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Julius

Stray (19th July 2022)

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Developed by BlueTwelve and published by Annapurna. 

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Lost, alone, and separated from family, a stray cat must untangle an ancient mystery to escape a long-forgotten cybercity and find the way home.

 

Edited by Julius

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Hook it to my goddamn veins. I've never been so enthused about a game I know so little about. 

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This was my highlight of the PS5 show to be honest, looks fantastic

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The game's page has gone up on the PlayStation website, shedding a bit more light on what the game will be like. First the summary:

Quote

Lost, alone and separated from family, a stray cat must untangle an ancient mystery to escape a long-forgotten cybercity and find the way home. 

Stray is a third-person cat adventure game set amidst the detailed neon-lit alleys of a decaying cybercity and the murky environments of its seedy underbelly.  See the world through the eyes of a stray and interact with the environment in playful ways. 

Stray is developed by BlueTwelve Studio, a small team from south of France mostly made of cats and a handful of humans.

That last line :laughing:

And key features:

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Explore the cybercity

Roam surroundings high and low, defend against unforeseen threats and solve the mysteries of this unwelcoming place inhabited by nothing but unassuming droids and dangerous creatures.

Be stealthy

Be nimble, silly, and sometimes as annoying as possible with the strange inhabitants of this foreign world.

Befriend a droid

Along the way, the cat befriends a small flying drone, known only as B12. With the help of this newfound companion, the duo try to find a way out.

Really excited about and curious to see some gameplay for this one. Hope we see or hear a bit more soon, fingers crossed it's coming in the first half of next year! 

Edited by Julius

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This is definitely still headed to PC as well, right? :hmm: 

Looks very much like my cup of tea (what a surprise :heh:) but I have no desire or intention to get a PS5.

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Just now, RedShell said:

This is definitely still headed to PC as well, right? :hmm: 

It's on PC and PS4 as well.

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Curious as to when we'll next see something of the game as its apparently been in development for years prior to its re-appearance during the June PS5 Showcase. Would like to see how it'll all work in action, though I think I can get a pretty good idea from the new snippets of info we've got there.

The main thing is that as long as you can be a nuisance to the robots around, then they've already succeeded in making a realistic cat sim. Maybe they'll use catnip as a way to augment your cat abilities, go the full cyberpunk route with it :laughing:

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Reminds me a bit of Untitled Goose Game with the 'be as annoying as possible' bit.

 

I kind of want to see what the gameplay looks like though first.

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Gameplay for this was shown during the Annapurna Interactive Showcase:

Sadly the game won't be out until early 2022 but the game looks great. Really looking forward to it but hopefully it'll find its space in the early period of next year as with Elden Ring launching in January, they'll need to find their own space so as not to get cannibalised.

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This was down as October in the PS5 reveal event, so another delay. Looks good though.

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3 hours ago, Ganepark32 said:

Sadly the game won't be out until early 2022 but the game looks great. Really looking forward to it but hopefully it'll find its space in the early period of next year as with Elden Ring launching in January, they'll need to find their own space so as not to get cannibalised.

Funny thing is, as things are currently scheduled, Elden Ring probably isn't even going to be the biggest game of that quarter, as there's also Pokémon Legends: Arceus releasing just a week after that! It's a stacked start to 2022. For Stray, I think to be safe it just needs to either sneak in ahead of them before the middle of January, or wait until sometime after mid-February.

I don't even think it's really in competition with either of those - especially depending on its price - but it'll definitely be borderline impossible to get eyes on your game if it's releasing in the same three week period as a From Software game and Game Freak's first real attempt at open world Pokémon. 

I'd want to say it's common sense to distance your games from bigger titles, but I mean, just look at how Square Enix sent Dragon Quest XI out to die in the West the same week that Spider-Man came out. As my grandmother always used to say, the funny thing about common sense is that it's not so common :laughing:

Game looks good though, I've got half an eye on it. Don't think I've played a game from Annapurna that I haven't enjoyed yet, so I have faith in them backing this one too. 

26 minutes ago, Ronnie said:

This was down as October in the PS5 reveal event, so another delay. Looks good though.

*watches trailer at top of page*

Pretty sure it just said 2021 :p a delay either way though, which is never fun to see! Definitely got the sense it was coming though, just looking back at how quiet it's been since it was first announced. 

Edited by Julius

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You're both forgetting that Elden Ring will get delayed as well, we'll get a letter on Twitter explaining how they want to make the game as polished as can be.

