We have finally seen gameplay from the cyberpunk hopeful Stray and we want more. We reveal what the game world of Stray has to offer in our preview.
I don’t find cats particularly exciting. And I’m allergic. I know, I know, you can pillory me now and throw cat hair at me. Sure, when I meet a really cute cat that licks my knee with its rough tongue, I think that’s great and ignore my itchy eyes and gradually closing airways. But cats alone are just not a selling point for me.
That’s why the cyberpunk adventure Stray couldn’t get me into its clutches with its feline protagonist alone – I expected more. And more I got! In a 30-minute gameplay presentation, I was able to take a closer look at several sections of the game world, parts of the story and the unusual mechanics of Stray. By the end, I was hungry for more. Because although there are still some questions to be answered, the details of the world immediately captivated me.
Seeing the world through different eyes
My journey begins in a dark alley – as a red-haired cat. By the way, you can’t create it yourself in an editor, because the action adventure is specifically about the story of this very special cat. And it starts with her being separated from her family and landing all alone in an initially uninviting city whose rules she first has to understand – just like me.
I see a world that was created by humans but is now no longer inhabited by humans – through the eyes of an animal. The traces of humans are omnipresent but I and my feline hero do not meet any other living beings at first. The parts of the world that are still inhabited are only home to robots. Even if they behave strangely human.
One robot, for example, calls herself “Grandma” and knits warm clothes for all her neighbours. Why do robots think they need warm clothes? This is just one of the many questions we hope to find an answer to in the approximately ten-hour story. Because the strange behaviour of the robots seems to be quite intentional.
Although most of them are friendly to me and my feline hero and even show us with delighted hearts in their monitor heads when they find us cute. We can curl up on their laps and let them pet us or knock over their board game. But of course they can’t really be mad at us, we’re just too cuddly.
However, there is also a strange atmosphere over all this friendliness. I watch a robot waving incessantly into a surveillance camera and get a little goose bumps. I begin to ask myself: where have the humans gone? What is the robots’ job and why do I not meet any other living beings (at least in the presentation)?
Unusual gameplay
Much more important than these questions, however, is usually the question of how I get to my destination. Because Stray is peppered with environmental puzzles that are quite cleverly integrated into the gameplay. As a cat, I always have the opportunity to cause a bit of chaos. Knock over everything that isn’t nailed down, sit in boxes or scratch at doors. Just what cats do.
The special thing: Most of the time I can just do it for the sake of atmosphere and roleplaying as a cat. Just as sleeping doesn’t fulfil any survival aspect, but is fully intended to support the feeling of being part of this world. Or the meow button, which allows me to run around meowing to my heart’s content. But sometimes one of these mechanics, which you might have done before just for the fun of it, is suddenly part of the solution.
An overturned bucket shatters a glass roof and opens up a new path. A cardboard box becomes an important hiding place. Behind a scratched door is a robot that lets us in. So it feels like I’m actually solving the puzzles like a cat – possibly also just by chance and out of sheer desire to try things out.
In addition to the puzzle passages, there are also stealth and action interludes. These consist of chases through small enemy robots and jumps into new heights and depths of the vertically arranged open levels. However, these jumps cannot fail – as that would contradict the feeling of playing a light-footed cat, as the developers tell us.
Incidentally, part of the realistic cat feeling is that I, as a cat, can neither talk nor operate a computer. It’s a good thing that the little drone B12 becomes part of the team in the course of the game and makes up for our small technology deficit. With its help, we can communicate with the robots or operate machines.
Impressively detailed world
The world of Stray turned out to be the secret hero of the game in the demo, despite all the cute robots and our cat. The level of detail and the graphics are simply impressive – especially for the debut work of a small studio. Take a look at the diversity Stray creates in its dark cyberpunk setting:
In terms of atmosphere, I was gripped from minute one. As my little feline hero creeps through the first gloomy alley, neon lights flicker on a scuffed wall of houses in the distance. It’s hard to tell what used to be here, but now that most of the lights are out, the letters form a simple “Help”.
Every few steps I discover something along the way that I would like to examine in detail. And the developers promise that it will be worth it for us! Although the story is told through dialogue and cutscenes, there is much more hidden beneath the surface – in the ever-popular environmental storytelling.
On the one hand, this is in the unspoken details, but on the other hand, it is also in the collectible memories that are hidden in the world. Exploration should really be worthwhile here. And in the demo, we would have loved to take the gamepad ourselves all the time. Not only because various dual-sense features such as cat purrs or haptic feedback are built into PS5 controllers, but also because the interactions with the world are so lovingly built and looked like so much fun.
I wanted to knock over the chessboard of robots myself, who then throw their arms in the air in resignation. I wanted to bang a paint bucket against the wall myself and leave a huge colourful stain. I wanted to walk around on a billiard table myself and hear the peaceful clacking of the balls rolling around.
So you can see: the first impression of Stray is really good. So what could be the problem now? So far we’ve seen almost nothing of the story – sure, any spoiler with only 8-10 hours of story would probably be one too many. But this could be the crux of the matter. Because if we don’t really care about the fate of the cat and the robots, then even the great game world is of no use. After all, we need a good motivation to want to explore it for a long time.
But considering that Stray is published by Annapurna Interactive, I am at least cautiously opimistic. After all, with games like Outer Wilds, What Remains of Edith Finch, Florence and Journey, they have proven to have a very happy hand when it comes to sweeping story adventures.
We can then be sure on 19 July 2022 when Stray is released for PC, PS4 and PS5. I’ll get my allergy tablets ready…
Editor’s verdict
I love Annapurna Interactive’s games. Whenever they take a new small indie developer under their wing, my heart beats a little faster. That’s why I’ve been waiting for new images of Stray for ages. And my hopes all seem to be fulfilled at the moment. Now I feel elated and a little anxious at the same time – because if the story of Stray were to fail after all, my disappointment would be all the greater.
But the details of this game world are simply insane. I would never have suspected for a second that this was the work of a small studio with limited financial resources. And quite honestly: after so many huge open-world thrillers, I’m really looking forward to a game that I can actually play through.
