Stray is being made into an animated film that Annapurna hopes will be 'the first and greatest hopepunk movie that's ever been made'

pcgamer.com:

Stray, the post-apocalyptic puzzle-platformer about a cat, a drone, and a bizarre city populated entirely by robots, is being made into an animated movie that Annapurna Animation head Robert Baird said will be «the first and greatest hopepunk movie that's ever been made.»

Not being familiar with the term, I immediately assumed that Baird was making up some nonsense '-punk' subgenre in a bid for attention. As it turns out, I was being hasty and unfair: Wikipedia says «hopepunk» was coined in 2017 by fantasy author Alexandra Rowland, and it's essentially the opposite of grimdark. «Works in the hopepunk subgenre are about characters fighting for positive change, radical kindness, and communal responses to challenges,» the Wiki page says.

I'm honestly not sure how well Stray fits into that particular definition. I haven't played it, but the intro, at least, doesn't sound very hopeful: It's set in a world where humanity has gone extinct following the failure of its last desperate bid to survive the destruction of the planet. All that's left are bored robots and curious cats, who—let's be honest with ourselves here—will probably do a far better job with the place than we ever did. And maybe that's the «hope» part—not that humanity will survive, but that someone else will eventually take over and clean up our mess.

Despite that bleak outlook, the concept of humanity plays a central role in Stray, according to Baird, who told Entertainment Weekly that it's «a game that's all about what makes us human,» even though there are no humans in it.

«It's a buddy comedy about a cat and a robot, and there's such a hilarious dynamic,» Baird said. «So, there's comedy inherent in this, but there's not one human being in this movie. I think