Animal instincts

Games like Stray: 10 more animal adventures to play ASAP

Because humans are boring.

by Robin Bea
Updated: 
Originally Published: 
Mooneye Studio

BlueTwelve Studio

BlueTwelve Studio’s Stray is out in the wild, letting you live the glorious life of a cat. If you want even more ways to act like an animal (and who wouldn’t?), these games scratch that itch.

Mooneye Publishing

Here are 10 more great games starring animals you need to check out

10. Catlateral Damage

Aside from their cute little faces and toe beans, the one thing that defines cats most is chaos. Catlateral Damage is all about sweeping everything you can get your paws on onto the floor where it belongs.

Manekoware
9. Tokyo Jungle

In Tokyo Jungle, humans have disappeared from the city, leaving wild animals to battle for dominance in the streets. The bloody brawler has a story and multiplayer modes with 80 different animals to play.

Japan Studio
8. Ecco the Dolphin

Ecco the Dolphin starts with a cute dolphin echolocating through the ocean and takes a surprisingly horrific turn toward the end. Even if you never reach the terrifying later stages, spending a few hours doing undersea stunts is still a great time.

Sega
7. Maneater

OK, enough with the cuddly animals. Maneater is a game with more teeth — rows of them, in fact. Playing as a shark, your goal is to chow down on unwary humans (which scientists want to remind you is totally not how sharks work).

Tripwire Interactive
6. Seasons After Fall

Seasons After Fall is a great puzzle platformer heavily inspired by Ori and the Blind Forest. Playing as a fox, you have the ability to change seasons at will to solve puzzles and navigate an enchanted forest.

Swing Swing Submarine
5. KeyWe

KeyWe is a stylish co-op puzzle game starring two kiwi bird letter carriers. Players will type messages, launch packages, and protect their cargo at all costs in solo and multiplayer modes.

Stonewheat & Sons
4. Ape Out

If you had to write a soundtrack for a wild animal causing carnage, jazz might be the last genre you tried. Somehow, Ape Out combines the two, putting you in control of a gorilla smashing up an office building with a dynamic jazz soundtrack that reacts to your path of destruction.

Devolver Digital
3. Lost Ember

Playing as one animal is cool, but what about playing as a bunch of them? Lost Ember puts you in the paws of a wolf with the ability to take the form of other critters, from gophers to fish to birds, while exploring gorgeous environments.

Mooneye Publishing
2. Shelter

Shelter is unique in letting you feel the precarity of animals in the wild. As a mother badger (or lynx in the sequel), you have to protect your cubs from predators and teach them to survive.

Might and Delight
1. Untitled Goose Game

Untitled Goose Game lets you do what geese do best — act like an absolute asshole. As you cause problems on purpose, you’ll work through a to-do list, turning your rampage into clever puzzles.

House House