Alanya Smith
Set to the backdrop of a post-human world, Stray subverts the futuristic video game mould by building an environment where communication is dependent on cohesively working with empathetic robots.
Released by Sony on 19 July 2022, Stray is a one-player adventure of exploring an Earth that is sanctioned into sectors following an apocalypse killing humankind. After humans have invented robots and fled into factions to escape their inevitable death from android bugs, players enter the world as a cat who has fallen into the robotic world from outside borders. This merits questions regarding if living organisms have survived…
The Objective
Juxtaposing the digitised lifeforms of robots donned with 90s chromatic TV heads, your goal is to return to the outside world by equipping the help of robotic strangers. The problem? They speak in a digitised code, and you are a cat.
How will you communicate and understand how all life has died? Can you escape as a stray in a world not built for your survival?
Storyline
Playing as the pivotal cat character, the gameplay follows your journey of returning to the outside world and escaping the infested environment around you. To aid your adventures, a drone companion called B-12 communicates with you as they aim to piece together their forgotten memories. Playfully combining the robotic capabilities of a drone with the strategic mannerisms of a feline allows our key characters to navigate this neon-littered city, befriending a variety of robots on their way.
Throughout your journey, you piece together how human existence became excavated from the luminescence and hollow vibrance throughout the city. But is this linked with your recent immersion into this new world, and what does this mean for the fate of the loyal B-12?
Graphics & Key Features
PlayStation is no stranger to detailed and multi-layered visuals which immerse players into the narratives they build, as seen in their past releases including The Last of Us, Spider-Man, and the Uncharted series.
BlueTwelve Studio is the indie team behind Stray, even paying homage to their own cat companions in the creation of the main feline character.
Unique features of the game, accessible through the playable cat character, include meowing, wreaking havoc by pushing things off ledges, sleeping in a ball, and scratching your claws on the furniture.
Reaction
Following Sony’s release of The Quarry also this summer, which culminated in phenomenal graphics and a gripping terror plotline, morale was mixed following the game’s anticlimactic ending. Stray offsets this rhetoric by eliminating humans from the environment, isolating playthroughs to view the world through the calmingly chaotic lens of a cat.
In August, it was announced that Stray was voted by PlayStation Blog readers as the player’s choice winner for the best new game released in July. Over 50,000 reviews have already been released for Stray onto Steam.
Legacy
Though on first inspection the game appears a gimmick for cat-lovers and gamers alike, the experience of travelling to a neon-infested city and depending on the empathy of foreign life feels poetic yet calming. As you explore the aftermath of humankind through the eyes of a feline adventurer, the game feels introspective to the legacy we want to leave as both individuals and humans.
While so many video games project robots as the enemy, Stray presents the isolation robots feel after witnessing living creatures become extinct and how that influences their identity and views of self-worth. To persevere, they see human legacy and try to echo it in their daily routine. Ensues is a cyber-life city that emulates passion, culture, pain, resilience, and love through the binary programming of robots.
Presenting human heritage as one of love and loss is a heart-warming approach to speculations on the future, injecting serenity and consolidation in a world decimated by human malpractice. You start the game expecting a fun adventure and finish it with a newfound appreciation for the beauty of nature and life.
Stray is available to purchase now from PlayStation, compatible with PS4 and PS5.
Image courtesy of YA SV via Flickr. Image license found here. No edits were made to this image.
alanya
Alanya is a Journalism student at Cardiff University and Spotlight section editor at Quench Magazine.