No sooner have we placed Eggy down for a rest, we’re back to virtual nurturing again; this time in the form of Stay: Forever Home. Windup Minds is the latest venture into this adorable genre, putting you in charge of the energetic Ember. But can the game deliver a unique take on this growing category? As 131XR finds in its latest review, Stay: Forever Home certainly can.
What is Stay: Forever Home?
A mixed reality experience for Meta Quest 3 & 3S, Stay: Forever Home revolves around your four-legged friend, Ember. A sort of dog/wolf type creature, Ember will run around your home whilst it fills with other virtual objects – plants and such like. Pet and feed Ember as much as you like, as your new digital companion showcases how good Meta Quest’s mixed reality can be.
Where Stay: Forever Home turns things up a notch with its virtual world, the Otherlands. Whilst Eggy allows your pet dragon to fly around a virtual world you can only view through a window, Stay: Forever Home allows you to step inside, providing a whole new world to explore.
Stay: Forever Home Review
As 131XR’s review finds, this mixture of MR and VR is what sets Stay: Forever Home apart from others of this ilk. A virtual garden of sorts, here you can find all sorts of different activities in which to engage, Ember. Explore and collect items to trade for other useful items, things like food or a new collar. Like any garden, you’ll need to maintain it, clearing away vines and other plant life. You’ll also encounter other creatures, these tend to be naughty cat-like animals that’ll steal food, and Ember will chase.
What this all means is that rather than a traditional pet simulator, where you might have only 10-15 minutes of gameplay before having to stop, Stay: Forever Home keeps you involved for a lot longer.
It’s why 131XR’s review of Stay: Forever Home put it at the top of every pet simulator list.
What next for Ember?
As 131XR’s review notes, it sees plenty of potential in Stay: Forever Home going forward. Additions to the MR and VR aspects of the game could easily expand the gameplay in numerous ways. Thankfully, Windup Minds has already detailed some of these plans.
To start with, the team plans on expanding support to Meta Quest 2 in the future, opening Stay: Forever Home to a much wider player base. New voice localisation for Korean, Japanese, and Italian is coming, and so too is improved Mossling interactions, with new tools like smoke bombs able to keep them at bay.
Lastly, and most important of all, poop is coming. That’s right, you can’t have a virtual pet and not have to clean up after it, so there’s that to look forward to.
Have you tried Stay: Forever Home yet? What did you think of 131XR’s assessment? Let us know in the comments!
