The city, officially designated Walled City 99, is the setting of Stray. It is a cyberpunk city inhabited by robots and many Zurks. The city has a cylindrical shape of about 450 meters in diameter and is sealed by a massive roof structure.
Background
The city was originally inhabited by Humans and early models of robot Companions with basic AI. Signs indicating human-access-only areas can be found throughout the city.
The city is split into the Upper Level and the Lower Level. This physical divide led to a class based system, where humans on the lower level wished to move to the upper level, while the upper level would throw their trash down to the lower level. This class system persisted after the departure of humans, with the robots in the slums wishing to move to the upper level.
The upper and lower level are connected by an elevator (broken) and a metro line (disabled but likely working). This makes leaving the lower level impossible, unless one were to transverse the deadly sewers.
Pandemic protocol (or "Evacuation procedure" in the game files). After the extinction of humans, it was used by companions as a wall decoration too.
Aside from these two levels there is also the Control Room Area overlooking the city, located Inside the Wall. This area can only be accessed via the metro. The Control Room contains a heavy gate leading to the Outside. However, leaving to the Outside has been impossible for centuries while the city was sealed under lockdown, which closes all exits and the city roof. Heavy imprisonment was put in place for those who attempted to defy the lockdown restrictions.
According to Momo's city drawing, the city has a cylindrical shape of about 450 meters in diameter. According to B-12's memory, the city used to have strict energy caps and no neon signs.
Name
There are multiple theories about the naming of the city:
- There are at least 98 other, similar cities, named in a similar fashion to the Fallout universe's "Vaults". This happens to be the 99th such city. This theory implies humanity likely survived in the other cities.
- The number 99 was just seen as lucky, and has no other meaning.
- The number indicates the year it was built or founded, perhaps 2099 (the Scientist's diploma was issued in Tuesday 16, 2198, and he was in the Outside, so the city was not sealed yet in 2099).
Locations in the City
Main page: Locations
Location of the City
As with the city name and the game's Timeline, there are conflicting theories about the location of the City. This information seems to have been deliberately left fairly ambiguous by BlueTwelve Studio as it has no direct impact on the gameplay.
Off-planet Theories
Supporting facts:
- 16-hour clocks.
- The outside world being unlivable, and becoming livable, perhaps through terraforming.
Contra-indications:
- While hard to make out, the moon in the intro is Earth's moon.
Asia Theories
Supporting facts:
- Asian style of some of the handwritten text.
- Asian style of some of the ingame props (the waving Maneki-neko statues, lanterns, etc).
- "Made in China" on some boxes.
- BlueTwelve Studio stated that the design of the city was inspired by the Kowloon Walled City of Hong Kong, hence the original name of the game being "HK Game".
- "Korean cicadas" (so Cryptotympana atrata and Hyalessa fuscata?) and "Elephant ear" (Colocasia plant) are in the game files. Both korean cicadas and eleplant ears are found in Asia.
Greenland/Near-Africa Theories
Supporting facts:
- Shapes and colors of landmasses in the stylized "Welcome to Walled City 99" ingame graphic, which shows the location of the city on a stylized globe.
France Theories
Supporting facts:
- French writing at various points in the game, both as handwritten text, and as text encoded in the Companions' Alphabets.
- French-style mailboxes.
- BlueTwelve Studio is based in France.
- Some characters have French names.
- "Made in France" on some boxes.
USA Theories
Supporting facts:
- American style speech for some words (in English localization).
- Most of the writing in-game, including that in the Companions' alphabet, is English.
- Signs on payphones explicitly state that they accept US coin only, and that you can call "anywhere else in the US". This is likely to be a bought asset, however, and they might not have noticed that writing. The credits note "SALE Pay Phone by rvh, Sticker texture removal from original", however, this sticker removal seems not to have occurred.
- American-style railroad crossing signs with droid text. The droid text means that this cannot be a bought asset.
- A monarch butterfly in the intro indicates that it it likely within North America somewhere.
- Some characters use American slang ("howdy", etc).
Contra-indications:
- Some words use commonwealth spelling.
- Sometimes butterflies can migrate far away. wp:Monarch butterfly migration.
Mexico Theories
Supporting facts:
- The calendars ingame show the date October 11. Monarch butterflies migrate, and at this time of year would be in the Mexican states of Mexico and Michoacan.
Contra-indications:
- There are no signs of Mexican writing or culture in the game, though there are a couple of Mexican-sounding names.
Other sources of evidence
The moon texture is oriented with lunar north at the top, but is shown in-game rotated 13 to 15 degrees counterclockwise. This might just be a result of the skybox's orientation, or might be a deliberate effect. Combined with nailing down the date, this might give an approximate latitude.
Gallery
