If you've been waiting to play Stray on Xbox then your patience has finally been rewarded, as the PlayStation exclusivity period has expired and we now have an official release of the cute cat adventure on Xbox Series X/S and Xbox One. This means it's time to get out there and live your best (nine) lives, as you explore the post-apocalyptic ruins and help your robot Companions to escape to the surface. You'll also need to take care of the Zurks and Sentinels, who are intent on hunting down your new cybernetic pals and turning them into scrap.
It's a good get for Microsoft, even a while down the line, as Stray was a bit of a breakout hit. In our Stray review we said it was a "phenomenal, if compact, feline adventure" and awarded it 4.5 out of 5 stars. It's been a popular game all around, and things like Stray mods saw it catch a lot of attention on social media in the period following its original launch. Now there's an official Stray Xbox release, here's everything we know about it.
Is Stray coming to Game Pass on Xbox?
Following an extremely cute and playful reveal trailer that was shown as part of the Annapurna Interactive Showcase 2023, Stray was released for Xbox on August 10, 2023, hitting both Xbox Series X/S and Xbox One. When it originally launched for PlayStation on July 19, 2022, it was described as a "console exclusive for a limited time" in press materials, so we were expecting that exclusivity period to potentially expire after a year. A previously leaked ESRB rating for Stray on Xbox One and Xbox Series confirmed our suspicions, and now we have an actual release to make everything official.
As for a Stray Xbox Game Pass release, that's a little harder to predict. Annapurna will have already taken a payment from Sony for the PlayStation exclusivity and PS Plus Extra inclusion so it's hard to tell if they would, or even could, also take another one from Xbox to put it on Game Pass. And would Microsoft be willing to pay up for a second hand release? Only time will tell there, but as things stand there have been no plans announced for adding Stray to Game Pass. The PlayStation and PC releases have done well, as everyone seems to love the cat game, so we'll have to wait and see what happens next.
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