Fans of Erin Hunter's Warriors books are getting four brand-new Clan stories next week, and this time they are meant to be played instead of read. Warrior Cats: Clans of the Forest, a turn-based RPG set in the Lake Territories, launches on October 23rd, and every one of its four storylines was written exclusively for the game by the author behind the series. Trailmark Games is publishing the game with rights holder Coolabi Group, and Bamtang Games is developing it for PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, and Nintendo Switch 2.
Trailmark shared the release date back in September (September 1st) alongside a new trailer. In it, a Clan leader asks an apprentice at their warrior ceremony whether they promise to protect their Clan even at the cost of their life. Check it out below:
Four Clans, Four Original Stories
The heart of the game is Prophecy Mode, which holds the four new stories about the trials of Clan life. Before the journey begins, players choose whether their cat belongs to the courageous ThunderClan, the graceful RiverClan, the cunning ShadowClan, or the swift WindClan. Each Clan gets its own campaign shaped by its culture, conflicts, and traditions, with its own prophecies, rivalries, and characters. Trailmark describes them as untold stories from the world of the books, so readers will be seeing the forest through four different sets of eyes.
Prophecies and omens play a big part, just like they do in the novels. Every choice and every relationship your cat forms helps shape the adventure as you work to "uncover the mysteries of StarClan itself," as the official description puts it. Nine cats from the books appear in the game, along with an original cast of mentors, allies, and rivals created for its story.
Familiar Places From The Books
The game is set in the Lake Territories that readers first explored in the second arc of the series. Six locations come straight from the books: ThunderClan's dense forest, RiverClan's marshlands, ShadowClan's dark pine swamps, WindClan's open moors, the Moonpool, and the Island where the Clans hold their Gatherings. Trailmark marked 100,000 Steam wishlists in September by sharing a look at the island map and the territories around it.
Players also get to live out the everyday side of Clan life that the books spend so much time on. Your cat can hunt birds, rabbits, and squirrels, track scents, climb trees, and gather materials to craft bedding and scratching posts for its den. Friends can visit each other's camps online and gift each other resources.
How The Game Plays
Every story begins with the cat creator, where players can pick fur patterns, colors, tails, whiskers, ears, eyes, and markings. Combat is turn-based, with battles of up to three cats on each side, 75 moves to unlock, and ancestor attacks granted by StarClan. Rival Clan warriors are not the only threat, since badgers, foxes, and Dobermanns are also out in the territories. Outside of Prophecy Mode, Defender Mode tests how long you can survive against the game's toughest enemies, and Skirmish Mode lets you take on other players online.
Here is the post where Trailmark confirmed the date and opened pre-orders:
The Standard Edition costs $29.99. The $39.99 Feral Edition adds the Prophecy Pack with extra cat creator elements, 12 wearable accessories, a cel-shaded skin, and new photo mode poses and effects. Digital pre-orders also come with the Purrfect Look Pack for the cat creator.
A Big Year For Warriors
Warriors began in 2003, when HarperCollins published Into the Wild. Erin Hunter is the pen name used by the team of writers behind the series, which was created by Working Partners, a Coolabi Group company. More than two decades later, the books have sold over 90 million copies in 38 languages and spent years on the New York Times bestseller list. The saga is still going strong, too. Guiding Light, the fourth book in the current Changing Skies arc and the first Warriors novel written by Rosie Best, came out earlier this month (October 6th). It follows Tawnypelt as she leads a quest to SkyClan's old gorge, hoping the Whispering Cave can restore the Clans' lost connection to StarClan.
The series is also heading to the screen. Coolabi and Tencent Video greenlit the first official animated Warrior Cats series back in June, with A.C. Bradley (What If...?, Trollhunters: Tales of Arcadia) as showrunner and Rodrigo Blaas directing. It will adapt the first arc, The Prophecies Begin, and is set to premiere in 2028 on Tencent Video platforms in China and Southeast Asia.
Would you rather read Erin Hunter's next Clan story in a new book, or play through it yourself in Clans of the Forest?
Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.