Developers who boast that their games are so packed with content that it would be nearly impossible for one person to experience it all seem to be in vogue right now. Dying Light 2 studio Techland revealed earlier this year that it would take someone more than 500 hours to discover everything the sequel had to offer. Bethesda didn’t hear the negative response to it, or decided to ignore it, but a few months later, Bethesda followed suit with a similar announcement when it revealed that Starfield will have more than 1,000 planets to explore when it launches in 2023.
Even though there has been a fair amount of backlash and discourse around these two examples in particular, most of us will have fallen for the bigger is better rhetoric when it comes to video games. Perhaps now more than ever with some triple-A titles costing $70 at launch. In defense of all-consuming video games, sometimes bigger really is better. Take a very recent example in Xenoblade Chronicles 3. If you’ve played the last episode, or even read the reviews, it quickly becomes apparent that it would be easy to reduce that game to a game that doesn’t have much. demands of your time. not work.
That’s not always true though, and I think Stray showed me that more than any game. If you’ve missed the Stray hype thus far, I highly recommend you rectify that if you can. It’s available on Steam and broke Annapurna’s concurrent player record on launch day, and can still be downloaded for free if you have PS Plus Extra or Premium. Best of all, even if you have live service games or something like Xenoblade that is eating up almost all of your video game time right now, Stray won’t distract you as much, if at all, from them.
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If you’re anything like me, Stray might just be a welcome break from grinding up your chosen battle passes or doing a side mission that adds three hours to your virtual journey. It took Stray nearly five hours to play from start to finish (five hours and 45 seconds to be exact) and I’m the kind of person who will often be baffled by something simple right in front of me.
Just because it’s short doesn’t mean it deserves any less respect, which is actually the point I’m trying to make. Not only is the story unique, it’s intriguing, it made me come back for more when I had some spare time, and it even moved me more than once. If you don’t have to fight back tears when the game’s lead cat falls in Dead City and starts limping, you might want to check your heart rate. There’s also a moment at the end of the game that I won’t spoil here because I’m trying to convince some of you to play it, but to quote the great Michael Scott, it made me feel like my heart had fallen into a bucket of boiling tears.
It’s worth emphasizing here that Stray isn’t my first short game. I haven’t been playing 100 hour epics constantly for the first 30 years of my life and suddenly a game where I can be a cat made me step back and say, “Wait, is there another way?” To this day, Sonic 2 is arguably my favorite game. Technically even shorter than Stray, but without the ability to save my game, it’s very likely it was a 100 hour game for the four year old me. I was clearly much more patient then than I am now. I certainly wouldn’t have finished Sonic Origins if I had to restart the game every time I ran out of lives.
The realization that I might be a short game person now wasn’t just born because Stray was really damn good too. That I started playing Breath of the Wild for the very first time right before Stray launched certainly has a lot to do with it. I am well aware of how much of my life it will take, and that between playing new things and the limited hours I find in a day to actually play games, it will be a challenge to finish BOTW before the sequel comes. On the other hand, I don’t hate it. On the contrary. I like what I’ve seen so far. It’s beautiful and every time I boot it up I have a hard time believing it’s even on Nintendo Switch, let alone a Switch game that’s been available since the console’s launch.
When I find those precious hours to play games, the first decision I have to make is whether to play something on Switch or PS5. Outside of games that never end like Fortnite and Rocket League, I try to have one game on the go at any given time. Most recently, that meant choosing between Stray and BOTW. Stray won that battle every time. Again, not because I don’t like BOTW, but because I enjoyed Stray much more. I could play it in short bursts. The story progressed considerably even if I only played for 30 minutes. That’s just not the case for a 50-hour game (and let’s face it, probably at least double that if you really want to experience it) like BOTW.
With Stray in my rearview mirror, of course, I’ll return to opting for my Switch and BOTW at least half the time, maybe even more, depending on which PS5 game is next in my endless backlog. Games that don’t consume my life are now likely to set a precedent for me, especially when they’re as new and unique as Stray. That could mean that when it finally arrives, BOTW and Starfield will need even more time, as I’ll immerse myself in an intriguing game with a well-told story. I don’t need to know exactly how much time a game will take to play through, but knowing whether it will be closer to five hours or 50 hours will have a significant impact on what I prioritize from now on.
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