Game Theory: This Cat KILLED The Human Race! (Stray)

Matpat trying not to make innocent and adorable characters into mass murderers/universe destroyers for 5 seconds:

I like how everyone is talking about how wholesome the game is and how dark matpat made it seem, but the game was the one with the fleshy eyeball walls and the extinction of humanity.

I just have a quick thing I would like to point out that might be a stumbling issue in Matpats theory: The Sun's UV light strength is WAY higher then our flashlight.

Also, in the ant village, there's a robot named Isaac sleeping on a couch, when you talk to him he's dreaming about "electric zurks everywhere", could kinda be foreshadowing for when the zurks learn from the robots and become them

Game Developer: let’s create a wholesome game while you play as a cat MatPat: Allow me to introduce my theory

I hope this game gets a sequel or DLC, there's so much room

I think a pretty simple explanation to why the eyes aren't affected would be that the UV light just simply isn't strong enough coming from a little lamp. Pretty sure the sun would be much stronger and another possibility could be that they simply require longer exposure to UV light in order for them to start taking noticeable damage.

i generally love lore, but this game was so heartwarming that I don't even care it just made me FEEL something and I loved it. it is an amazing game!

Let's be honest, the fact that Mat can make a theory about a cat that just walks around a city just shows how quickly he's losing his sanity

Fun Fact : The Game takes place in City 99. So we could presume there are at least, 98 other bastions of humanity left in Stray's World. Bastions that could've thrived better than City 99. Cities that didn't fall to any kind of plague or Zurk infestation. Perhaps with help from The Humans, The Companions can fully eradicate The Zurks before they become a fully realized threat.

Yeah, cats be like that sometimes. Another thing we looked over is that how robots and the zurcs technically had access to the open world. The cat we played as just fell down into the underground world, he didnt bypass a lock that kept them. Regardless of Cat's action Zurcs would be the dominant species after all.

I did think about the fact that the sunlight won't be able to reach into the sewers and the zurks down there would still be able to exist and I also thought it was strange to see a companion melted into the wall but not eaten and hooked up to computers. So there may be definitely something to that. Maybe eventually the zurks will figure out how the companions work but it will take many years perhaps centuries. The eyes in the sewer walls genuinely scared me and that part was the creepiest part of the game.

The idea that the robots are actually human has a lot of validity like the fact that the cleaning robots on the top level don't have personality though they are probably the same age as the rest of the robots if not older because they actually have jobs

Everyone: “why does matpat make a gruesome theory about a wholesome game” The wholesome game: the elite will destroy those beneath them, fleshy eye ball rooms, the death of the last human, giant bacteria that consumes everything, a cat getting injured badly multiple times

I've also wondered how is Doc the "father" of Seamus; I see it as two possible ways, one more plausible than the other. The first being that Doc would have built Seamus, but that just doesn't really feel right at all. But it aligns pretty neatly if they were actually father and son, humans who uploaded themselves into companions. That'd make a lot of sense!

1) Yes the Zurk eat metal. But there has to be something else to all of it. If their only requirement is to be able to resist UV light would they have not chewed up the ceiling? The steel walls and others? Sure its stronger metal but it has also been 7M years so yk- something might be missing here. 2) Plenty of comments also mentioned the potency of the UV lights and the sort of hive mind that the Zurk comprise, and personally? They behave like sculk from Minecraft. The catalysts might be able to expand sculk, but they dont kill anything. The Warden can be deadly but he doesnt generate sculk. You need both for a sculk infestation. Similarly, the Zurk might kill and in proximity with the rest of the biomass this can expand, but, the absence of Zurk could mean an end to the species of the bacteria by the loss of their hunter component. (+The fact that sunlight would be much stronger than the UV lamp so yk, that might also impede growth or even kill the fleshy eyes at the bottom of the sewers). Edit after watching more of the video: How would the Zurk evolve past their weakness if they have grown in the absence of UV light? Bacteria build up their immune systems from encounters with other bacteria or by surviving whatever they are weak to. Sure, they could've encountered Micrococcus Luteus and traded genes but even then- why? how would you prepare yourself for something you don't even know exists?

Fun little insight: Stray's cats have round pupils. Most small cats have vertical pupils because they're ambush predators. But a few have evolved round pupils instead, indicating that they've adapted to be better daytime chasers rather than nighttime ambushers. This could be in part a product of domestication, where cats are more likely to adapt to their owners' daytime schedules, and aren't pressured into the same ecological niche because humans protect and feed them.

It's not just that the eye walls are incredibly disturbing, they're also sentient.. they actively control and release zurks in an attempt to stop whatever you're doing.. so if they needed the door to open, why would they be trying to stop you? 🤔 there's gotta be something deeper here that we're missing.

Just finished stray, actually sobbing 😭

2:26 what if the electronic stuff and the system that comes back to life is b12 back in the network and is now everywhere?