Stray has been the breakout game of the summer, despite not featuring a single space marine, decapitation or battle pass. In terms of innovative design there's enough in Stray to inspire, and that's despite only being able to play as an orange cat… but that's changing.
Despite being a visual tour de force developer BlueTwelve cut one corner – you can't customise your kitty. This is at odds with the trend in game design and indeed the push for NFT games that offer players the chance to tailor their experience. This is, of course, until now. PC games are modding Stray to enable you to play as a variety of cats – sorry PS5 owners, you're not invited.
Our pick of the player-made litter is the Garfield skin from Chris Rubino, and hosted on Nexus Mods, that enables you to parade through the game's vibrant robot world as a sour-faced puss. It may not be the Garfield, but it's very close. Other mods include the option to play as black, white and striped cats.
Mods have managed to improve on one of the best games of the year – you can play as Garfield (Image credit: Chris Rubino)
This isn't the first time mods have toyed with a game, we've previously loved the chaos of Elden Ring's mod that saw Homer Simpson battle Shrek and My Little Pony. Hardware has been revamped too, with one creative artist making a PS5 from wood before crafting the world's thinnest PlayStation 5.
Modding is a great way to express your digital art skills and game development prowess. Many pro game designers began as modders and many successful games were built from modded content, including Undertale and Killing Floor. If you want to get started yourself take a look at our guides to the best laptops for 3D modelling and the best laptops for game development.
Ian Dean is Editor, Digital Arts & 3D at Creativebloq, and the former editor of many leading magazines. These titles included ImagineFX, 3D World and leading video game title Official PlayStation Magazine. In his early career he wrote for music and film magazines including Uncut and SFX. Ian launched Xbox magazine X360 and edited PlayStation World. For Creative Bloq, Ian combines his experiences to bring the latest news on AI, digital art and video game art and tech, and more to Creative Bloq, and in his spare time he doodles in Procreate, ArtRage, and Rebelle while finding time to play Xbox and PS5. He's also a keen Cricut user and laser cutter fan, and is currently crafting on Glowforge and xTools M1.