8 hours ago, Julius said:

*watches trailer at top of page*

Pretty sure it just said 2021 :p

*insert not sure if serious gif* :laughing: I had it down in my calendar as October, looking online it seems Sony put up that date and then hastily removed it from the trailer ::shrug:

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20 minutes ago, Ronnie said:

You're both forgetting that Elden Ring will get delayed as well, we'll get a letter on Twitter explaining how they want to make the game as polished as can be.

Honestly I feel like Q1 2022 becomes even more of a minefield if Elden Ring does get delayed, because it aiming for January gives it plenty of space to be delayed into the rest of the quarter if needs be (and I struggle to think of what could delay it out of the quarter, but this is game development we're talking about). At least it releasing one week ahead of Pokémon would keep the focus on those two games to only a handful of weeks. 

It might well get delayed, but then again, From Software kept quiet for so long for a reason, and I struggle to see why they of all studios would put a date out there if they didn't need to. They have nothing to prove critically or commercially with that game, and it's not an exclusive, so I don't think there's the same pressure on that game getting a release date as those who have deals with a big publisher (such as for this game). They could have easily played it safe and given the window of 'Early 2022' or gone the Breath of the Wild sequel route of just saying '2022', but either way, if it does get delayed, I don't think it's that big a deal. 

Guess we'll have to wait and see. 

20 minutes ago, Ronnie said:

*insert not sure if serious gif* :laughing: I had it down in my calendar as October, looking online it seems Sony put up that date and then hastily removed it from the trailer ::shrug:

I'm fully serious, the trailer at the top of the page is the same one from the PS5 reveal event last June, and that trailer was never updated. Linked the time from last June's event below:

I've got a hunch that you might be referring to October because of the dates that were at the end of PlayStation's CES trailer in January, which were always either placeholder or internal target dates, but either way certainly weren't supposed to be shared with the public and were rightly taken down. 

Edited by Julius

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1 hour ago, Julius said:

I've got a hunch that you might be referring to October because of the dates that were at the end of PlayStation's CES trailer in January, which were always either placeholder or internal target dates, but either way certainly weren't supposed to be shared with the public and were rightly taken down. 

Ah that explains it thanks! Fair enough the October date obviously wasn't meant to be public knowledge. 

I don't mean to sound snarky with delays and release dates, I'm very much a 'take as long as you need' kind of guy, so many games are releasing broken or buggy these days. It's just frustrating that release dates mean pretty much nothing these days.

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Man, it’s a shame Microsoft didn’t nab this one for Game Pass. :hehe: Oh well, I shall definitely check it out at some point.

A little bit unsure about the context sensitive jumping mechanics. :hmm: I suppose it makes sense for the type of gameplay they’re going for (and to have more control over the cat’s animation) but there’s no doubt it would’ve been a lot of fun to have the cat jump around at will too. :grin:

Nice to know they got a dedicated meow button in there at least. :D 

The animation on the cat is so good though, all done by hand too apparently, no mocap. :bowdown:
That subtle half wink it does at the end of the release date trailer is just spot-on! :laughing::cool:
 

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Can't wait to hear @Hero-of-Time's praises for Stray.
I mean, that man loves animals/pets. It's the perfect game for him. :) 

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Added bonus that it's coming to PS+ Extra on Day 1, so definitely will check it out more so.

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Physical retail edition will be landing September 20th:

And an Exclusive Edition will be made available in Q4 with some small extras:

 

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FY6cH36XkAAYPay?format=jpg&name=4096x409

Yeah, I did actually play the game this time. No Paw Patrol here. :D 

Decent game but certainly not worthy of the praise and hype it received. Sure, it's better than most walking simulators but I think the game featuring a cat carries the game a lot. There was a discussion on era whether or not the game would have done as well if the game featured something else other than a cat and I honestly don't think it would have. I will say through that the developers done a cracking job in making the cat feel real with its movements and actions. Little things like the twitch of its ear or how it ducked under a low beam looked really impressive.

I don't think there was any need for them to put a speed run trophy in the game. It's already a short experience ( 4 hours ) and then making players rush through it again and without being able to skip the cutscenes seemed very unnecessary. 

Not a bad game by any means but certainly nothing special either.

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I'm having a wicked time with this game. I knew very little about it, other than it has a cat in it. I have a ridiculous situation at home where I'm playing a game where I control a cat, whilst another cat sits on my chest, and the other cat roams around the living room. 

I spend half of my playtime hitting the meow button.

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Finished this yesterday. Loved it. It's cute, it's got some nice moments littered throughout, and it just feels pretty chill to play. Enjoyed the ending and the bits leading up to it. Overall, had a great time playing through it. Will definitely go for a second playthrough at some point.

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For a game where you play as a cat, i thought it was pretty fun and an enjoyable experience.  Had some good moments, nothing too frustrating.

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