A recent mod for BlueTwelve Studio’s debut title Stray replaces the vocal cat’s adorable meow with the highly memed “Jason!” yell from Heavy Rain.
The replacement lines come from a scene in Quantic Dream’s interactive drama action-adventure title where the main character, Ethan, loses track of his son Jason within a mall in the opening hours of the game, prompting the character to repeatedly call his son’s name over and over.
While the idea of a potential child kidnapping is frightening, the delivery along with the frequency in which “Jason!” can be shouted by the player has led to it becoming a running gag for anyone who’s played Heavy Rain.
It’s a natural (and comedic) fit for Stray, where the player can make the cat meow at any time during play with a dedicated button press. Roleplaying as the world’s most aggravating kitty certainly provides its own entertainment value, but the unintentionally hilarious nature of the Heavy Rain shout makes it even better.
The mod, whose description reads: “Replaces the user inputted meowing with a pleading call to find your lost son, you terrible father” can be downloaded here.
Stray ended up being the biggest PC launch ever for publisher Annapurna Interactive, which is an impressive feat given that it’s also published acclaimed titles such as Kentucky Route Zero, Outer Wilds, and Sayonara Wild Hearts just to name a few. The game managed to amass a whopping 62,963 concurrent players on release day, far surpassing Annapurna’s previous record of 8,021 concurrent day-one players for 2021’s Twelve Minutes.
NME gave Stray a fair three out of five stars: “Stray is a beautiful game, and a fun cat simulator with some smart ideas, but one that misses its true potential thanks to an unnecessary helping of trope-ish design, and an unwillingness to ruminate on its most intriguing characters and themes.”
In other news, the beloved 2013 indie title Papers, Please is making its way to mobile this August.