STRAY Story + Ending EXPLAINED! What Happens Next? 

i think the control panel is also able to download info because its very similar to the pad that downloaded b12s consciousness to the drone

Can someone translate the light to morse code for me? Sorry I am damb. TIA

Not 7million years 700years. There is lot videos where this is discussed

Same, that part was so warm and kind, i don’t want my cat do that to me if i die, i just don't, and i don’t want her to lose me or lose her 🥺 This is just a way of how i feel, i won’t let that happen of course

Hard same. Cried for a long time after the credits.

same, i couldnt stop crying

@@seonhwa2262 I talk to someone about it and now i think i get it over it, but still if i see that scene again i kinda cry, but it dosen't affect me that much since i talk about it :3

whenever B-12 said the cat/i was a great friend and literally just shut off to make everyone see the sun, i was sad, and then when the cat just slept next to it i started crying, seeing that you have to leave it here and cant carry it with you outside just made my eyes create huge waterfalls

that line made me happy, but also sad

B-12 says what we wish all our pets could understand when it's time for us to say goodbye to them, for the last time. The entire end of the game is an allegory for letting go, and it's deplorable that people want a DLC. Acting like this is Mass Effect 3 or some crap.

@@Frostiken I think the ending was perfect as well the game. But I don't think there is anything wrong with people wanting DLC. Not necessarily a continuation from where the game ended but just more in general because it certainly was an interesting, unique world with good characters that would be great to explore even further.

"Jim, I am, and always will be, your friend." They pulled that one on us 40 years ago and I wouldn't be surprised if the Stray devs are going to do a "Search for Sp...", I mean, B12.

@@Stoney3K That's my hope. I dont think Stray need DLC, unless it's more adventures **BEFORE** the endgame, because, as @Fnhatic says, the end is a (really good) allegory for letting go at the end of life (and it's a major heart ripper, which, IMO, would be immeasurably cheapened by a continuation). But I really want to know more about the world's lore. Some DLC that lets you explore some additional area(s) that expand the lore, talk more about what happened to the humans, maybe tell us what's up with those creepy AF giant eyes in the sewers...just, literally anything that expands on the lore, because the hints we get are friggin awesome!! That said, if they do all that, or something in that vein, in a sequel, you can bet your ass I'll be handing my wallet over on day one.

The ending is even sadder when you see it as an allegory for having to say goodbye to your pets.

@@Frostiken Oh god man... you are true. Thats super sad... :(

Indeed a wonderful game. Beautifully designed with lots of heart.

I agree, i am so in love with this game and always get sad when seeing the cat again after getting the platinum. I really hope we get a second Part, where we can get back to the cats family.

i expected this game to be some ordinary cat simulator in a cool cyberpunk city, but instead we got a beautiful game with incredible story

Wow that’s actually pretty insane

Well tbf in midtown the bots are being policed by the sentinels

I think this also shows in a way if humankind were to have to go into a shelter we would still end up divided instead of together with a lower class to upper class. Awesome game though, played the entire day.

You can also see it as deepening of consciousness and awareness of self and creativity. At the top drones, midtown, the rebellious nature begins to show, various ideas and preferences, still within the confines of "government" but music, dance, clothing style, self expression, greed, the building of the collective start, in Antevillage, its a small community, peaceful, meditation, interacting with plants on an "indoor" level, strategy games, exploration of color and art, communication with others, small empathy, "bad food" is the theme, but there is comfort, then the slums is where you see the remnants of the blooming of language, art, literature, idealism the study of music, history, media, technology, handicrafts, bartering where the exploration of ideas is beyond the level of comfort, the establishment of communal safety, alertness, friends and family bonds is here.

I think that was the point. Culture of oppression with no imagination leads to destruction.

yea he said that at the very end of the video

@@gilernt what really ?, well i should watch the whole video before saying anything.

