Unpopular take but I vastly prefer Limbo to this. Not to say this is a bad experience by any means but it appends some pretty tired, one-note themes about control which severely undercut the mystery and intrigue that made the former game so memorable. Not to mention they don't really go anywhere productive with them to begin with, it mostly just feels purposefully hollow and unfulfilling for the sake of being Profound™ which sucks. But hey at least it looks pretty - not as pretty as LIMBO... again... but still, it's something. It's a fine little one-off worth a buck or two if you need a few hours to kill, though it becomes seriously cumbersome even without being minimized in the shadow of its far superior predecessor.

I quite enjoyed this one, possibly one my favorite games from this year so far. The game can be viewed as a bit of a walking simulator, and once you accept that you'll enjoy it more. A lot of negative reviews on this seem to want Stray to be a different type of game.

The atmosphere, graphics, lighting, it's insane, just perfect stuff. The game looks beautiful and is quite detailed.

I think the game length being around six hours is good, if it were any longer the mechanics would have overstayed its welcome and gotten dull.

The story, sound, graphics, is all perfect, if I were solely rating on that the game would be a 5/5, but the game play can be a little bare-bones at times. The stealth is as basic as stealth can possibly be, it's pretty brain dead honestly. Even if you get detected you can just run and the enemies can't hit you, they also forget about you almost immediately.

The puzzle solving is pretty good, I think it's complicated enough to make you think and really explore the world you're in, but not hard enough to frustrate you. Generally this is a really easy game but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

The movement and platforming reminded me a lot of The Division, where it almost feels like you're on a grid rather than free-balling around an area. You literally cannot fall off or make any mistakes in platforming. This is OK but it just makes things a little dull sometimes.

Also animations can be a little wonky at times but that can add to the charm. Being able to defy physics and spin around uncontrollably is pretty cool, but clipping through items and AI constantly and floating on uneven terrain is a bit too much of an immersion breaker.

Still, you can easily get sucked into the world of Stray, it looks so insanely good and it's world is so impressively detailed. With really great sound design and an awesome soundtrack it is stylistically perfect.

To sum it up, it's a cute little cat game with somewhat basic gameplay but great story and atmosphere. I'd recommend it easily.

A monumental effort for a small team. The environment design is spectacular and one of the clear highlights, and I cannot begin to imagine what a deceptively difficult challenge it must have been to get movement to feel good, with how the cat is animated and how few times I found myself moving to the wrong platform with its simple controls. The music also deserves praise, and I'm starting to get sick of how good the music is in every professionally made game that I play. I can only type "compliments the action perfectly" so many times.

Of course, there is a drawback to having a small team. The game is short, I clocked in at just over 4 hours (keeping in mind that I tend to go through games much faster than the average player). Steam achievements show that 3 days after release, 17% of players who have started the game have already finished it. That's fine, but those who prioritise quantity may feel a little let down if they expected more from a Sony-backed game. In addition to this, the puzzles are fairly simple and none of the action scenes took me more than 2 attempts to complete, so those looking for a challenge may also not particularly enjoy this one.

But come on, you're playing as a cat doing cute cat things in a lavishly decorated crumbling city. I really enjoyed exploring the city, and some of the action scenes were very striking. I enjoyed my time with this one, and I cannot understate how impressive of an achievement it is.