Becoming-Animal
Unlike other games I have played, in which the avatar I embodied has either been a human, or a super strong being with powers—a rather transhuman avatar—Stray (2022) allowed me to imagine what it would be like to move around like a cat. For one, everything appears bigger, namely your surroundings and the robots. Secondly, playing as a cat “enacts the fantasy of extending past the limits and limitations of the human” (Milesi 2022, 4). Endowed with the physical abilities of a cat, the player can jump and move around more swiftly and agilely, and hide or crawl into small spaces. The Outsiders, having more human-like physical attributes cannot hide from the Sentinels as easily which is why they ask for the cat/player’s help. Lastly—and this is my favourite feature of the game—the triangle button on your console triggers the avatar to either scratch walls or doors, take a nap whenever it spots a bed or a rug, or nuzzle with the Companions which lights up hearts on their screens (faces).
One thing about the game is that despite embodying a cat, and not having any human characters, it still feels anthropocentric. For one, not only are the robots very human-like, but the game’s depiction of a human-less future world is still shaped on humanity’s past, with the Sentinels fulfilling the tasks that were assigned to them by the humans, and the robots being trapped in a system that was established years ago. In addition, as the game goes on, the player learns that its drone companion B-12 actually possesses the memories of a past human scientist. Upon discovering his true identity and realizing the fact that it is the last ‘human’ to still possess the memories of humanity’s past, B-12 takes it upon itself to keep the memory of humans alive by liberating the robots and sharing its knowledge with them. As such, the game requires that you help the drone/scientist. This goes to show that even in this virtual, post-apocalyptic setting, “traditional Humanism is ever persistent” (Solberg 2021, 3). Indeed, even as a cat, the player is expected to ‘save’ humanity in a world where humans no longer exist.
However, despite its anthropocentric and Humanist approach, the injustice and oppression inflicted upon the Companions are reflective of the present day and denounce our current systems of necro-politics. Players also get a sense of how humans’ necro-politics can affect the future in disastrous ways.
“A necro-political approach produces a more accurate cartography of how contemporary embodied subjects are interacting and inter-killing” (Braidotti 2013, 130-131).
Furthermore, at the very end of the game (spoiler alert), when B-12 and the cat successfully open the walls, the former dies, and thus the last tangible remainder of humanity’s past disappears. In other words, at the very end of the game, the player is left thinking of what the world could look like now that everyone is finally free from humanity’s corruption.
Therefore, in placing “Lifeforms […] in a physical and metaphorical hierarchy” (Solberg 2021, 3), Stray (2022) is actually criticizing human organizational structures and necro-politics rather than encouraging them. At least that is how I, the player, understood it. In effect, in Becoming-animal, and interacting with other non-human lifeforms, gamers can see outside of their human bound selves, and experience human corruption against the non-anthropocenric other for themselves.