@@nickj2805 lol yea dw bout it tho

YEA NO SHT

@@etirs-fl3cp calm down ya waffle

I wonder who would try to kill the cat if all the zurks is dead from the sunlight

@@NBABIGANT Wild predators

@@NBABIGANT Humans who survived but are hungry af and will eat anything... xD

This game was started in 2015, which means it took seven years to make. I definitely don't think you're getting a sequel because of the sheer amount of love they put in it. Plus this particular studio only ever makes DLC, once they're done. They're done.

@@spicypotato666 that's what naughty dog said about last of us 1 and we ended up with LoU2

Yeah i would LOVE that!

Maybe “Lost” because well, the stray cat is looking for his fellow cat buddies.

Well, Annapurna doesn't make any sequels for their games, but, they have made some DLCs

@@nahby genius

@@nickj2805 yeah i was thinking they would make a DLC

The gentle eye blink directly at the player at the very end before he runs off was worse for me. He's breaking the fourth wall, intentionally, and doing so with a body language sign in cats that indicates trust and affection. The Stray is literally telling the player 'thank you for keeping me safe, but this is the part of our adventure where we go our separate ways. Goodbye, friend.'

@@Frostiken stoopp im gonna cry again 😭😭

Oh, I actually kind of like that possibility. It's kind of like the idea in the 6th Sense of how dead spirits usually don't know that they're actually dead while continuing to go about what they did while alive.

That actually makes a lot of sense and I’ve had a similar thought. In Ant Village, I think a robot said they enjoy the smell of paint (or something) and that it reminded them of something only to recall they can’t smell and didn’t know why they thought of that. Also, B-12 had a robot beside their pod where they were downloading their consciousness but it failed. That made me think how many humans did this and succeeded.

so that makes you think about the ones in jail getting rebooted...

This makes so much sense because one of the robots on the rooftops said “I have an urge to pet you but I don’t know why.” Or something like that 😨

love this theory it makes so much sense if this was the case

Honestly that was one of the first things I thought of xD

At the very least, it will temporarily contain the Zurk. Unless the Zurk mutate to tolerate the sunlight that is...

@@idkwhattoput1621 Yeah, that also occurred to me. Part of why the zurks are weak to light is because they evolved in an extremely dark enivonment. With the roof removed, there's just a bigger evolutionary pressure to evolve out of that weakness. Hell, we've already seen that the fleshy mucus stuff seen in all the heavily zurk-infested areas already lacks that weakness, so it's clearly possible for the animal strands of the genus to evolve it.

Just like bacteria and diseases do in the sewers we have today. The zurks are by all means, bacteria. And what efficiently kills bacteria? Sunlight

@@teenageapple3788 I thought that possibly they could have evolved from a trash destroying/eating bacteria or lifeform engineered by humans so they can just chuck any waste away

Agreed

I did cry. I wasn’t ready for the ending

@@VoxFromVoxtech I never thought a cat game a be this dam deep

@@NBABIGANT amen

Humanity's extinction yes, uploading a human's mind into a machine's body nope. We're not that far yet.

You're one of the only people to basically get the allegory of this game. I don't necessarily connect it to the pet outliving the owner, but the end of the game itself, where the cat (without a collar) walks off into the light after saying goodbye directly to the player (notice the fourth wall break (he also does it in the very beginning, which is incredibly important for the theme of the game)) is us saying goodbye to our pets. B-12 can talk to the Cat, and he says to them what we wish we could say to all of them one last time: "You are my friend. The very best I could ever ask for."

@@Frostiken If your observation is the case, then a nice nod would have been a rainbow (either real or graffitied on a wall) at the end symbolizing the rainbow Bridge often spoke of in a pet's passing. I took the cat's glance back as saying "one life lived, eight to go"... the play on the old 9 lives line. But I suppose that can also be seen as a pet passing on. I'd like to think this cat's story is far from over.

@@Frostiken Man, my mind for the possible allegories may have missed the exit as I feel like your interpretation hits something much more relatable. I was thinking more about what it would mean when humans eventually do die out and what would actually outlast us. To me, the cat represented nature rather than just a pet, and given how we've only occupied a tiny blip within the entire history of the world, nature will undoubtedly keep going without us. B12 to me represented humanity being the last vestige of human consciousness, which will inevitably pass away for each of us no matter how much we'd wish it'd be forever. Finally, the companions are the legacy of humanity, which once got as far as they had because of humanity and have since been able to progress either on their own merits or through the modeling of their creators behaviors/ideals for better or worse. Just like the children after us, they'd outlast those who came before while nature will still be there. While humanity and nature has had a rocky relationship throughout our history through eras of survival, commensalism, and exploitation, it is the relationship between B12 and the cat that represented probably our most mutual relationship of companionship. Through their teamwork, B12 and humanity's last act is to have their legacy (robot companions) finally meet nature by opening the city to the outside world and perhaps hopefully carry on the harmonious relationship between humanity's legacy with nature (the companion robots I just realized that they never really met nature until finding the cat; all the plants are a commercial product by a corporation as well as the zurks being another unnatural creation). As B12 and the last vestige of humanity passes on, the cat grieves but nature moves on. Thank you little cat!

Yea 7 millions is way too much, all that structure would've turned into dust by then or something

@@chilipepper44 maybe something happened to the clocks and they malfunctioned

At the "Elliot Programming" house at the "Slum" there are a note by Momo in a wall that tell us that the "companions" get their "soul" and maybe the same time humans get extict for 2.544.875.556 days ago (that approx 7 million years). So yeah, B-12 is big possibilty stuck at the "network" for that long.

@@Leingod123 B-12 himself said he was stuck for some hundreds years

@@chilipepper44 yeah and also cats would already evolve into something different same probably with plants.

Would explain the incredible humanism in the robots.

We dont actually know how long humanity has been dead, nor how long it was before the outside was actually hospitable to life again. Its said a plague killed everyone and so maybe nature itself was completely fine and the animals, but not the humans so the people in the higher levels all died first so no one was around to open the city back up even if the plague was over, theres just too much we dont actually know about what happened

Yes! The view is so amazing. It drives me nuts when some gamers never look DOWN out the window on the city before leaving! Also, I suspect the earth became habitable again only long AFTER humans had already died out (or all uploaded into the companion robots)

I think they were his siblings

Just because it's not the ending you want doesn't make it bad

@@E2STOPTV people are allowed to have opinions

@@E2STOPTV They never said it was bad?

@@E2STOPTV he never said it was bad?

An extra final level would have been underwelming after the grand roof opening

@@tre3612 sooo, How do you know?

Loose ends mostly because no-one of the cast (Doc, Momo, Zbaltazar and such....) know anything of what's going on. Surely they'll think "Oh that cat made it! yes!" but they all sacrificed themselves in a way so they could reach the outside, and now that they can, we don't even see them trying?

@@FilippoCardoni yeah but now nothing is stopping the cast from going to the surface. The city is now open

@@FilippoCardoni The game only shows you minutes after the city is opened, so it's implied they'll go out anyway. I'm kinda disappointed they don't give us an epilogue but it's not really loose ends.

Your last comment is exactly what makes it open ended. It started with the cat being separated, and in the end it never got reunited.

Fr tho when I first saw Doc lugging that flashlight around, I deadass just blurted out "Bruh that's just a UV light machine"

Didn't believe I'll find you here

​@@devendrapandey3761yeah same😂

I actually cried when the cat got separated by his family in very beginning of the game , at first I thought Al of them was gonna be in game but when he fell off I was like oh shit nooo, but then it turns out the cat is in this cyberpunk- like world In which everyone is robots and androids and he has to escape this world to go back to the real world outside snd find a way to reunite with his family . I really enjoyed playing this game , I’m currently in the last 30 mins of the game

God of war harry potter?

@@gokucanfly4593 why such a question?

Stray was amazing no doubt about that, definitely should win in the Indie Game of the Year. Not sure about the GOTY with God of War and Elden ring releasing this year

@@cydragon2.099 god of war is coming out this year.... and new huge harry potter open world rpg... i think will be better. While stray was cool its just indie game thats 4 5 hours with cool story but lacks real gameplay

@@gokucanfly4593 child's play

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agreed

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This game was started in 2015, which means it took seven years to make. I definitely don't think you're getting a sequel because of the sheer amount of love they put in it ^^;

@@spicypotato666 i wish will there be a stray 2 cuz of his cat friends he needs to be tracked like he said

@@spicypotato666 that's what naughty dog said about last of us 1 and we ended up with LoU2

@@gh0stdem0n666 yeah no comment on that game since it was kinda a giant flaming garbage heap (to me in my opinion)

@@spicypotato666 i see you spam comments ineverywhere

Me too. Reminds me of Soma. You get to meet the last human alive, then they die..

wall-e?

@@huntedchannel69 nah humans were still alive but they were living in space ig

@@huntedchannel69 humans are still alive

@@sandra1328 SOMA. That ending just fills you up with dread, doesn't it?

Im sure there are another underground settlements. The city is called walledcity *99* and the helper name were like "Helper554" which means there are hundreds of them. I really hope a sequel of the outside world.

In response to the part about completing it in 4 hours. I think this game is an expirement for them. A way to test the water and see if people like it. That way they don't put too many resources into it to see if people want more of it. I think most of us definitely do. This expirement was a great success and I believe we will see more.

This was such a genious move. If you think about it the possibilities are now endless: They can go for another game/DLC where the cat just reunites with the other cats, or where the robots just all go "outside" and beyond, or both. OR (here's where it gets interesting) they can turn it all around and make it so that B-12 gets corrupted, by either having now too much power, or by simply losing sight on what made him human, and he goes on making life worse instead of better for everyone, including our hero Stray that would then recognize B-12's "voice" and will have to go meet up with him, to make him change his mind. This is huge, really, they can do whatever now with the way they ended it. It's obvious they'll have a sequel coming because too many things are left unsaid (if you take away Clementine being caught, probably, the rest of the cast is just there waiting for news, and they didn't get it yet. Sure they know something big happened because they now can see the sky and have no zurks, but still...) - it's just a matter of where they want to go down the path, really. And I'm hyped.

@@FilippoCardoni Finally sonebody says this!!

This game was started in 2015, which means it took seven years to make. I definitely don't think you're getting a sequel because of the sheer amount of love they put in it sorry

one of the writing on the wall states the robots existed 2.5 billion days before gaining a soul, which would be 7 million years. i personally think the robots lived with humans for quite some time tho so im not sure how many of those years human have been dead.

@@destinym8020 Yeah, but here's the issue: 7million years would have crumbled every single trace of human construction by corrosion and erosion. There wouldn't be a single robot, building, city, etc. Not even cats, butterflies, birds, etc would also exist. They all would have gone extinct or changed by natural selection. The robots has their own unique time measurement system which is different for the humans.

@@dlib89 i don't think there is a different time measurement. The disease in the sewers seems to have taken over and become a creature. Seen by the eyes. Which means it's maintaining the slums... and the robots have developed to become human like and even manufacture and repair themselves and others. There's even children robots. There's food stands and B12 even comments that they didn't orginally make robots to eat when they were alive. This is also a game you know. There's a lot of things in sci Fi that isn't supposed to make perfect sense lmao

@@dlib89 yeah thats what i was thinking, surely by the 3 million year mark everything would pretty much be dust right? lol also for birds, butterflies, cats and whatever else there is at the end cutscene (cause you can hear or see all those things) to survive, there must be somewhere where it wasnt barren desert for them to survive right? meaning possible human life? cause the plague only really happened in this underground city, if they wanted to (the developers i mean) they could just say theres like 3 giant cities like that.

@@dlib89 I agree with the buildings, butterflies and birds exists already way longer than 3 million years. Cats in the current form for 3.4 million years.(at least according to the source I just googled) That wouldn't necessarily change in the next 3 million years unless there is selection pressure. IMHO the devs just wasted no thought on how long this would actual be when they wrote the numbers of days. Everything else indicates that we are talking about a few hundred years.

Aw thank you!

Bruh same shit, tricked in emotional bond with computer again

@@computerhardware2063 B-12 isn't computer. It's a human brain in digital um... soul? He told to us about that in te middle of the game. So it was emotional bond between the cat and the human, so sad and I cried too:(

@@shleiff.mp4 i think they meant the computer displaying said human drone/b12 made the emotional bond and sad and tricked or something. either way i didnt know it was gonna be that sad, like seriously, its rated 10+ for everyone, i wasnt expecting to be this damn sad and contemplate about it on an emotional roller coaster over a game, like come one man, the way the cat/stray just leaves the "dead" b12 drone to just go outside is so sad, and the fact stray sleeps with it for a while. i say dead in quotes cause the video explains it well, b12 is probably in the software and stuff of the city, which is nice to think

@@shleiff.mp4 i mean computer in front of me

im right there with you. When b12 dropped to the floor and stray made that cat noise and started cuddling and sleeping next to him, I broke

Yeah, definelty more than I thought a game where I play a cat would

@@nocomplyyy I don't see how he would have been able to transfer back to the computee

@@nocomplyyy that's not 100% possible, but just as I assumed the story could have a sadder turn, so do you have the right to assume it had a happier turn Have a nice day :)

These kinds of endings are known as Sequel Hooks. I'm just hoping for a short epilogue. As on point as being alone is, i just can't help but feeling bad for Stray...

Yeah that flickering at the end left me with a bad feeling. Like something evil is still in process and the doors and the roof could close again in some time the System recharged his Power. But maybe i am overthinking haha

I totally agree with you. I don't think seeing a reunion at the end is needed and I don't think a sequel is necessary, even if it's a really good game. Having an entire game of him finding his family in the Outside feels kind of redundant and cash-grabby at that point. I never even questioned that the cat wouldn't find its family. I felt like it was a given that it most likely would considering they lost him near the city. And the ending I think is best left open-ended anyway because it doesn't need more to explain itself. The game left plenty of clues about what would most likely happen afterwards and just enough room to use your imagination.

@@6rebelangel totally with you. So the title of the game makes sense with yout opinion. 👍

@@patrickkaplanovic9374 This was such a genious move. If you think about it the possibilities are now endless: They can go for another game/DLC where the cat just reunites with the other cats, or where the robots just all go "outside" and beyond, or both. OR (here's where it gets interesting) they can turn it all around and make it so that B-12 gets corrupted, by either having now too much power, or by simply losing sight on what made him human, and he goes on making life worse instead of better for everyone, including our hero Stray that would then recognize B-12's "voice" and will have to go meet up with him, to make him change his mind. This is huge, really, they can do whatever now with the way they ended it. It's obvious they'll have a sequel coming because too many things are left unsaid (if you take away Clementine being caught, probably, the rest of the cast is just there waiting for news, and they didn't get it yet. Sure they know something big happened because they now can see the sky and have no zurks, but still...) - it's just a matter of where they want to go down the path, really. And I'm hyped.

Same

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There could be human survivors in the outside world, who knows? But they'll be more like tribes or a small communities rather than folks from the cities.

I was in the same boat! I found no reason why she couldn't just close the door behind her, we already knew the smaller drones couldn't open doors from the jail break chapter.

I thought when Clementine said that she was talking about the cat? Like she was saying “I’ll always have the memories of you.”

Clementine was telling that to the Cat. Because the robot is going to outlive the Cat. Just like we outlive our cat pets. The entire fuckin' last scene was an allegory to having to say goodbye to your pets, even if you're not ready yet.

I also got about 8 hours

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Also more city's! I feel one of those city's will have humans who survived by blocking themselves in and having kids since it's a long time in the future.

Yeah like, that was totally my go to at some point. I just wanted to see the kitty with his friends. I understand there's an allegory and the game is amazing.. but the end is very anti climatic to me personally.

it's not that deep.

