Stray's Hidden Timeline: Solving the mystery of when Stray takes place
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- čas přidán 28. 08. 2022
- How far in the future is Stray? What is the history and lore of Stray's world and story? By piecing together secret clues found within the world of Stray, the Companions and Walled City 99, we'll find out.
Credits:
Base video footage is from the Stray Game and Teaser Trailer from BlueTwelve Studio and Annapurna. Editing and visual effects by sdk.
Music for this episode is scored by Nathan D’arcy ( / @nathandarcymusic ), with a soundscape inspired by Stray’s beautiful score by Yann Van Der Cruyssen. Includes a short snippet from the “Inside the Wall” track from the OST and music from the bar scene.
Future Moon phase tooling and imagery from stellarium-web.org.
For details and credits to those who decoded the Companion's language check out: stray.fandom.com/wiki/Alphabet - Hry
These are absolutely mind-blowing levels of detail and research. I'm personally on Team Moon, only because we have no way of knowing if the TV broadcasts are current, and going by the moon puts us more in the future. I don't think it's a huge leap to think that broadcasts in the slums might just be old rebroadcasts of prior episodes. There may not even be a point to updated weather reports anymore.
Thanks for putting in this work!
This exactly, the moon is there, you can prove it. It's live. You can't be certain that the weather forecast is live. And as you said. There would be no need for walled city 99 to have a weather report
I agree! :D
I think that it has to be team moon as the weather gives you the report and then the moon falls into place.
The weather report could even just be saying "Monday" as in reviewing yesterday's weather, with "Tuesday" being today's.
exactly my point!
This is great, the fact that the day matches up with the moon phase makes me hope the devs did this on purpose when deciding when Stray takes place.
and the game was developed in France that maybe the reason why the walled city is in the northern hemisphere
idea: the weather report was inaccurate since the calebder hasnt been calibrateed
Im weather team 🎉
@@plucas very hard to go against nature though, that moon phase is going to actually happen.
@@clementpoon120 this
Thanks for letting me do the music for this video! Such a fun one. Also: Team Moon all the way. In the weather report the ceiling is open and it says it’s going to rain. Why would they care if it was raining while the city was closed? I will just ignore the fact that it was raining the night before when Stray is outside…
The night BEFORE, you say? As in...Monday, if you go by Team Moon?
the thing is that for the moon theory to be true it would NEED to be in the northern hemisphere. In a sign in the control room, it shows that Walled City 99 is near South Africa, in the Southern Hemisphere
@@basecatXD is there any possibility that might be showing the location of a different Walled City? it is called 99 after all
@@jacketofdiamonds but it has a marker saying Walled City 99
@@basecatXD okay I wasn't sure. anyway that might just be something they didn't realize during development
My brother found your video on Stray's true ending, and we both fell in love with your style of editing. I'm surprised you don't have more subscribers! Well, you got one right now. ;)
Same here! Subbed immediately.
So many people took that huge number on the wall as a literal amount of days, but it being a unix timestamp makes so much sense, of course the Companions would use the MAIN way that time is calculated on a computer.
I was so happy to see it broken down this way. I watched a video where someone said the game took place 7 billion years in the future or something and I hated that theory.
This video is just a prime example of how rich and well made stray's world is that you can take what should be just basic set dressing and figure out the exact day the events of the game take place without it being obviously stated by any character
Beginning of the video: Stray is in the not so distant future when a lot of things from our current life still exists
End of video: Stray takes place over 1000 years into the future...
1000 _is_ not so distant when taking human history to scale...
@@SomebodySharpin the slums you can find a prompt that says how many days since the humans left and it was like 6 million years
@@user-iz3gv7th6z It's a unix timestamp. Pause and read in 1:02
@@user-iz3gv7th6z”timestamps are how programs and computers often refer to dated and time.”
“this looks like a unix timestamp which is the number of seconds past “epoch” (00:00 Jan 1 1970 UTC).
“If 2544875556 is read as a Unix timestamp it converts to Tuesday august 23 2959:11:06:56 UTC”
Now think, why would stuff like cardboard, most tech, non faded away paint and no major evolution exist *7 million years* into the future?
