The cat game is here, and it has everybody obsessed. Stray has quickly solidified itself as one of the best games of the year and a GOTY contender due to its adorable main character and platforming gameplay. While players and their furry friends are falling in love with the game, it does eventually come to a close. With a surprising number of mysteries in the game, by the time you wrap up, it might be a little confusing as to what the ending of Stray really means. Here is our explainer to run down everything that happens.
Are humans really all gone in Stray?
One of the biggest mysteries in Stray is the fate of humanity. All the robots in the game tell you humanity is no longer around, but the question of how remains a mystery. The walled city itself was a defense from a global plague, created so that humans could have safety until it passed (think Fallout’s vaults).
This worked, but when trash started piling up within the city, humans got tired of living with their literal garbage. To solve this problem human scientists created a bacteria they intended to eat the city’s garbage. These bacteria evolved and began eating everything around it, including flesh and even metal.
But the character of B-12 is revealed to be the digitized consciousness of a long-dead human scientist. Carrying the last memories of their people B-12 questions if they even count as human anymore. Tragically, to help the cat open the walled city, B-12 sacrifices themselves and dies. This may mark the passing of the last human in Stray, but the knowledge that the walled city in the game is one of many that humanity built opens the possibility that there are other humans somewhere in the world still surviving.
Do you escape the city in Stray?
Thanks to the help of everyone you meet along the way, especially the tragic sacrifice of B-12, the cat does leave the city at the end of Stray. But more than that, the game leaves the city in a better state than you left it. Opening the world to the outside and letting the light into the city for the first time in hundreds of years. The light destroys the Zurks (and some of the robot cops?) making the city a safe place to live again.
We see Momo and the Guardian in the Slums, as well as Clementine in Midtown all marveling at the light shining into the city. What the future holds for them is uncertain but filled with potential for better lives.
Does Stray have multiple endings?
While Stray does have moments where you can explore the world more freely, the game’s story is not based on choice. The ending of Stray is a singular experience that ends the cat’s journey through the walled city.
The game does have optional collectibles that build out the story of the world and help you connect with the city’s residents and B-12, so if you want to do those then make use of the game’s chapter select.
Does Stray set up a sequel?
Upon finally making your way out of the city, having climbed your way through the Slums and Midtown, you finally reach the outside world once again. As set up at the beginning of the game, the motivating force behind the cat’s entire journey is to return to his family. Stray ends with our furry protagonist returning to the overgrown world and giving one look back to the city he traversed. Leaving behind the friends he made, and those he lost, the cat moves forward into the unknown.
Stray does not reunite the cat with his family in the last moments of the game, leading our hero on yet another journey. While Stray’s story feels so focused and complete in how it tells a story of this city and its inhabitants through the eyes of a cat, the possibility for a sequel is left open.
