2022 video game

Stray is a 2022 adventure game developed by BlueTwelve Studio and published by Annapurna Interactive. The story follows a stray cat who falls into a walled city populated by robots, machines, and mutant bacteria; the cat sets out to return to the surface with the help of a drone companion, B-12. The game is presented through a third-person perspective. The player traverses the game world by leaping across platforms and climbing up obstacles, and can interact with the environment to open new paths. Using B-12, they can store items found throughout the world and hack technology to solve puzzles. Throughout the game, the player must evade the antagonistic Zurks and Sentinels, which attempt to kill them.

Development began in 2015, led by BlueTwelve Studio founders Koola and Viv, who wanted to pursue an independent project after working at Ubisoft Montpellier. Stray's aesthetics were influenced by Kowloon Walled City, which the developers felt could be appropriately explored by a cat. The gameplay was inspired by the developers' cats, Murtaugh and Riggs, and the team studied images and videos of cats for research. They found playing as a cat led to interesting level design opportunities, though they encountered challenges in balancing design and gameplay. The decision to populate the world with robot characters further influenced the narrative and backstory.

Stray was announced in 2020 and became highly anticipated. It was released for the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Windows in July 2022, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S in August 2023, macOS in December 2023, Nintendo Switch in November 2024, and Nintendo Switch 2 in May 2026. It received generally positive reviews, with praise for its artistic design, cat gameplay, narrative, original score, and platforming elements, though critics were divided on the combat and stealth sequences. Stray received accolades at the Game Awards, Game Developers Choice Awards, and Golden Joystick Awards, and appeared on multiple publications' year-end lists. An animated film adaptation is in development.

Source: Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA.