Stray improves adventure games by turning you into a cat

theverge.com:

Stray has a lot of things in common with other adventure games. You have to solve puzzles, navigate a dense urban environment, and utilize stealth to avoid powerful enemies. There are characters to befriend and things to collect. But there’s one key difference between Stray and its contemporaries: you play as a cat. That may sound like a small twist or even a gimmick, but in reality, the shift in perspective makes Stray feel refreshingly new. You’re still in a big, complex world, but now, you’re seeing it from ground level. It changes everything from the exploration to the puzzles. And, coupled with a bittersweet story that oscillates between joy, heartbreak, and even occasionally horror, it makes for one of the best games of the year so far.

In Stray, you play as a nameless cat that finds itself separated from its feline friends at the outset of the game and plunged into a subterranean world populated by robots instead of people. Initially, the goal is simple: get back to the surface. Quickly though, the quest becomes something more. Eventually you’re joined by a cute drone named B12, and the mysteries of the world start to pile up. On your way to the surface, you rise through the layers of robot society — literally — learning more about not just their lives and history but also just what the heck happened to humans. On top of that are the zurks, a mysterious swarm of bug-like monsters that eat seemingly anything. That includes the robots, which is what keeps the machines restricted to various underground slums, as well as cute little cats.

The story also provides a nice twist on the classic silent protagonist. Unlike, say, Link from The Legend of Zelda, here it makes sense that your hero never talks because, well, it’s