Stray

1. Summary

96.7% of the reviews recommend Stray. Half of the longer reviews talk about the story, dozens say they bought a cute cat game and got something sadder and warmer than they expected; 5% of all reviews say outright that the game made them cry. 40% of the longer reviews praise the look and atmosphere of the walled robot city, with its neon, clutter and small side stories, and dozens report it running well on modest hardware. A quarter dwell on the cat itself: how it squeezes through gaps, scratches rugs and meows on its own button.

Length is a frequent caveat. A playthrough runs about five to eight hours, so even happy players often advise buying it on sale. Some find the puzzles too easy and the jumping too guided, while a different group gets stuck on the Zurk chases and stealth runs and wishes for an easier option. Smaller complaints cover a long-standing bug tied to uncapped frame rates, checkpoint-only saving, missable collectibles and awkward keyboard defaults.

2. What keeps coming up

What players praise

Being a cat feels rightHigh

A quarter of the longer reviews (25%, 1,126) dwell on what the cat itself does: squeezing under fences, scratching doors and carpets, knocking paint cans off rooftops, napping on cushions while the camera drifts back, tripping robots by walking between their legs, sticking its head in a paper bag, and meowing on a dedicated button, even during cutscenes. Some cat owners say they recognize their own pets in the animations, and several mention their real cats reacting to the meows. One player wrote that it is "genuinely hard for me to think of a protagonist that I have more enjoyed embodying." The pushback is that the cat is a novelty: 8% of the negative reviews (25) argue the game is overrated and popular only because you play a cat, and a few point out that B-12 handles the tasks a cat never could. A handful wish they could pick the cat's coat.

A gorgeous, lived-in cyberpunk cityHigh

40% of the longer reviews (1,788) praise the visuals, lighting or atmosphere. The Slums and Midtown draw the most affection: neon signs, cramped apartments, rooftops, robots going about their routines, and a layered city that some reviewers link to Kowloon Walled City. A few describe stopping again and again to take screenshots. "The use of lighting and color are something to be studied," one wrote, and another put it more simply: "Environment artists need an Oscar." Dozens add that it looks this good on old laptops, the Steam Deck and Apple Silicon Macs, and that the install is small for how it looks.

A story that lands harder than expectedHigh

Half of the longer reviews (51%, 2,264) mention the story. The ones that describe it tell a similar arc: they bought a cute cat game and found a melancholy tale about a sealed city, robots imitating the humans who vanished, a rich upper district ruling over the slums, and a stubborn kind of hope. 20% of the longer reviews (908) call it emotional or say it moved them, and 5% of all reviews (478) say it made them cry, some naming the opening fall or the ending with B-12. One reviewer summed it up: "it feels like a game about hope." The negative reviews that address the plot call it thin or predictable, and a few wish the robots were voiced instead of read.

B-12 and the robot residentsMedium

20% of the longer reviews (886) bring up the robots, the companions or B-12. Reviewers enjoy that each robot has its own personality: the busker Morusque, who plays the sheet music you find; Grandma knitting ponchos; Clementine's much-envied apartment; robots that wobble when the cat bumps their legs. B-12, the drone in the cat's backpack, is the character these reviewers get attached to, and his farewell is one of the moments they name when they say the game made them cry. "Forget the cat, this is a good adventure game period," one wrote. Critics find the NPCs slow and the dialogue repetitive.

Music and soundMedium

11% of the longer reviews (499) praise the soundtrack and sound design: the lo-fi synth score, the robots' beeps, the hum of the city and Morusque's guitar. A few bought the soundtrack separately, including one who wrote that "the music is so good I bought the Vinyl LP soundtrack." One player found the score grating enough to switch it off.

Calm pacing that welcomes newcomersMedium

11% of the longer reviews (485) call Stray relaxing, cozy or chill. Some reviewers recommend it to new or casual players, a few call it a game for non-gamers, and others played it with partners or young children watching. The tense sections are the exception, covered below.

Where players are split

Short runtime and the full priceMedium

20% of the longer reviews (898) talk about length, most putting a first playthrough at about five to eight hours and full completion at ten to fifteen. Fans argue the length is the point. "That's just called respecting your time," one wrote, and others praise the lack of filler. Others want more of the world, a post-game free roam, or a sequel, and 3% of all reviews (291) ask for a Stray 2 or DLC. Price is where the length complaint bites: 18% of the negative reviews (59) bring up length, and dozens of recommending reviews still advise waiting for a sale. "The only deal is that its 5-10 hours for $40, that's unreasonable," wrote a player who recommended it anyway.