Why would stuff from 2017, 2084 etc exist after millions of years?
and why would robots (companions) not use something like UNIX?
point being, don’t trust matpat on everything
1:04
Stray really stuck with me. I cried at the end. It was a beautiful, engaging game, and the story was so dark but meaningful! It’s up there with my favorite games of all time, none of which got me on an emotional level! I keep looking for games that have a similar story or feel. I’m still chasing that feeling. Games I’ve enjoyed that feel similar are portal 2, control, Witcher 3, horizon series, outer worlds, journey to a savage planet- I know the suggestions are all over the place because I’m trying to think of games that both capture engaging storylines, likable characters, colorful worlds, high emotional stakes and/or components of a puzzle structure… any further suggestions are welcome.
Have you played SOMA? Since you haven't mentioned it so I'm assuming you haven't. SOMA deals with existential crisis and [without spoilers] has a certain theme that is very similar to Stray. The underwater sci-fi atmosphere is gorgeous. A masterpiece in storytelling, for sure. Yes, it's a horror game, but totally worth your time!
You should add Rain World to that comment.
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Made me cry, too I like it's basic dystopian idea.
The amount of detail devs put in the game is amazing but the fact that you put that much effort in videos is even more amazing.
i just finished stray yesterday and ive been avoiding spoilers from reddit, youtube, and twitter ever since. now that i finished the game im very disappointed because it was such a cliff hanger and ive been searching for videos explaining the game ending. ive watched your 2 minute video as well, the one where you describe the true ending and revealing where stray's home is. im happy that stray got an ending (although is most likely a theory) where they got reunited with their cat friends. and oh, im a team moon. because who knows, the weather report could have been just a replay airing since forever and the moon is much more accurate imo. thank you for this video, you got another subscriber.
Something you didn't mention is the clocks. All of the clock faces in Stray have 16 hours rather than 12. If something happened to the earth that caused the rotational speed to change, then the moon phases would also be different than the one we know right now, making the "team moon's" claim no longer relevant.
8 months later lol, but you're right! this is actually explained by the game itself, it was either one of the dialogues or a piece of text somewhere, which talked about the moon and how it decreases earth's rotation speed over time. i'm doubtful that in reality the earth's rotation speed decreases that fast, but i'm no scientist :)
The "tv" broadcast could be a recorded broadcast they watch on loop at the slums...
Probably team moon because the weather channel could be a replay or a recording. Moon seems a little more likely to me, but unless we get canon confirmation, you can totally be on the tv team and I'll support that :)
I imagined October 11 was the last day humans kept track of time, seeing as these calendars are found in the Dead City too. It subsequently has been hundreds of years since October 11.
Side note: October 11 is "National Coming Out Day" in the US and the "International Day of the Girl Child" around the world
October 11th is also National Sausage Pizza Day, and National Peyronie’s Disease Awareness Day.
Coincidence?
Thank you! I was so confused when he isolated October 11 for that very reason! Like, those are all paper calendars, and most are in the dead city where the robots aren't, and even the one I saw in the slums doesn't prove that that is the date of the game, just that that was the last day anyone bothered to change the calendar. Which would make way more sense if it was only humans who bothered to do so, and the robots just left them alone after the humans were gone.
4:21 The plaque disproves this imo. It shows that last month was September. More importantly, it shows that the robots have kept track of months and years passing since the humans died. This suggests that the calendars are correct.
Idk about the Dead City (we are in a game, where objects are reusable after all), but the paper deteriorates over time and humans died quite long ago, so this doesn't quite line up.
Also while typing this a thought sprang to my mind the Dead City became deserted also at 11th October, but like, a year or two ago so the paper wasn't so old and exactly a year or exactly two etc. passed.
@@user-fl3nx9yk1x during the zurk chase you only see a bit of zurk growth in the dead city as opposed to the sewers and rooftops, maybe shortly before the cat came the zurks took the dead city?
I love when the community comes together to solve gaming mysteries :) I may not be able to contribute much, but still fun to "discover" everything with you
I’d watch this over Game Theory anyday. I commend this style of editing it really takes the viewers on a journey. It felt like you held our hand and took us on a research journey from your set up to revelation.
This is showing a true masterpiece in gamng. its not only a very briliant game, it also has so many to discover and find out. im glad such game developers still exist. thanks for this game!
