You can now play Stray in splitscreen multiplayer

A new splitscreen multiplayer mod for recently released adventure game Stray lets you buddy up with a feline friend.

After working out how to swap Stray’s silent protagonist for their own pets, modders have found yet another way of adding even more cats to the game. Modder KangieDanie has released a splitscreen mod (opens in new tab) for the hit platformer, letting you and your buddies play simultaneously as your own tabbies. 

Being a mod, it only works on PC, so if you’re playing Stray on PS5 or PS4, you unfortunately won’t be able to play with a cat chum. But on the plus side, console gamers can play Stray for free, so that’s something. 

The mod only supports local co-op for now, but KangieDanie says (opens in new tab) they know another modder is looking into creating an online co-op mod down the line.

Room for more

You can play using the same keyboard, or can plug in another controller to waltz down the city streets side by side. Just how many co-op players can be added using the mod isn’t clear, however, and even KangieDanie isn’t sure, as they ran out of controllers to test with. Current screenshots show up to three players in the game together.

The mod is still in early development, and KangieDanie has highlighted a fair few bugs you can expect to run into. At the moment, only Player 1 can see the game’s HUD, it may crash during level transitions, and you might see a handful of visual glitches while playing. All standard teething problems for a new mod.

Playing in co-op actually looks fairly easy, though. Once the mod’s installed, head to the main menu and tap F9 on your keyboard to add a secondary player. It’s currently unclear whether you’re able to remove players after adding them, though, so don’t get carried away.

To install the mod, you’ll need to download its main file and accompanying splitscreen config, as well as the Unreal Engine Mod Loader. Follow these instructions as listed in the mod’s description to get it all up and running:

• Download the main mod and splitscreen config files from the Nexus Mods page
• Drag the SplitScreenRequiredConfig_P.pak file into the ‘Paks’ folder in Stray’s file directory
• Create a new folder called ‘LogicMods’ in the existing ‘Paks’ folder
• Drag the SplitScreenMod.pak file into that new folder
• Download the latest UnrealModLoader (opens in new tab) and extract the zipped file anywhere on your PC
• Launch UnrealModLoader.exe
• Launch Stray