Simple puzzles and prompt-based jumpingMedium

Reviewers describe movement as contextual jump prompts: you face a ledge, press jump, and the cat lands safely, with no way to fall or miss. 8% of the longer reviews (345) call the game easy, simple, linear or a walking simulator, and the same complaint appears in 17% of the negative reviews (55), about as often as the chases or length. "It's an on-rails cat cartoon," one wrote. Others defend the design for keeping the cat graceful and opening the game to players with limited dexterity: "I really appreciate the auto-jumping," wrote a player with hypermobile joints. Players in both camps mention that the prompt only appears at precise angles, which hurts during chases.

The endingMedium

13% of the longer reviews (602) discuss the ending. Those who describe it more often call it bittersweet and beautiful than abrupt, and it is where much of the crying happens. A smaller group finds it unresolved, with no reunion with the cat's family, no look at the robots' lives once the city opens, and no answer about the wall of eyes in the sewers. 1% of all reviews (96) specifically wanted to see the cat back with the other cats. A fan wrote that "It leaves the rest of the story in your imagination, and fills your heart with hope." A critic answered from the other side: "I get to see almost nothing of what happened to my friends I made along the way."

Darker and scarier than the cover suggestsLow

Players who expected a cozy cat game were caught off guard by the Zurk nests, the sewers, the wall of eyes and the cat limping or dying. Some loved the change in tone and call it the best part. Others with little tolerance for animal peril quit in the opening minutes, and several recommend switching off "show cat death" in the settings, which they say replaces the death animation with a black screen. "Little did I know it is not a zen stress relief game," one player wrote. A few warn that the nightclub in chapter 10 has heavy flashing lights.

Runs well, mostlyLow

Just under 1% of all reviews (87) say the game runs smoothly or is well optimized, often on old or low-end machines, Steam Decks, Macs and Linux. 0.7% (68) report stutter, lag or frame drops, typically when entering new areas or in Midtown. A few PC players add that the frame-rate cap offers only 30, 60 or uncapped, that HDR has no in-game toggle, and that the DualSense speaker goes unused. One reviewer called performance "butter smooth throughout"; another wrote that "most of the time it was stuttering."

What frustrates players

Chase and stealth sections, with no easier optionMedium

10% of the longer reviews (436) bring up the Zurk swarms, chases, Sentinels or stealth runs, and so do 18% of the negative reviews (59). Some enjoy the tension. The complaints are about one-touch deaths, routes that must be memorized by dying, the Dead End chase, the jail stealth section, and checkpoints that send players back through long stretches. Reviews naming a chase they could not get past come from players a median of about six hours in. Several ask for an easy mode or a skip. "I just kept saying to myself 'this isn't fun' and finally quit in frustration," wrote one player; another asked the developers to "just have difficulty levels upfront". A few players point to a fix the game never surfaces: switching run and shake-off from hold to tap. One found that "if you switch to toggle instead of hold, running/dodging becomes easier."

Bugs tied to frame rate, and other progress blockersLow

2% of all reviews (204) mention bugs or glitches, as do 9% of the negative reviews (30). The one reviewers bring up most is a physics problem at high frame rates: the cat falls through the world after being startled by the paintings in Seamus's apartment, or objects fly away at the touch. 0.4% of all reviews (41) pass along the same fix, capping the game at 60 fps. As one put it, "some physics mechanics are tied to fps, and if you have too high, weird things might happen". Others hit a Defluxor that will not fire, robots that never move to trigger the next step, a notebook that clips out of reach, or a chapter restart that wipes the inventory. One review is titled "Defluxor Bug: Four Years and Counting," and a handful note that the game has not been patched in years.

Getting lostLow

Reviewers point out there is no map, no quest marker and no collectible tracker. Players describe circling the Slums and Midtown looking for one missed item or person, then turning to YouTube; 9% of the negative reviews (31) mention getting lost or needing a guide. One player suggested: "Maybe they could've tied something to the meow mechanic to help with navigation." Others praise the same lack of hand-holding, so any help would work best as an option.

