Who said dogs are man’s best friend? Not the cat fans anyway. Stray is aimed at these feline fanatics, the very cute creation from BlueTwelve studios seems in any case to be a must-have for the summer.
[Mis à jour le 20 juillet 2022 à 14h58] Agile, discreet, intelligent, independent… The qualities of cats are numerous. That’s good because Stray intends to immerse you in the skin of one of our favorite little furballs, lost in the middle of a dystopian futuristic world. This original creation from the studios of BlueTwelve comes straight to us from the south of France, from the minds of a small team of talented developers and their equally talented cats. It offers you the opportunity to discover the corners of the “dead city”, an urban world populated only by robots and vile Zurks, through the eyes of an adorable feline. Without being the largest production budget in the history of video games, Stray offers a unique experience, praised by fans and critics. We explain everything we know about Stray in detail in this article, and why you should play it at all costs.
For those who are not familiar with this new release, you can discover it through a gameplay sequence published a few months ago by Playstation. Indeed, the creation of Bluetwelve remains a Playstation exclusive, available on both PS4 and PS5, but also on PC via Steam. Without being one of the figureheads of the Playstation in the permanent war of exclusives, Stray remains a strong argument in favor of the Japanese console. When it comes to gameplay, Stray was made with the cat at the heart of all of its development processes. Using ingenious motion-capture methods, the BlueTwelve Studios teams managed to transcribe the movements, curiosity and even the personality of our favorite feline companions.
In Stray, you play as a stray cat, separated from his family and forced to cross the dense and dark “dead city”. This futuristic area is inspired by the district of Kowloon, which was once the most densely populated place on the planet. There is an endless verticality, the complex intricacy of urban elements and of course the total absence of blue sky. The ghost town is also inspired by cyberpunk, populated only by more or less welcoming and functional robots, whose language you understand thanks to B12, your companion who is also an automaton and amnesiac. These automatons have built a new civilization on the ruins of ours, without the game making it a central element of its plot. Rather, putting you in the shoes of a cat, Stray puts a heavy emphasis on exploration, with a few moments of puzzle solving and action. Because the robots are not the only inhabitants of the dead city, there are also the Zurks, these vile little batrachian creatures that move in groups and gnaw metal. You will have to avoid them at all costs during your urban excursion.
With its high-end graphics and its integration of ray-tracing features from the Playstation 5, Stray offers almost photorealistic environments, while remaining entirely within the reach of slightly more modest PCs. The game prides itself on offering a dense urban universe, with abundant and numerous details, but also with omnipresent poetry. The robots that animate the center of the dead city are touchingly realistic, with their extremely well rendered animations and their facial expressions in emoji. Despite its fairly low lifespan and its difficulty that is sometimes a little too accessible, Stray is a must-have, there’s no doubt about it.
With a score of 84/100 on Metacritic (out of more than 70 reviews), Stray is unquestionably a success. Hailed by the French and international press, the game seems to bring something new to the world of video games. An original project, subtly tackling the issues of the collapse and the influence of man on his environment, without acting as an environmental indictment. This is at least the opinion of the Washington Post, which grants it without flinching the status of “meow-sterpiece”: “The game doesn’t try to make bombastic claims about humanity’s hubris or blind innovation. Instead, it takes you through a living, breathing city where robots have fashioned their own society out of the ashes of another, and lets the player make humanity’s self-destruction their own. please“.
On the French side, the criticism is also very positive, JeuxVideo.com gives it a 15/20, deploring only the impossibility of jumping when you want, and the sometimes too great simplicity of the puzzles offered. For IGN France, on the other hand, the puzzles are described as ingenious and we are only saddened by the lifespan of the game, which is a little too short (between 6 and 8 hours). The magazine still attributes to him 8/10. To return a little to our English-speaking colleagues, The Guardian is also rave about him, qualifying him without hesitation as “perfect moment in a broken worldbefore awarding it five out of five stars.
Stray is of course one of the latest Playstation exclusives. The game is therefore reserved for Sony consoles, but not only. Indeed, it is possible to play it on PC, the Japanese manufacturer having long since decided to include keyboard and mouse players in its new releases. You can therefore find it on Steam, Valve’s gaming platform, at the very modest price of €26.99. The good news is that it is already on sale, a 10% reduction which you can take advantage of if you create a Steam account. Little reminder, the game will be available from July 19 at 7 p.m. on PC.
As you probably know, at l’Internaute, it’s not just about informing you, it’s also about helping you find the products you need. If Stray’s presentation and reviews have convinced you, you might also want to try it out for yourself. By the way, if you are a fan of cats, absolutely do not hesitate. You can find the game in stores and on the web in dematerialized version and in physical version. Pricing is set at €39.99 on PS5 and PS4.