Warrior Cats: Clans of the Forest turn-based combat explained

Bamtang Games creative director Adam Johnston told IGN why Warrior Cats: Clans of the Forest ended up turn-based: combat in the books "isn't just cats slashing wildly at each other. It's about stealth, positioning, and working as a team." The result swaps spells for stances, and it's the one part GamingTrend's otherwise negative review singled out as a triumph.

What kind of game is Warrior Cats: Clans of the Forest?

Warrior Cats: Clans of the Forest is a single-player turn-based RPG in which you create your own cat, join ThunderClan, RiverClan, ShadowClan or WindClan, and play that Clan's story campaign; it launched on October 23, 2026 (our Warrior Cats: Clans of the Forest page has it per platform). Trailmark's announcement press release calls it "an all-new turn-based RPG" and promises four full stories, one per Clan, with original characters alongside cats from the books.

The Steam page lists three modes. Prophecy Mode holds the four stories, Defender Mode tests how long you last against the game's fiercest enemies in a single run, and Skirmish Mode lets you battle other players online asynchronously. Outside fights you hunt prey, forage materials, craft items for your den, climb trees, track scents and solve environmental puzzles across six locations: the four Clan territories, the Moonpool and the Island. Steam also says characters, quests and stories are procedurally generated.

You always play a warrior. Johnston told IGN the team "anchored the player's path in the warrior ranks", so Medicine Cat isn't a playable role, and that your Clan, level and training shape your base stats while your choices decide which moves you learn. Violence stays stylised: cats pick up visual scars, which can be switched off in the settings, and the Steam listing carries an ESRB E10+ rating for Fantasy Violence and PEGI 7.

Your cat comes out of the cat creator: Steam promises "millions of possible customization combinations", and Trailmark lists fur patterns, colours, tails, whiskers, ears, eyes and markings.

How does the turn-based combat work?

Battles are turn-based fights of up to three cats per side, and every move you pick also changes your cat's stance, so each move choice is a stance choice too. Steam confirms the 3 vs 3 cap and "75 unique combat moves to discover and unlock". Johnston explained the stance idea to IGN: "Designing RPG combat for cats meant ditching standard spells. Instead, depth comes from shifting combat Stances. Every move you make alters your stance mid-fight, turning battles into a tactical game of reading your opponent and predicting their next move before they strike."

The game's stance descriptions, as transcribed on the Warriors Wiki, list five stances. The first three form a rock-paper-scissors loop; the other two trade safety for damage.

Moves cost stamina (the wiki's example, Sand Throw, costs 20 and blinds its target), and the wiki lists five status effects. Blinded makes your attacks much less likely to land, Exhausted slows you by 50% until you use Rest, Furious takes move choice out of your hands, Poisoned costs 10% health at the end of every round, and Stressed doubles the stamina every attack uses. Some fights end with a random choice to spare the beaten enemy for 20% more EXP or finish it for double fresh-kill. That mercy option looks like the one the Honorable Cat achievement asks for ("Forgive 3 enemies after being defeated"), though Steam's wording doesn't spell it out. The wiki page is still being written, so its move lists are incomplete.

Trailmark's press release adds the rest of the official picture: you "use timing, tactics, and specialized Clan moves", build your move set, exploit enemy weaknesses and "unleash powerful ancestor attacks granted by StarClan". The Steam achievement list names two of the move groups and their sizes, with 20 Universal Moves and 15 Ancestral moves, and another asks you to unlock 35 combat moves. Herbs are your healing: one achievement asks you to apply five of them to heal your cat, another to win five fights without using any.

Reviewers fill in how the stances play. GamingTrend's Anthony Pelone, who reviewed on Switch 2, called the "stance-based rock-paper-scissors model" the game's "one triumph": "defensive positions will buffer any direct assaults, but trick stance will circumnavigate past your guard and often inflict status effects." He also noted that your party members join "at the whims of the story, not from personal choice." Screen Rant's Austin King compared the system to Monster Hunter Stories, writing that you can change your attack type based on your opponent "but they can change theirs as well", and that each battle pays out EXP and spoils.

What enemies and battle moves are there?

You fight prey, predators and other cats: Steam lists mice, squirrels, badgers, "vicious foxes", "imposing Dobermanns" and rival Clan cats, and Trailmark's release adds bosses. The achievement list counts 14 bosses in total.

Two more mechanics are confirmed only through achievement descriptions: you can pounce on enemies with a sneak attack, and you can "Instantly KO" animals. Defender Mode strings fights together, with an achievement for winning 20 of them, and Skirmish is where you battle other players asynchronously.

How much does Warrior Cats: Clans of the Forest cost?

The standard edition costs $29.99 on every US store we checked: Steam, the PlayStation Store, the Microsoft Store and the Nintendo eShop. The Feral Edition adds the Prophecy Pack and costs $39.99 on PlayStation and Nintendo. On Steam it's a bundle priced at $39.58, a 12% bundle discount on the $44.98 the two items cost separately, and the Prophecy Pack alone is $14.99. It's cosmetic: 8 accessories for the cat creator, 12 wearable accessories, a cel-shaded character skin, and four poses and four effects for photo mode.

On PC, Steam lists a GTX 1060 (6GB) or RX 580 with 8 GB of RAM as the minimum and an RTX 3070 or RX 6800 XT with 16 GB as recommended, with 4 GB of storage either way. Steam rates it Verified on Steam Deck. Nintendo lists a 1.4 GB download on Switch and Switch 2. All five versions launched on the same day, October 23, among the October 2026 releases.

What do reviews say about Warrior Cats: Clans of the Forest?

Reviews are mixed: OpenCritic shows an average of 71 from 11 critics, with 36% recommending it and a "Fair" rating, and Steam user reviews sit at Mixed, 48% positive of 1,563. The PlayStation Store shows 4.02 stars from 166 ratings. Screen Rant gave it 7/10 and called turn-based combat and exploration "both highlights", while GamingTrend rated it "Below Average" over typos, glitches and "copy-paste campaigns", even while praising the stances.

Controls were the launch-week complaint. Trailmark posted on launch day that it was investigating control concerns, then on October 26 released Patch 1.1 on Steam with mouse controls for the camera, bug fixes and quality-of-life changes, and said the next patch is already in the works.

How many achievements does Warrior Cats: Clans of the Forest have?

Warrior Cats: Clans of the Forest has 27 Steam achievements, none of them hidden. The rarest as of November 2, 2026 are Ancestral Wisdom (unlock 15 Ancestral moves, 0.3% of Steam players) and King of the Forest (defeat 14 bosses, 0.6%), per Steam's global achievement stats. Four of them ask you to finish each Clan's Saga, so a full list means playing all four campaigns. On PS5 there are 28 trophies, the same 27 plus a Platinum, according to Exophase. The Microsoft Store listing flags Xbox achievement support but gives no number.

What we don't know yet

• The Xbox achievement count: the Microsoft Store listing flags achievements but gives no number.
• What the next patch contains or when it arrives: Trailmark has only said it is being worked on.
• Whether more paid content is planned. Johnston told IGN before launch that the team was "focused on the launch of the game".

Sources

• Trailmark: announcement
• Steam: Clans of the Forest
• Trailmark: launch trailer
• OpenCritic: Clans of the Forest
• IGN: Bamtang interview
• Warriors Wiki: combat