My 11 year old cat died literally the morning this game came out and I downloaded it!
I still can't believe it. I woke up to play it and to find out my cat had been apparently stung by a scorpion during night (in my opinion, as I had just found one days before).
She got paralysed, I won't even explain because I will start to cry... She appeared under a bed... paralysed... she couldn't breath well... her mouth went purple... the vets couldn't do anything... she died that morning in the veterinary.
It is one of the saddest days of my entire life! I couldn't play the game for like a month, and when I did, I never finished it.
Now I'm trying to finish it, one year later.
As if I couldn’t have loved the game enough already, this just takes it to another level.
Thank you. I have been following the progress of this game since it was "a game set in Kowloon Walled City, maybe where you play a cat." Between this video and "Stray's True Ending", you are one of the best fans.
Oh someone that actually knows where the city took inspiration to be made!
This and your other Stray video are so amazingly well done. Thank you
That was really fun to watch. I really liked your style and how you presented the whole narrative. A breath of fresh air for sure. Great job.
This video is so good! Like the editing, the use of the soundtrack ahhh so great! I found your channel through the last STRAY Video and this was just as cool. And yeah the cat is definetly employee of every month.
Awesome video! I love it! But, about the 2511 thing; the clue was 'Time will tell'. If you look at the four clocks on the wall, the first one has a hand that points at 2. The second has one pointing at 5. And the last two both have hands point at 1.
you are absolutely underrated my man, congrats!
What you have done is absolutely incredible. I've never played Stray but i was so drawn to your video every second from start to finish. Bravo🎉.
Amazing Research, Cut, narration and content! Underrated af!!
SD! incredible video. love all the attention to detail - literally. felt like i was along on a detective case. i gotta say im team: this is just far af in the future lmao
This is absolutely incredible. To dive in and expand upon the game lore like that is just amazing. I bet even the developers would scratch their heads at the question you posed, as well as be super impressed by the conclusion and logic it took to arrive at said conclusion.
It has been a year since i played this and this and the other video is what keeps popping up in my mind. Thank you for making an effort for us explaining these stuff
Never subbed faster! amazing research truly shows how much love you put into it
Thanks for the video
This is the kind of Stray content I'm dying for, I love your video so much.
sdk, I greatly appreciate the time and effort you've put in these videos. The edits are absolutely amazing and immersive. Thank you
wow, this is the most realistic timeline I've ever seen, good job
I really enjoyed this analysis. Nice work! My only quibble would be that it says "2544875556 days." It specifies the units as days, not seconds. So the companions have been sentient for 6.8 million years. However, I much prefer the conclusion you came to. Somehow, it seems far more bleak to think that humans have been gone for nearly 6.8 million years.
Thanks! Team Moon over here. This and "Stray's true ending" are the perfect compliment after finishing this game! Excelent videos!
This is a delightful video! A lot of work obviously went into it and I really enjoyed it. Good work to you and everyone who contributed!
Wow, I am a huge fan of stray and I am grateful for every new piece of information. Thank you so much for all of your reasearch.
Wow 🤩 this is incredible detective work and so entertaining! Great job 👏
This is incredible. You just got a new subscriber. The video and editing are superb, just perfect, with exquisite attention to detail and lots of great content. I saw this and your other video about Stray's tue ending and they are both really, really awesome, informative, and I'm beginning to lack words for how much I loved them.
On a side note, I think you should warn there are lots of story spoilers before beginning the video. The video about "Stray's true ending" is really obvious that it contains spoilers (the entire video is about the story's ending, right from the title), so I think it doesn't need warnings, but this one isn't obvious and should probably include spoiler disclaimers.
wow this is incredibly detailed , im surprised all these details in the game actually match up with each other wow mindblowing
This time a LOT of time, I wish I had it, but I love this video. Thank you for making it.
I love this!!!!Keep up the great work👍
Dude you're a genius. Some big brain power must be there!
Loved the video
Love your analysis!
I had a slightly different theory. TLDR: oct. 12 was when everyone uploaded their minds to escape the bacteria that would become the zurks.
