Game:

Stray (2022)

Category:

Walkthrough

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Stray is a 2022 adventure video 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, and sets out to return to the surface with the help of a drone companion called B-12. The game is presented through a third-person perspective. The player traverses 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 into technology to solve puzzles necessary to progress the narrative. Throughout the game, the player must evade the antagonistic Zurks and Sentinels, both of whom will attempt to kill them.

The game's development began in 2015, led by BlueTwelve Studio founders Colas Koola and Vivien Mermet-Guyenet, who wanted to pursue an independent project after working at Ubisoft Montpellier. They partnered with Annapurna Interactive to publish the game, known by its working title HK Project. Stray was influenced aesthetically by Kowloon Walled City, which the developers felt could be appropriately explored by a cat. The gameplay experience was specifically inspired by the developers' cats, Murtaugh and Riggs, and the team studied several images and videos of cats for research. They found that playing as a cat led to interesting level design opportunities, though they also encountered challenges in balancing design and gameplay. The team decided to populate the world with robot characters, which further influenced the development of the narrative and backstory.

Stray was announced in 2020 and became highly anticipated. Following some delays, it was released on 19 July 2022 for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Windows. It received generally positive reviews, with particular praise directed at its artistic design, cat gameplay, narrative, original score, and platforming elements; critics were divided on the combat and stealth sequences.

Stray is a third-person adventure game. The player controls a stray cat, who traverses by leaping across platforms and climbing up obstacles, and they can open new paths by interacting with the environment, such as climbing in buckets, overturning paint cans, operating a vending machine, and clawing at objects. They must solve puzzles to progress the narrative, often involving moving obstacles. The game also presents several optional activities for the player, such as sleeping, meowing, and nuzzling up to non-player characters, all of which often elicit a response.[2][7] Some of the game's levels have open world elements, allowing the player to roam at their freedom.

The player is accompanied by a drone companion named B-12, who assists by translating the language of other characters, storing items found throughout the world, providing light, and hacking into various technologies to open paths and solve puzzles. Throughout the game, the player finds several of B-12's memories, providing more context for the story behind the world; most of these memories are optional, but some are unlocked through story progression. The player can also collect badges, including several optional throughout the world, which are then displayed on the cat's backpack.

The game world is populated by robots, who often employ the player to locate objects that reveal more information and progress the narrative. Some robots provide optional tasks, such as Morusque, who will play songs upon being provided with music sheets found around the slums. The player can interact with most robots in the game world. Stray features two types of enemies who can kill the player: Zurks, a large, mutated bacteria that can swarm and devour the cat; and Sentinels, security drones who will attempt to shoot the player upon spotting them. For a portion of the game, the player can use a Defluxor attached to B-12 to destroy the Zurks, though it can only be used for a limited time before B-12 overheats and requires a brief charge. The player can evade Sentinels by avoiding their sight lines, indicated by glowing lights.

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