Stray

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, and 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 into technology to solve puzzles. Throughout the game, the player must evade the antagonistic Zurks and Sentinels, which attempt to kill them. The development began in 2015, led by BlueTwelve Studio founders Koola and Viv, who wanted to pursue an independent project after working at  Ubisoft Montpellier . They partnered with Annapurna Interactive to publish the game.  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 that 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. Following some delays, it was released on 19 July 2022, for  PlayStation 4 ,  PlayStation 5 , and  Windows . 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. The game received accolades at  The Game Awards  and  Golden Joystick Awards , and appeared on multiple  publications ' year-end lists.