July is gearing up to be a month filled with exciting releases across the board, with one of the more unique and intriguing titles coming this summer being the PC and PlayStation-exclusive Stray. Developed by BlueTwelve Studio and published by Annapurna Interactive, players take on the role of a stray cat, exploring the neon-lit and gritty depths of a cyberpunk city and fending off all manners of robotic enemies known as Zurks. After being delayed a couple of times, Stray will finally be releasing very soon.
This game is also releasing after the global rollout of PlayStation Plus' rebooted services, with players now being able to subscribe to three different tiers. Stray will be available to subscribers of the Extra and Premium tiers and won't cost anything extra to play. Besides being a day one release for PS Plus, Stray will also release on Steam for PC players. With the release of the game drawing near, the developers decided to show off whom the titular stray is inspired by, including the cats that the team used to model its appearance, animations, and more.
These photos of Stray's inspirations were shared on PlayStation's blog, starting with the feline protagonist's appearance. The real-life inspiration was a cat known as Murtaugh, who belongs to the cofounders of BlueTwelve Studio, Viv and Koola. Murtaugh was an actual stray who was found in the streets underneath a car in Montpellier, France. He is affectionately known as "The Boss" to the studio, and is easily the most visual indicator of whom Stray's cat is based on.
The studio noted that now that the studio had a visual basis for the protagonist, the next part was the animations for Stray's gameplay. The post notes that while the cat animator, Miko, used references from the internet, they also utilized a hairless Sphynx cat known as Oscar as visual references for the animations. Video references from Oscar were helpful for jumps and running. The final cat included in the blog post is a black cat known as Jun, who also was responsible for "monitoring" the development team.
The team of Miko and Remi were responsible in programming the basic movements of the stray, as well as iterating and fine tweaking the animations in order for Stray's platforming gameplay to be fun and responsive. The blog also shows off a few gifs of the stray executing cat-like actions, such as scratching the wall, knocking over a can off the side of a perch, or taking a nap.
Stray releases on July 19 for on PC, PS4, and PS5.
Source: PlayStation Blog