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Did you see the cats eyes in the end, the cat might be robot

@@hamishanders8508 you mean the reflective eyes? That happens when light shines on cat's eyes.

Oh God, this comment alone made me start bawling again. Gosh, this is so sweet but sad

No man. It was directed to the PLAYER. It was an intentional Fourth Wall break and it was incredibly important for the theme of the game. It's not in this video, but go look up others. At the very beginning of the game, right before you leave the lookout with the other cats, Cat turns over his shoulder and very obviously looks directly at the player. At the very end, Cat looks directly at the player again, and gives us the blink, which as you pointed out, is a sign of intense affection and trust. By breaking the fourth wall, it means that the player is not invisible to the game, or to Cat. In that sense, unlike most games, it's not right to really say we are 'controlling' Cat, only that we are GUIDING Cat. When Cat first looks at you, he looks optimistic, happy, and ready to go. He's inviting you to go on an adventure with him! "Come on, buddy, let's go exploring!" At the end, Cat looks tired, worn, and aged. But this time, the blink tells the player "thank you, thank you for keeping me safe, thank you for being my friend. It's time to say goodbye, the adventure is over." And at that point, the player relinquishes control and Cat goes on without the player. This is important to the theme of the game, which is essentially about letting go of old relationships and making new ones. In particular, the end scene is about how we have to say goodbye to our pets - even if we're not ready to - because that's the tragic nature of outliving your pets... just like Clem knows the robots will outlive the cat. We WISH we could tell pets what B-12 tells Cat - "You are my friend, the very best I could have asked for." But they can't understand us. All we can do is curl up with them and give them our affection in the last moments of their lives. The game ends with Cat sniffing gently at the air, walking into the light, and the finality of goodbye is forever. As Clem says in the game: "You are one of us now. I will keep the memory of you alive forever in my RAM."

@@Frostiken And I'm crying again

The Cat was based on the Murtaugh.

There are mods for this already!

@@lizardfishbird man moders are fast

Yes, I thought they were going to make it so you could pick from any of the cats at the beginning

Meh I have the Ps5…no Mods here 🥲

Yeah no, that would destroy my soul every time the screen goes red.

I want the sequel to be open world.

No. That would literally defeat the entire theme of the game and the point of the ending. This is like you watching Lord of the Rings and missing the entire goddamn point of the return to the Shire at the end, and wanting another giant epic orc battle so you have Frodo go on a second adventure again. Just, no.

@@Frostiken I don’t watch LOTR can you make a different example please?

Good point, i too was stunned by the name "city 99". Makes sense humans creates multiple cities with the same structure. Zurks were created (indirectly) by Neco which may only have operated in city 99

I was wondering the same.....

I think it has to do with the 16 hour clocks that would suggest 32 hour days yet B12 that only says hundreds of years (centuries) pasted. Also while it is possible for such a bunker to keep running for centuries with robots maintaining it, when you get into millions of years, too many systems would have to be totally rebuilt from scratch due to being exposed to elements for that long (you are talking the same time scale of the formation of the Grand Canyon).

There's a wall in the game that says the amount of days since humans been around if you explore around. I think it's in the bar at the slums. If you translate the days into years it's 7millon. B12 never says it though

@@spicypotato666 that was saying how long the robots have been sentient. So humans could have been gone longer or shorter than that. Who knows?

7 million years seems impossible. How are there cats? In 7 million years evolution would change cats and we see a butterfly which should look different too. I believe its been like 300 years or something, and in the beginning we see an old human made factory but that shouldn't be there if 7 million years has passed becouse of erosion.

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Me too I cannot stop

Yes , like when you try to take vid of your cat its eyes lens reflect the light .

As said yes, thats normal for a cat... its more than likely the texture shader used on the cats eyes, its probably designed to give the eye shine effect at certain angles and light positions, in a dark environment, but yeah it looks a little odd in the bright sunlight... BUT even in real cats you can have light reflection like that in sunlight if the angle is right and a light source that isnt drowned out by the sun shines right into their eyes and you are looking into their eyes at the right angle as well.