Olive is an older woman living by herself. She decides to adopt a cat in order to have some company in her seemingly final days (her health isn’t great). Arriving at the shelter, you help her decide which of the cats to adopt. After choosing one (but oddly not being able to name it yourself), the new family heads home, and the cat will need to learn to adapt. You will be in control of the cat, being mischievous and at first reluctant. The game combines a small dose of world exploration but heavily relies on the story in order to fill in time. You will be exploring, running away, and even at times fighting away other animals. These are all done with quick time events.

Here’s what I liked:

Some Great Sequences — My favorite parts are the fixed camera angle sections. One is walking on a fence and navigating to the right. Another is a chase sequence where you must move left and right to avoid obstacles. There’s a kind of fun sneaking stealth section where you have to avoid dogs at night to get some food as well. Several sections involve just doing cat things, like knocking over things and shredding toilet paper. Kind of what you’d expect, being the kind of animal you are. This is also where the game looked the best, maybe mainly because it was at night. There seemed to be more detail, but that could just be my preference versus a bright scene. I wish there had been more of these areas, as they felt more exciting. And if you look at the image below, the art is really great, specifically these side views.

Life of a Cat — I’ve always enjoyed games where you get to control an animal. Roaming around with a different perspective, usually that being closer to the ground. There’s something inspiring about being in an even bigger world than we live in, even if it’s just by a little bit. You can explore the small neighborhood at your leisure, though there really isn’t much to do. The parts that were fun while roaming the house alone were scratching up toilet paper, knocking things off shelves, and running around with paint on your paws. Like I said previously, there are some great sequences, and though I wouldn’t say wandering around the house or neighborhood was also great, they were appropriate.

Here’s what I didn’t like:

Farfetched Story — While I don’t feel like what I’m about to say is really much of a spoiler, I will go into a little detail of things that happen that may or may not be something you’d want to read before playing. So I guess this is my warning not to read this section if you want to experience everything. There are plenty of games that center around tragedy or sorrow as a main emotion to feel. The adoption of a pet to help keep an older woman company started off well, but once she forgets she had another cat beforehand that returns (hence the game’s name), the cat you play is suddenly thrown out of the picture. The daughter of Olive starts off as a caring woman trying to do what’s best for her mother. But suddenly she’s evil and doesn’t want her mother to own a cat. Yet that’s what was keeping the woman happy to begin with. Also, it’s cruel to throw out an animal you just adopted. I’m beyond baffled by the depiction of almost every human being absolute garbage. I don’t know what exactly the writers were trying to do. That’s why I don’t like the story, it seems like they just focused on everything negative to try to force an emotional response from the player, even giving a warning at the start that the topics might be unsettling for some. It wasn’t unsettling, it was just overboard. You draw the conclusion that the daughter threw out the original cat as well, until it finally found its way back. Then Olive just “forgets” she just adopted one. Then suddenly remembers and drops it off in a field in the middle of nowhere, saying she can’t take care of two animals. This doesn’t make sense based on her character. Any reasonable, caring person would return it to the shelter or find someone they know to take it in. They even go so far as to paint. the original cat that lived at the house as a villain. At the end of the game, it reminds you of the paperwork she signed, promising to give the animal a loving home. Yeah, we get it, people in general are terrible.

Dream Sequences — Sometimes, when the cat falls asleep, you play a dream sequence, usually involving a wild cat instead of the house pet. It’s not at all fun and looks pretty terrible compared to the other parts of the game. You chase giant rabbits and jump on oversized plates. It seemed like a lot of filler to make the game longer. It didn’t add to the story much, maybe one dream sequence would have been okay, but you have to revisit it a few times. I never looked forward to these

Wrap-up

Earlier this month, my cat passed away. Like Olive, I also live alone, and my cat was my companion for the last ten years. It completely broke my heart. I thought maybe this game would help me grieve, remembering the annoying things my cat did that I now miss more than anything. And while the game is cute and has some fun areas, the overall story just made me feel uneasy. The aim to make the story sad was completely pushed onto the player without choice. The writing went a bit overboard with it, trying to make the player feel sad, at the cost of being over-dramatic. Too many characters were absolutely too cruel to be believable. I went from feeling sorry for Olive to absolutely hating her. Decisions just didn’t make sense when put into the real world, which is what this game was trying to demonstrate. As far as the actual gameplay goes, it had a few good moments. Some were entertaining, while other times it felt a little bit underwhelming. Running around in the house, in particular, was poorly designed, having a lot of breaks in the walls as you turned the camera. It was an okay experience with some enjoyment to be had, but with a story that had some potential but ended up being off-putting.

Score: Reader’s Choice

Copycat was published by Nuuvem/Neverland Entertainment and developed by Spoonful of Wonder on Xbox One. It was released on May 29 2025, for $14.99. A copy was provided for review