Before I start, I want to premise that I'm aware that videogames are built different (literally) from books: game development is not a linear process and instead of coming up with a plot and then “just making it into a game”, it's a back-and-forth process in which the story can change several times in order to accommodate for other needs.
The consequence of this is that it's very common for videogames to end up with staggered plots, unsatisfying arcs, characters that hijack the whole story, others that vanish without explanation and themes that end up half-explored. This is exactly the case of Expedition 33 AHEM, Stray. Of course this is about Stray! I'm talking cats only, I promise.
I think this game could've been a great solarpunk story, but in order to explain why I have to start from the characters and the setting before focusing on the themes. There will be spoilers, so read at your own risk if you plan on playing the game yourself. But I advise against it, and my suggestion is to watch a playthrough instead.
Of cats and robots
The game opens with this little cat clowder that roams some post-industrial (post-apocalyptic?) wilderness, until one gets hurt and falls into the sewers. That's you, and you need to find your way out of this mess in order to get back with your siblings. Sounds quite straightforward, right? Keep this in mind.
The point of having a cat as a main character is, of course, to allow the player to do cat things. Mess around with stuff, be annoying to people, wander wherever, be cute and chaotic. This is sort of effective, but for me the feeling lasted about two hours into the game before going back to the usual quest system in which you need to help characters with their errands. There are no rats to chase around (despite roaming filthy abandoned sewers several times), nor nasty dogs to run away from. If the main idea was to roleplay as a cat in a broken world without humans, half of the interesting cat things to do are nowhere to be seen.
Among these errands, you meet B12, a drone animated by a human consciousness that talks all the time, translates things around you and hacks things that a cat can't. And in case you're wondering why would a cat need to hack things, well that's because B12 immediately becomes the main quest, even though you have no reason to care about him or the past he's hazily talking about. He just latches onto you (with your visible discomfort upon being forced to wear the backpack) and from that moment on he's guiding you around for his own sake. As soon as you meet B12, the story stops being about you, the cat and it becomes all about helping B12, the former human, regain his memories (which by the way only matter to him and none of the characters you've met up until that point).
Now, this dynamic of a silent protagonist with a flamboyant robot companion is not new to fiction, and it's been done in videogames a number of times; just think of superstars like Portal's GlaDOS and again Portal 2's Wheatley. And I love robot characters in general, from R2D2 to Wall-E, Bender and back to K-2SO and L3-37.
The issue with B12 is that... he's not nearly as interesting. His personality is flat and wholly centered on who he used to be; he only either babytalks tasks to you or yaps about his past as a human (in a game where the point is not finding out what happened to the humans, because you're a cat, not an archaeologist!). A past that is not very interesting either, since eventually you learn it's a milquetoast “tragedy” of being separated from his family. The lamest and lowest-effort backstory one could come up with in such a setting, really.
There are other characters along the way (Momo, Clementine, Doc, Zbaltazar most notably), which I enjoyed more because of their drive to reach a forbidden “Outside” that you inadvertently reignite in them. Since abandoning their common pursuit (they had formed a gang called “The Outsiders”), they dedicated themselves to different activities and it shows that each of them is unique and has a life beyond their former main purpose. I wish I could've interacted more with them, instead of relegating them to supporting characters that act only as stepping stones to move you to the next part of the City.
So in order to understand why this “pursuit of the Outside” is so important to them, I need to spend a few words on the setting.
Outside in
At first glance, the overall setting is definitely cyberpunk and postapocalyptic: a dark, walled city hosts the remnants of human culture, only populated by robots and aggressive bioengineered creatures. Decaying buildings, half-functioning robots and flickering, low-power neon signs.
But inside this hellscape there are glimmers of solarpunk: the Outsiders yearn(ed) to find a way to the world beyond the walls, and even the robots who don't share their dream have managed to build a self-sufficient and peaceful community that endures against all odds: the Slums. Among the ruins, these robots make music, collect books, tend to plants, repair devices and do knitwork for each other. This is one of the most solarpunk settings I've encountered in any videogame: under the cyberpunk veneer, there are plenty of solarpunk hieroglyphs (repurposed ruins, bikes, repairing, appropriate tech, tables on the roofs, greenhouses full of life, even a library), if one knows where to look. It's a shame that the devs and writers didn't notice themselves.