It pretty obvious B12 wasn’t the only one to upload his mind. We see pods like the one in his office in other parts of the city. Here’s my theory: October wasn’t the CURRENT date, but the date of the mass upload (for lack of a better phrase). Due to the negligence of neco corp, the zurks began to infect humans, and they began to die. But at this point it was only a bacterial infection; they hadn’t become crawling boogers yet. So it was strongly encouraged/mandated by the police state that everyone upload themselves via this new experimental technology into companion bots. So on October 11, everyone did. And it didn’t work for everyone. Colanders became obsolete after the upload, because now you had a perfect internal calendar, so everyone stopped using them. As robots, they couldn’t procreate, but they still wanted to have children, so people reverse-engineered their programming to create sons and daughters, and wrote about the new science. With the passage of time, people forgot about how they got here, where they came from, and new generations forgot about the truth of their heritage. When the zurks evolved and the second wave of the plague came, huge portions of the city and its inhabitants were lost, and with it much knowledge. The very concept of the outside was questioned. Meanwhile the police drones continued to operate on their earliest mandates: contain the city. But no one could remember why anymore: they were just operating on their programming. And then a little cat changed everything
WAIT.
B in hexadecimal is 10.
10-12.
October 12th.
I like this one a lot. It kinda explains why they emulate humans so much but still don't exactly know what any of them looked like
@@TiredofGaming thx 🙏
Notice that the clocks have 16 hours. In the future, the earths rotation will slow to make the day 25 hours. How far in the future is this?
You're a genius, you dug deep on this and it all adds up. I hope you get some response from the writers at some point.
Stray needs a sequel where she / he goes back and gets B-12 where B-12 can be repaired / restored!! We need to see the machines leave their underground bunker homes but we also need to see if any people / humans did survive!! I believe the year is the later one because the machines probably set the TV Stations to be on a loop from old footage to make them feel more connected to the world but to also remind them to keep some hope that they are indeed not alone or abandoned!!
I'm gonna say I'll be on both teams. Because, within the walled city, time worked completely different there! Some of the robots lost track of time. So inside the city, it's Monday 11th, 2827. But when the citied opened (near the end of the game), the real-world date would be on October 11th-12th, 3127 on a Tuesday or Wednesday, since that's when the moon's phase actually occurred. We probably took a day at least to complete all of B-12's memories and go on missions before the grand reveal of the Sun.
while i was playing this for the first time, i was thinking to myself "there cant be that much lore to this game" yet here is that said lore
Ok very interesting! But what about the text on the wall in Elliot's place that says: We were programmed to be slaves, but since 2544875556 days we have a soul. Hope one day the outsiders will find the exit of this hell. Momo.... That is 6,972,261.79726 so almost 7 million years.
Also why the clocks have 16 hours is probably because the rotation of the earth has slowed down after that much time and days are now 32 hours long.
Some more insight in this would be great because I am somewhat confused 😅
if 2544875556 is read as a unix timestamp, which is a very common way time and dates are represented in computers (and robots!) it refers to the year 2050. as for the clocks, if i had to venture a guess for this world lore, they used 12/24 hour clocks before the city closed. and later, when there was no longer a natural day/night cycle, they switched to 16/32 hour cycles. you can find a few 12 hour clocks in the game, and there are signs in the city that reference 24 hour time as well as 16/32. the million year thing is a fun idea, but there's too many things seen in and out of the city that would never have survived that long without decaying away
@@sdkverse That is Brilliant!! I have not looked into Unix in decades. I was wondering about the level of decay compared to 7 million years not making sense. Thanks for this! You have earned my subscription 👍👊
@@sdkverse Yes, the theory with unix time stamp has a place to be, because if we take into account that the moon moves away from the earth by 3.8 centimeters each year, then after 7 million years it would be much smaller than at the beginning of the game. However, the only thing that keeps faith in theory of million years is the eyes of the protagonist. Cats in our world have vertical pupils because they are carnivores. In the world of the game, cats seem to have evolved so long that they have ceased to be predators and have become omnivores with a round pupil.
Unreal detail! Great video!
Another amazing video! I love the editing.
The probability that the moon was a accident is much higher than them putting a whole ass weather forecast with the wrong date into it. Also, its 1000 years in the future, its possible that the moon cicle slowly changed over time.
