Catly promises a photorealistic cat game, but its tech is a mystery

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Catly Trailer 4K — THE GAME AWARDS 2024 The Game Awards This story is part of our coverage of The Game Awards 2024 Updated less than 3 minutes ago

In what might be the most eye-catching trailer of The Game Awards, players got their first glimpse at Catly. The surprising announcement promises an open-world game staring photorealistic felines coming in 2025 on PC, Nintendo Switch, and — most surprisingly — Apple Watch. The project is being touted as “technologically innovative,” which raises some unanswered questions about how it works.

Catly was revealed at this year’s Game Awards with a short trailer. The animated clip shows some incredibly detailed felines jumping around a psychedelic world. It ends with one meeting a human, who cycles through a few outfit options before the title is revealed. It’s an attention-grabbing clip, but one containing very little information about what the game actually is.

According to a press release, Catly is an open-world adventure game with both solo and multiplayer options. It has an emphasis on caring for cats, but also says it will include exploration and “world-crafting.” The press release claims that each cat in the game is unique and that players will have “endless” ways to customize them through both accessories and environments.

A Steam page for the game doesn’t give much more detail, with screenshots showing off some shots of cats and some environments. Even stranger is the Apple App Store page for Catly, which shows what appears to be a Tamagotchi-like virtual pet app running on Apple Watch.

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So, what’s the innovative tech poweringCatly‘s lofty promises? After noticing commonalities