Stray has been in the headlines for a lot of very good reasons over the past week, but having just finished the game, the one thing I can’t get out of my head isn’t the cat, or the bots, or the platforming. but how each one of their little worlds loved me.
As bookish as it sounds, the main reason I’ve always played video games is fictional escapism. I can rarely be bothered with quick actions or thumb-destroying combos; Given the chance, I will always choose to sit in my chair, relax with a cup of tea, and slowly move through a world born entirely of someone else’s vision.
So, as I made my way through Stray, I barely registered its platforming puzzles, mindlessly completed its quests, and begrudgingly ran for its weakest elements, which were in any moment the Zurks were on screen.
Instead, what I found to love most about the game, and what I think is its greatest achievement, was each of the captivating little worlds it built for us. Not the whole world, like a tiered game, Stray doesn’t have the continuous grandeur of, say, Breath of the Wild’s seemingly limitless landscape, but the walled settlements you spend time in at certain points in the game.
(Note that I’ll be talking about the design of the game itself here, not any real-world inspiration I’ve drawn from.)
One of the “Cotswold Villages” by British artist David Winter (Photo: David Winter)
When I was growing up, my grandparents owned a jewelry store in a small country town, and when I was growing up I hung out there, sometimes helping them, most of the time just getting in their way. My grandfather was a master clock repairer, and I could spend hours watching him delicately adjust gears and pins that were so small I couldn’t believe anyone could have made them, while my nanny had a reverence for the work: they came some pretty expensive stuff! — That might convince you he was selling religious artifacts.
My favorite thing about going there, though, was checking out their stock of these little miniature English villages that they would be selling. They were like little worlds unto themselves, defined not only by their limitations, but by everything they felt within them. I could hold them in my hand, turn them around, and see them from every angle, knowing exactly how small and limited they were, but also knowing every inch more intimately than I could ever hope to know a real space. .
Looking back at the games I played the most as a child, and which left the most impact on my tastes, it turns out that my appreciation for those little towns was also playing out on television screens and monitors. I was raised on Sierra and Lucasarts adventure games, and could spend hours playing them without even bothering to solve puzzles, instead of wandering the streets of Monkey Island or Quest for Glory meeting people, admiring the design work, enjoying how despite the technological limitations. of the time when each of those games’ worlds felt whole, fully realized.
Perhaps these limitations encouraged better world design, though, because as technology has advanced, I feel like the art of creating these perfect little worlds has slowly been lost. Whether it’s been open worlds that tear down walls or quick-action menus that streamline a player’s actions, that feeling of knowing every brick in a tiny street has hit me less and less as the years have passed. years.
Wind Waker’s Windfall Island (Screenshot: Nintendo)
This is not to say that there were no exceptions! Wind Waker’s Windfall Island, a rocky outcrop set in the middle of a vast open sea, looks more like one of my small English towns than perhaps anywhere else in video games, its handful of buildings and streets repeating within the its limits like an urban planning ouroboros. The Prague of Deus Ex is a place where you really feel lived. The Witcher 3 may be big, but its towns still feel small enough. And I think people’s fond memories of older GTA games like GTA III and Vice City have as much to do with their smaller scale, allowing the player to know every nook and cranny, like their soundtracks or stage
Stray’s Slums, where you start the game (Screenshot: Stray / Kotaku)
Which brings me back to Stray. While you visit various locations throughout the game, from sewers to prisons, you end up spending most of your time in three different robot settlements, each part of the same larger, domed city, but located as in different places. The first, where you actually begin your adventure, is called the slums, and as the name suggests, they’re a small, gaunt collection of makeshift flats and storefronts.
Antvillage, where if you’re in a hurry you don’t need to visit at all. But who is in a hurry? (Screenshot: Stray/Kotaku)
The second, Antvillage, comes as a respite from your perilous travels through the monster-infested sewer system, and is both a treehouse and a settlement. You don’t have to spend a lot of time there, but I ended up doing it anyway so I could chat with everyone and see the sights. The third, Midtown, comes late in the game, and is a much larger, more developed location that looks and feels like a real, functioning city.
The gorgeous lighting of Stray’s Midtown (Screenshot: Stray/Kotaku)
Yes, I know that each of the three serve in various ways here as hubs, like a village in an RPG for decades, a place to rest, shop, walk around, and meet characters. In functional terms, the Stray settlements are nothing revolutionary.
The joy here comes in your craft, in your design. Although all three are part of a single world, one that is itself walled off and that we see at the end of the game in a wonderful “I can see my house from here” moment, they are introduced to us in a way that makes them feel whole. As if we were walking through a collection of snowballs. Run through the streets of Stray and you’ll usually end up back where you started, making you forget about the walls that keep you trapped in that area until you finish, convincing us that this is a real, livable space because we’re here. only what is in this world has been shown, not what is in store for us.
It helps that these worlds are so beautiful and so compelling that you want to spend time in them in the first place. The Slums are a wonderful introduction to the Stray universe, with its improvisation and resilience. Antvillage is an unexpected diversion, a hippy haven whose architecture tells as much a story as its inhabitants. And Midtown is now one of my favorite video game locations of all time.
The lighting throughout the game, but in these particular settings, is so good it’s almost tangible, and the robotic residents of Stray, while not having much to say, are still a fascinating roster of characters to seek out and know, even if it is so. you can see how much personality the developers were able to put into each of their lines, designs, and outfits.
I loved Stray. I loved the cat, I loved B-12’s journey, I loved his architecture, I loved the character design. But what I will remember most about the game is its perfect realization of three very small worlds, which drew me in and made me wander its small streets for hours longer than I think I was supposed to have been, and enjoying every minute I spent. spend doing this