Before YouTube, finding videos online often had the underground quality of a drug deal. A friend would whisper a web address to me, and that night my brother and I dutifully plugged in our modem to access a digital treasure trove of short pixelated clips with names like “funny cats” and “suicide cat.”
This last one was a favorite, and a lot less macabre than it seemed. In the video, which is still online today, a cat with a fluffy tail is rolling on a bed when a loud noise startles him and he lunges headfirst into a wall. We loved the slapstick, the live action. looney toons Little did we know that this was the foretaste of a world to come, the last days before cats came to rule the internet.
Today they dominate YouTube, they are mascots in the land of cryptocurrencies and some have social media followings to rival A-list celebrities. When the creator of the world wide web Tim Berners-Lee They Asked What surprised him the most about the popular uses of his invention, he answered: “kittens”.
So when I heard about a new video game where you play a house cat living through a cyberpunk dystopia, I thought it sounded like a cynical ploy to monetize this long-standing obsession. Lost It came out last week and quickly became the biggest PC title to date for its publisher, Annapurna Interactive. Curiosity piqued me. Was everyone succumbing to the hype? Or was it a genuinely good game hidden under those saucer eyes and shiny skin?
The game is distinguished by its world building and painterly style.
The game casts you as a skinny redhead living in a future without humans. Your hero is not imbued with magical powers or an arsenal of jokes: he is just a normal moggie, mute but for meows and purrs. An accidental slip sends him tumbling into a sunless underworld occupied by friendly robots with televisions for faces and nasty little creatures called Zurks. With the help of a fellow drone, your mission is to find a way back to the surface and find out what happened to the humans. The game balances puzzles, stealth Y platforms with exploratory missions that are more reminiscent of the old point and click adventure titles. Its gameplay is well built but not remarkable.
Where it stands out is in its world building. We have seen cyberpunk dystopias a thousand times, those neon-streaked streets, ramshackle slums and vaguely oriental decor, but the aesthetic harmony of these alleys is pictorial, with careful detail lavished on graffiti, lighting and even piles of rubbish so that the setting tells a story of its own. . . Meanwhile, the robot inhabitants, called Companions, add warmth and humor through intricate character writing. On its walls are posters of palm trees, a symbol of an outside world that no one ever thinks they see. Touches like this give the game a quiet melancholy that runs through its cuteness.
Still, if you are a feline fanatic, the game is catnip. It’s easy to imagine a developer room making a huge list of all the particular things cats do and incorporating them: you can scratch rugs, knock objects off ceilings, walk on computer or piano keyboards to a chaotic effect, and sit on take a nap. any available cushion stack. There’s even a dedicated “meow” button whose sound on PS5 is intimately emitted from your controller. Most of these features have no gaming purpose – the game just wants you to enjoy being a cat.
Lost it’s charming and evocative, but I was still surprised by the effervescence of online appreciation during launch week. A all twitter account now he is dedicated to documenting the observation of real cats Lost. Meanwhile, Annapurna has capitalized on the craze with products that include £160 Lost-brand cat backpack with a small porthole in which you can put your pet when you travel. What is it about cats that makes them so attractive to players and online terminals?
They might be the choice of introverts: Cats don’t require you to go outside or give them much attention. But Lost it articulates something else: your cat protagonist never speaks, and while helpful, his intentions are ultimately unclear. Cats are inherently mysterious and inscrutable, which makes them all the more fascinating. We project onto them our own needs, desires, and morality, but they remind us that at the heart of every being, ourselves included, is something essentially unknowable. Or, as BuzzFeed once said, “The dogs are trying too hard.”
‘Stray’ is out now for PC and PS4/5. It is currently free for PS Plus subscribers.