STRAY. YOU’VE BEEN WARNED!

Stray is a new creative adventure game by BlueTwelve Studios which is both fun and engaging to play. The game is so adorable to play and you get to see the interaction of robots with each other through the Cat is just amazing I think. I like how it lets the world speak louder than words. Playing this game from a cat perspective felt really good and was a unique thing to do. I like how BlueTwelve Studio used Cat as a protagonist who is silent to tell a story of hope, belief, and friendships.

Playing this game is really good because it doesn’t want you to just rush the story and reach the end. Instead, it wants you to interact with the world, a world that speaks for itself. Communicating with the robots and having a drone that translates the language for you is amazing. The world of Stray visually looks great with the greenery, honoring the humans and their creations, it’s fun to just slowly walk through the places and see the robots interact with each other.

The story revolves around a cat that goes on a trek with the other 3 cats through the ruins of an abandoned facility, the cat (which we are playing as) becomes separated from the others after jumping on a loose pipe, falling into a chasm, and finding itself trapped in a less populated underground city. The cat makes his way to the underground city and finds a lab where it helps to download artificial intelligence into the body of a small drone B-12. B-12 explains that it helped a scientist previously but much of its memory is corrupted and needs time to recover.

B-12 acts as a translator, and stores items digitally, which is good. B-12 promises to help the cat return to the outside world as they travel further into the city. As you travel further into the city, you will find companions that were once human’s robotic servants. These companions develop their own society among the ruins of the city and have grown to be self-aware and made their own language as well. These ruins are infected by a slimy creature Zurks which has evolved to devour both robots and organic life.

The gameplay of Stray is just about solving puzzles, climbing obstacles, and jumping across platforms that can open new paths like interacting with the bucket to get down, pushing the objects to get them out of the way, and scratching the surfaces just like a cat would do in real life. Jumping across platforms is so effortless, you can pretty much jump anywhere you want, all you had to do is just press buttons and rotate the camera to where you want to jump.

There are various activities you can do as a cat. You can make the cat sleep for as long as you want, meowing as many times as you like, and nuzzling on robots which they love it. These open-world elements of Stray really make you want to explore the game deeper allowing you to roam freely and just fall in love with it.

The world of Stray is populated with robots where often you have to interact with them to reveal more information and progress the story. Some robots provide optional tasks like Morusque that will play songs if you find her the 8 music sheets found around the slums. There are two types of enemies in Stray: Zurks, slimy small creatures or mutated bacteria that will swarm and eat the cat, and Sentinels, security drones that will shoot the cat once they spot you.

For only a small portion of the game, B-12 gets fitted with Defluxor that can kill the Zurks but it gets overheated in a few seconds which also affects the drone as well. Sentinels can be avoided by not coming in front of the sight indicated by glowing lights. Now talking about the graphical representation of Stray, it’s great, it’s filled with incredible details and well-designed levels that you can’t miss. The packed streets of Midtown or the underground train station, it’s filled with details that make you want to stay there.

I like how the environment works when you’re in stealth, every part of that level can help you stay in stealth and progress, that’s good. The areas which are less vibrant are also filled with details. Even the details on the cat, the fur, the tail, that glint in its eyes it’s incredible. Visually the game is just awesome, makes you want to just look at the world BlueTwelve Studio created. There are collectibles to find like find 8 music sheets which will reward you with a Music badge, and finding all the memories will reward you with a new strap to carry the drone B-12.

In the end, Stray is a really incredible game that if you didn’t play, it would feel like a missed opportunity. The drama, the story, the visuals, the music which creates tension during many sections of the game, and the environment, it works superbly for Stray. It feels so special that it makes me want to play the game again.

“Stray is an incredible game!”