The recurring meme around solarpunk (and against it, specifically) is that “there is no conflict”, and yet here we have a stellar, yet neglected, solarpunk conflict laid out before our eyes, two opposite and irreconcilable visions of utopias: the Outsiders on one side, who believe there is a way to reach a world of pristine nature, away from misery and struggle, and everyone else on the other, who want to stay in the Slums and build the utopia right there. I say the devs didn't notice this conflict because if they had, the game could've revolved around these two factions: as a cat, would you value a tight-knit community who can provide for you and to whom you can bring joy and life and cuteness, or the freedom and thrill of wilderness together with your siblings and an adventurous gang of renegade robots? The game never bothers to explore these questions and themes: despite laying out all the pieces in front of us, it does barely anything with them.
Anyway, the story spends a few chapters in the Slum, but since you're not the main character (remember, B12 is), you need to leave the Slums and find the Outside. Full stop. How is going outside related to helping find his memories was not clear at all to me, but it is what it is.
The ending would be dogshit... if only there were any dogs
The chapters in the second half have their own interesting details and other flaws, but the ending is what once again shows the potential of solarpunk without actually delivering on it. And it's all about how it handles (or rather, doesn't) its themes.
Eventually you open up the City's skyvault (why? It was never the goal), and in order to do so B12 sacrifices himself (why? Every time he's interacted with terminals or hacked stuff through the game, nothing dangerous happened to him). This leads to a “heartwrenching”, “heroic” ending in which we're supposed to care about the sudden sacrifice of a character who hijacked the whole story for his personal quest, and then pretended to do something big for all the citizens by opening the skyvault. Let me say this once again, just to make it crystal clear: nobody ever asked you or B12 to open the skyvault. It wasn't a goal, it wasn't a quest, there was nothing that indicated it could've even been a thing.
B12 had a “heroic” sacrifice because the writers wanted the real main character to have a noble ending for everyone else's supposed benefit, even though there was nothing noble about it. B12 went from “I need to carry the memories of humanity with me” (a purpose that he makes up on the spot, since through the whole game he never motivates why he's looking to restore those memories of his) to “oops actually I'm going to die for zero :'(” literally minutes later.
This could've been fixed with an afternoon's work by the writers: had the robots in the Slums and the City yearned to see the sky/sun/stars/clouds, rather than a generic “go outside”, the skyvault opening would've been ten times as powerful and meaningful. Instead we get a three-second clip of some puzzled robots and a fifteen minutes sequence of the skyvault opening in slow-mo. This moment could've been an insanely good thematic ending, had it been set up properly. It screamed wasted potential.
On the other hand, the Outside is never shown. There is nothing about Momo, Clementine, Doc, Zbaltazar and every other robot who fought and struggled and researched their whole lives to get outside; their arcs have no ending. The thing you've chased by playing the whole story is taken away from you, and then the cat just... leaves the city, as if nothing happened. There is no closure. The devs clearly had no idea what could've been outside the city, and yet chose to make half the game about getting there (the other half was collecting B12's mildly interesting memories).
Ah, and remember how the game started? In all this, the game has forgotten the actual premise of the whole story: finding your siblings! There could've been another three-seconds clip where some meowing calls for the cat and it jumps offscene, but no! This would've taken away from the actual main character B12 and his sacrifice, so it can't be allowed. There's even a slight screen flickering, as if to suggest that B12 uploaded himself into the City's system and therefore is still alive. Involuntarily (because the writers don't understand what actually evokes sadness), this waters down his sacrifice even more, as if it wasn't already forced and unwarranted; there are no real losses either.
All in all, the game as a whole is not terrible; it's fun to play and mildly entertaining, but the way the story is conducted and how the themes are botched so badly in the ending, it left me very frustrated.
In another universe, we're still in the Slums, adopted by a newfound, vibrant community that makes its own light in a world that has lost so much.