It makes little sense that it's october 11 now, because we see those calendars also in abandoned areas where there is nobody to rotate them. October 11 should be rather the date when something happened to all humans.
most underrated youtuber Keep it up and please make a lore vid on "one Endling: Extinction is Forever"
♥
Def team moon. And wow, this is so awesome that you put this together!
I am impressed.. your attention to detail;s and research
And then there's team, "That ain't no Unix timestamp", which puts the game MILLIONS of years into the future.
This is the best video I've seen. Just... outright
Damn, that's the best video I've seen till now. Why is the time on the clocks 16 and not 12 though? Is it because binary for 16 is "10000"? I don't think that leads to anywhere, but thank you for the video, as many people probably would say, you are underrated, that storytelling and editing and everything is on another level! Good job!
Ima be honest and say I don't agree with this year estimate. There is another video I watched that explained that the 16 hour clock is due to the day cycle increasing due to longer day cycles. Our days get longer the older the solar system gets. If anything, the clocks and some other tidbits of information prove its about 2 billions years in the future.
Edit: Also, this game has a lot of themes of evolution. Our cat in general is seen to be more intelligent and bacteria has evolved to giant eyes which again would have taken at least a billion years to evolve like that. This type of evolution would have happened over a long long time.
@@maxxsaigen5301 fyi if evolution truly works the way science declares, it might only take a couple million to evolve as you've seen the bacteria--something prone to rapid adaptation to begin with--and in Little Outsider, which is marked by his intelligence like you said. Cats are near-perfect in their composition as a regular tabby, black cat, tortie, etc. Dwarf cats and the like would never survive. They'd die or adapt. Most likely die, because breeding would be second to trying to survive, consequently ending in game over.
Regular cats, however, are perfect hunters, perfect companions. They could throw a cat from a plane and it's estimated it has a 96% chance of surviving because of its ability to land in a way that mitigates impacts from high distances. Their night vision and stellar day vision, their hunting prowess and energy management, their ability to go long stretches without water, this makes them damn near perfect indeed.
So intelligence is the only thing that would need to evolve, and it wouldn't take much. They've already proven cats understand complex emotions and physics. It's just getting them to fucking care is the hard part. 8[
@@maxxsaigen5301 Yea, but it took 1.6B years for us to go from 18hours day cycle to the 24h... That's older than grass itself and trees.
16hrs is probably a thing of walled city's... it could be theorized that it took 2+ billion years, but that is just absurd. Cats would be very different by then and the most likely scenario why the bacteria evolved so fast is because they are genetically engineered
Its just impossible for the city to exist for billions of years, naturally after several millions of years, the earths land formation changes which would devour and destroy such long standing citys... that is why humans will never find evidence if there is an intelligent life that exist on earth before humans
@@maxxsaigen5301 I guess a 16-hour clock is just a crazy design of some Companion who tried to be creative like a human. They attempt to make up their own culture, so sometimes invent weird things in the likeness of humans.
Amazing work!! Thank you!
This is amazing.
Thank you!! Glad you enjoyed it!
Oh wait, the 20s walk away end from the start thing was your video! Thank you for that, I will sub now :)
Excellent video! Good job!
bro you are so underrated i feel bad but i just know you gonna be big one day
I’m on team weather report ngl 😊
It’s so cool how the team added these little things into the game! I’m so exited for the movie.
I think I’m on team moon. The weather report is compelling but as others have mentioned theres no real reason to assume it’s current. Also, from a developer intention standpoint, its buried as an easter egg, meanwhile the moon is front and center at the start of the game.
That was the best explanation and analysis I have heard yet. Some people are insisting that it’s MILLIONS of years which is preposterous. If anyone ever saw “Time Machine”, everything should be dust with no working tech that far out, and the cats would be way more evolved than the game.
My nerd self just chooses to place this at the same time as Titanfall, because it also suggests humanity long since abandoned Earth and the fate of Walled City 99 is the fate of all who didn’t push into colonizing space. But that’s my thought for fun since I am a fan of that and Stray ;)
Seriously great video.
Community like this is every dev's dream
I think Oct 11 on the calendar is not correct because this calendar is outside the safe zoom of Robot. I think that is the last day where human lived or died during the pandemic so they could not tear off this calendar anymore. So we need to star with September.
