The frontrunner for best video game cats of 2023

polygon.com:

This is a story about cats.

But first, you should know the basics of Saltsea Chronicles, the new game from Die Gute Fabrik coming later this year on Switch, PS5, and PC. We’ve followed the studio for over 10 years, from the experimental PlayStation Move game Johann Sebastian Joust in 2012 to Mutazione, one of 2019’s best-written games. The studio, which more closely resembles a creative collective, tends to blend compassionate and human stories with bright colors and playfulness.

Saltsea Chronicles isn’t only about cats, but I promise we’re getting there. The studio’s work sort of defies elevator pitches, but let’s give it a go anyway: Star Trek by way of Kentucky Route Zero with the saturation turned to max.

As in Star Trek, you oversee a crew of unlikely allies on their journeys to various islands. Each locale has a unique population, along with a moral, philosophical, or dramatic dilemma to be untangled. You choose where the crew does and doesn’t travel, who steps ashore, what they say, and what findings they bring back to those waiting on the ship — then head off on the next adventure. But the mood skews towardKentucky Route Zero, Die Gute Fabrik’s own Mutazione, and their contemporaries that blur the lines between games, theater, and literature.

Now in theory, all of this heady stuff should be the most interesting thing about the game, and I should dive deeper into its many mechanics. But in practice, toxoplasmosis. Like a tabby on catnip in a room full of scratching posts, I got distracted midway through my demo by one particular island and its furry population.

The island of Los Gatos is replete with humans and cats. Lots and lots of cats. The game’s beautiful art direction borrows from papercutting and vector