Stray Graffiti Changes Everything Players Thought About The Future
"Stray," the critically acclaimed game where players explore and solve puzzles as a cat, might take gamers much further in the future than fans initially realized. "Stray" takes place in the future, where robots live in a cyberpunk city and humans have been dead for a long time. While just about everything about the setting of "Stray" suggests it takes place in the future, fans believe that it might take place in the far future, based on some of the in-game text. While fans have been enjoying cracking and translating the in-game language of "Stray," one wall has some horrifying information.
Found by Reddit user Mimo_Shikufu, one piece of text in-game suggests that humans have been dead for almost 7 million years. The text reads "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." Mimo_Shikufu's math concludes that the number of years that have passed is 6,972,261.79726, or just about 7 million years. That would place "Stray" in the far-flung future, taking place well after most sci-fi stories. Of course, as a few other fans have pointed out, the situation in "Stray" might be more complicated.
Fans aren't sure how the robots in Stray measure time
Reddit user squiddycent commented on the post, stating that a few other people had done this math as well, but it doesn't account for the possibility of the robots having a different measurement of time. Mimo_Shikufu countered, stating it would make sense for the robots to use the same measurement of time as humans, since humans originally programmed them. Saeporian blew the conversation wide open, by pointing out that during a puzzle in the game there is a clock which had 16 hours on it, instead of 12.
This revelation provides a few possibilities. If the 16 hour clock works the same as a 12 hour clock, the days would be 32 hours long and "Stray" would take place even farther into the future. If the 16 hour clock covers the entire day, the 7 million years would be cut almost in half. That would still put "Stray" in the far future, just short a few million years of the initial math. Another user suggested that the 16 hours only included waking hours and maybe the 8 hours of rest the robots might take is just not on the clock. Regardless, it seems like the cute cat game that even gamers' pets seem to enjoy, might take place much further in the future than people think.