Thank you for making your videos in HDR
whoa, you're great - subbed
I wrote the text below before watching the video, and I'm pretty happy how my theory worked so well.
I just have a problem with the day, October 11th. The same day is also showed in the dead city, where for a longer time, no one was there so it cannot match the day in the slums, unless it's been exactly a year. And even then I'm still not quite sure, clocks don't work, unless each robot has built in clock on their own, or the time is just simply distorted for the companions.
I actually think that it wasn't even that long ago before the humans went extinct. In the second scene, cats are sleeping on a piece of cardboard. They're outside. It can only be so much time, before that cardboard deteriorate.
I think the day for the robots may only last 16 hours? They're inside the walled city and cannot know how much time passes outside so I think it's not a very good bet to assume that their sense of time is perfectly alined with the outside.
Those clocks also don't work, any of them. The calendars are on October 11th only everywhere. I think the robots cannot have even a slightest idea how much time actually passes.
They're pretty much constantly waiting. Waiting but on pretty much nothing, and while waiting even for us time seems to be passing so slowly. We think it must be at least an hour, but it turns out it's barely 15 minutes. I think that's what happens with the robots. They think, it was so, so many years since they have a consciousness, but with them not even having a shadow or sun position to look up on, they seem to not have any single clue what time actually there is.
My bet is, it is much less, than we think.
robots use cardboard box too, for you to get the hard hat, you have to get inside one so a robot can take you inside the store, and at the factory you have a lot of them to hide in...
@@brunofelipe2 Yes, but the city is completely sealed, so it cannot be something from the inside, at least from after it was closed. Either it's completely from outside or it's from a time humans inside were still alive :0
Im team moon. The tv could easily be a rerun
edit: the tv is definitely a rerun You can see the open roof in one of the channels
Kudos to the developers for all of these details!!
Team Moon FTW - computer systems can have flaws, calendar systems can be reset, TV programmes can be replayed, but the orbit of the Moon and Earth around the sun is really unlikely to have been changed. Brilliant video - thank you.
Impressive research
great job! nice info
I wish I could live on the slums or midtown... so cozy, along with this cyberpunk feelings
Languages are so complex. Now I don’t want to assume that the language is off, but it seems a little more straightforward to judge the date from the moon
You sir, are hereby Goat'd 🐐
u r underrated!
Absolutely fire video
I'm team moon, Its unlikely the weather report is of CURRENT date, rather an old recovering embedded within the TV channels.
Makes more sense with that point to be October 11th 3127
I take comfort from the fact that, whatever mess humans make of the planet, cats will still be around long after we're gone.
What a video! Youre awesome!😻😸
I honestly think that the weather report happened years ago and the TV was outdated that, it was set to 2827, and then the events of Stray take place in 3127.
Kudos! The only remaining thing to do is ask the developers for their opinion.
Criminally underated video
I just beat the game today and afterwards I’m finding all these theories and secrets and I honestly feel like the actual gameplay is so minuscule compared to the all the close detail knowledge that can and has to be found. Now I must go back and replay all the big chapters and really pay attention to small things cause now I really want to know exact answers to questions and know all the gritty details. I must now thank you and hate you for setting me on this path lol. Time for another detailed play through and hopefully find a clue that no one has discovered yet.
Moon because the weather report probably isn't accurately dated because who would be doing a weather report in a giant dome?
Great videos, keep it up!
Moon could definitely be an oversight, _especially_ since it's a full moon.
I am Team moon. not to discredit the weather report entirely, but as humans we do often predict weather things up to a week or more in advance. the moon, however - is solid science that matches the level of detail I'd expect from this world.
Stray is based on the dystopian kowloon city which had a popular name called the walled city
Here's my thing, it would be the robots never saw what it looks like outside so 3127 would be the answer due to the the sky in the city is closed off to them for the rest of time. but that is my theory. love you video
Seeing all the Colanders set to October 11th (my Birthday), made the game even more special :D
great video!
Another clue to the year may be in the Zodiac. The dates October 11, 2827 and October 11, 3127 fall in the Chinese years of the Rabbit which.... in Vietnam, they call it the YEAR OF THE CAT (they replace the rabbit with the cat). Those two dates coincide with either the Weather report or moon phase theories!