Checkpoint-only saves and missable collectiblesLow

According to reviewers, the game saves only at story checkpoints, so quitting between them loses progress, and side quests do not count. "idk why they think having manual save is such a big deal, like have it save when the cat naps or something," one player wrote. Completionists add that memories and badges can be locked behind unmarked thresholds, and that replaying a chapter to collect them can overwrite the main autosave. One reviewer named it "one major flaw: there are points of no return that aren't clearly marked".

Two achievements completionists dreadLow

"Can't Cat-ch Me" (which reviewers describe as escaping the first Zurk chase without being touched once) and "I Am Speed" (finishing in under two hours) draw the achievement complaints. These come from completionists who had already finished, with a median of about 14 hours played, and some call the chase achievement luck-based. "seriously, avoid making achievements like that in the future," one wrote.

Keyboard and mouse defaultsLow

Keyboard players say the game recommends a controller, and they explain why: meow and shake-off sit on Left Alt while Shift is held to run, and the mouse camera locks during one Dead End chase. "holding left shift to run WHILE mashing left alt gives me hand cramps," one wrote. A couple who rebound the keys say it helped, and a few Mac players could not get controllers detected at all.

Motion sicknessLow

0.4% of all reviews (37) report motion sickness, headaches or dizziness, blaming the low camera, motion blur on by default and a narrow field of view with no slider. Turning off motion blur helps some; one player wrote that "the motion blur just makes it borderline unplayable".

Fetch quests and lots of readingLow

Some find the hub quests a chain of errands, with unvoiced robot dialogue to click through, slow-walking NPCs and unskippable cutscenes. "I felt like I am just carrying stuff from one NPC to another," one player wrote.

3. The player conversation

Over half of the reviews are a line or less, many of them meows, "cat" or "peak". The longer ones are often written right after the credits and read like love letters. Negative reviews are rare, 3.3% of the reviews (329), and they cluster around a few arguments: a walking simulator carried by a cute concept, a chase the player could not get past, a bug that blocked progress, or too little game for the price.

Negative reviews written in under two hours of play (82) lean on boredom: a third of them (28) explicitly call it boring, linear or a walking simulator, and a few gave up at the first Zurk chase or on hardware problems. Players who stall on a chase are usually around six hours in. The achievement complaints come from completionists who had finished the game, typically around 14 hours in. Complaints about length and price come mostly from recommending reviews, from players who enjoyed the game but felt the asking price outran its runtime.

Over time, the mood barely moved. In every week from late June 2025 through early October 2026, between 92% and 100% of the reviews written that week recommended the game. Review volume rose in late June and early July and again in late December in both years, plus late May and early June 2026, and those waves stayed just as positive. Some threads run through the whole period: couples and families playing together, owners who had recently lost a cat and found the game both painful and comforting, and a steady stream of requests for a sequel.

4. What the developers could do

1. Add an assist option for the chase and stealth sections. The chases come up in 18% of the negative reviews, a few players describe being stuck at Dead End through attempt after attempt, and the hold-to-tap settings that help are buried in the menus.
2. Fix the frame-rate-linked physics and the known progress blockers. 0.4% of all reviews (41) spread the same cap-at-60 workaround for falling through the world, and players still report a Defluxor that will not fire, robots that never trigger the next step and chapter restarts that wipe the inventory.
3. Bring the price in line with the five-to-eight-hour length. 18% of the negative reviews raise length, and dozens of satisfied players still tell others to wait for a sale.
4. Save more often, or let players save. Players lose collected items and side-quest progress when they quit between checkpoints, and one asked simply to have it save "when the cat naps."
5. Track collectibles and flag points of no return, then open a post-game free roam. Completionists miss memories behind unmarked thresholds and replay whole chapters to recover them, and a handful of players ask to wander the opened city after the ending.
6. Offer gentle navigation help. Players who get lost in the Slums and Midtown end up on YouTube, and one suggested letting the meow point the way.
7. Rework the keyboard defaults and the locked mouse camera. Holding Shift while mashing Left Alt during chases gives players cramps, and one Dead End chase disables mouse camera control.
8. Add a field-of-view slider and turn motion blur off by default. 0.4% of all reviews (37) describe motion sickness from the low camera, motion blur and narrow view, some bad enough to stop playing.