How Stray overtook God of War in ratings on Steam

A cat adventure game called Stray was developed by BlueTwelve Studios, which was released on July 19 and has quickly become beloved by many in the industry. It is the only game by the developers, and with the number of details put into the cyberpunk world, players will be left exploring every little crevice while playing as a cute cat.

The game, just two weeks into its release, became the highest user-rated 2022 game on Steam with more than 55,000 votes with a rating of 95.89%, dethroning the previous best-game holder, God of War, which was ported from PlayStation 4 and was previously an exclusive and has a rating of 95.19%.

As for the all-time charts, there are some legendary games that not even a cute cat can overthrow, such as Portal 2, Terraria, and Stardew valley, but surprisingly managed to stay ahead of the God of war, Kratos.

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Stray is a relaxing platform-puzzle game that is natural and straightforward

The game has no humans, no dialogs (other than robots talking through text), and the users play as a cat that can "meow" on command. Maybe, the consumers were looking for something just like that.

The game does not have any hidden fees or microtransactions, and it feels like the developers made it with ambition because of its lack of bugs and how well optimized it is.

Although Stray is a short game that will take the average gamer around five hours to complete, it keeps players hooked because of its challenging puzzles and a genuine story told by cats and robots with a lot of entertaining action.

The game makes you feel like a cat, allowing you to casually push books off the shelf, break glasses and scratch random walls and carpets. Users can also find comfortable spots to take a nap, and the cat even purrs when playing with other robots. It captures the cat's slinky-ness with nimble movements that only a cat can make.

Stray's mechanics are straightforward, with it being impossible for the cat to fall off the ground because of its simple click-to-jump-here gameplay, which may seem too easy, but is challenging in some parts of the game as players have to figure out exactly where to go to make progress.

The cyberpunk world of Stray (Image by Sportskeeda)

The graphics of the game are not short of magnificent, with amazing lighting in the world that is colorful and feels natural even with the absence of humans and what they have left behind.

The game has various outdoor environments, from waterfalls to dark cities and even more indoor environments where players can explore different types of futuristic rooms.

Lastly, Stray has great sound effects, which sets the game apart from others. It has a major impact on the experience, even though it may be quite low-key, and when coupled with the background music, it completes the game. It offers something no other developer does and is as casual as a game can get.

Stray is available on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Microsoft Windows for $29.99. It does not require the strongest PC to run as it is well-optimized and can run on an average build at 1080p resolution in low to medium settings.