Stray modders adding their real cats to the game

Less than a week after Stray launched, the smash hit cyberpunk cat adventure has dozens of mods available with new looks for our little friend. My favorites are when modders make the game’s cat look like their own real cat, and show me photos of that pretty cat. Then… you have some weirder options, like turning it into Garfield (in both realistic and cartoon forms) or a horrifying quadripedal version of GTA: San Andreas star CJ.

Browse through Stray’s category on Nexus Mods and you’ll find a great many new skins for the cat. Some folks have created their own cats, some have created streamers’ cats, some have created cats they just like, and some have created cats with sad stories.

“This color resembles our old cat which passed away a few years ago,” says the creator of the Gray Domestic Cat mod. “It’s a memory for my son who was growing up with that cat.”

The best part is that some modders include photos of their real cats too. Observe:

Some of the cat replacement mods are more dramatic, or more distressing:

I enjoyed seeing videos of cats watching people play Stray, and now I want to see those same cats’ reactions when faced with the horrors of CJ or the Garf.

Katharine said in our Stray review, “even if you’re not massively into cats the same way I am, Stray is still a remarkable action adventure game in its own right, and whose naturalistic approach to 3D platforming is among the best I’ve seen.”