“Stray,” a new game from BlueTwelve Studio and Annapurna Interactive publishing for PlayStation 4 and 5, lets you play as a cat living in a dystopian world. Turns out, it looks so realistic that house cats have been caught staring at it and imitating it for hours on end.
Players are rewarded for existing as a cat in the game. You can do all the things that cats do, well, cats. Players can meow, walk outside, clean themselves, sleep a lot, scratch furniture, throw things off tables, eat.
“Lost” players have been posting their own cats watching the match on social media, copying in-game cats, looking at screens.
There’s even a Cats Watching Stray Twiiter account now, with players posting their cats reacting to the game.
A woman posted a video of her cat blocking the screen and wrote: “My cat won’t let me play this game.”
Another wrote “Cats gonna cat.”
One fan has a house full of cats gathered around the TV watching together, writing: “Let’s start the meow button.”
In the game, human players can also meow on command with the push of a button. A player’s cat started meowing.
Online reviews of the game have been mostly positive… or should we say not. I had to. My.