Warrior Cats: Clans of the Forest review for Nintendo Switch 2 and Switch

Warrior Cats: Clans of the Forest review for Nintendo Switch 2 and Switch

Posted on October 23, 2026 by Dawn in Reviews, Switch, Switch 2

System: Switch 2 (reviewed) / Switch
Release date:October 23, 2026
Developer: Trailmark Games
Publisher: Trailmark Games

The Warriors series (also known as Warrior Cats) was an unexpected blessing when I was growing up. It was an agonizingly long wait between the fifth and sixth Harry Potter books, so the complex internal politics and external bitter feuds of four clans of cats was a welcome distraction. As embarrassing as it is to admit now, my Clan (RiverClan) became equally as important as my Hogwarts house (Ravenclaw) during that time. Warrior Cats: Clans of the Forest would have been a dream come true for my teenage self in 2003. But despite the promise it has as a concept, it’s a Warrior Cats game in name only, and not something I’d recommend to fans or newcomers.

Clans of the Forest focuses on the original four clans from the novels: ThunderClan, RiverClan, ShadowClan, and WindClan, each with their own separate campaign to play through. All of them begin with a unique, fully voiced narrative, establishing a vague threat delivered via a prophecy from StarClan, the ancestors who watch over and protect all the Clans. Your cat (who you’ll design yourself from a satisfying, robust selection of options and get to name from a reasonably large number of presets) is now six moons old and about to begin their warrior training, and will be instrumental in ensuring the future of your Clan and ensuring that the Prophecy of your ancestors is fulfilled.

Over the years, the Warriors series has expanded in scope and complexity, as major characters have matured and then passed away, new factions such as SkyClan and the Tribe have been introduced, and events have forced the Clans to alter their warrior code quite dramatically from how it was initially presented. Clans of the Forest does not have any direct ties to characters from the books (although one or two do feature in it) and removes the worldbuilding that has been introduced since the first series of novels, taking everything back to basics. With most video game adaptations of existing media, your level of enjoyment with it will usually depend on your familiarity with the source material, and I would say that to get the most out of Warrior Cats: Clans of the Forest, you would need to have read only the first two series of novels at most.

The game fails to provide a compelling narrative to make up for the removal of most of the worldbuilding that has been established over the years after that, and it never seems to fully embrace the IP to the point that it provides an experience that feels like it was designed specifically to appeal to long-time fans. The use of the series’ lexicon feels more like an Easter egg than a core concept. Differences between the Clans are surface-level at best and largely determined by their surrounding environment more than the unfolding narrative, making each campaign feel dishearteningly bland and repetitive. It’s also disappointing how self-contained they often feel, with the external friction between the different Clans often being distilled down solely to occasional border skirmishes and one or two defections that are never really explored or even commented upon.

After that initial narrative hook, missions will focus around daily life, and even towards the end of things the stakes aren’t noticeably raised. Moments that should feel monumental, such as getting your Warrior name or driving away an incursion by cats from another Clan, lack any kind of punch when your very next mission will be to go and do border patrol again. For those unfamiliar with the series, this will be less of a problem, although the game assumes a familiarity with specific terminology that will feel alienating without at least some prior knowledge.

But there is still a nice sense of camaraderie with your fellow Clan members, who each have their own affection level that you can influence during points in conversation by selecting the most favorable response. It’s normally blindingly obvious what they want to hear, as the part of the text you should be paying attention to will be highlighted, although the rewards for increasing their affection are often some more useful items, and each cat has their own distinct personality: fellow apprentices will worry about becoming warriors, some warriors will criticize or support the leader and express their desire to be the next deputy, and the elders will comment on the general state of things. It’s unfortunate that the personality displayed in dialogue isn’t woven into the narrative, but it does help to give each Clan more of an identity.

Despite being an RPG, Clans of the Forest often feels more akin to a Warriors-themed life sim. Beginning as an apprentice, you’ll climb your way steadily up through the hierarchy of your chosen Clan over each campaign. You’ll spend your time hunting down prey for the fresh-kill pile (which actually provides a passive buff to stats that deteriorates over time, although never to the point where it becomes a problem unless you neglect it entirely), reestablishing scent markers to ward off rival Clans, and gathering materials to trade with the medicine cat for items to use in battle or cosmetics to decorate your cat and den.

So for the majority of the game, no matter which Clan you choose, you’ll be running from place to place across a quarter of the game’s sizable map (although you can cross over into other Clans’ territories, and will be required to in later missions) to collect things and battle. There isn’t much to do on the map, with enemy spawns and items appearing at fixed locations, but it arguably has more personality than the Clans themselves do, with each area feeling visually distinct and having some slightly varied enemy spawns. Neither the minimap nor the larger overworld map provides much help in the way of navigation, although pressing X will bring up a starry trail guiding you towards the next objective so getting lost during the main story at least is not a concern.

Combat in Warrior Cats is your standard turn-based affair with a weapon triangle that largely determines whether you’ll win or lose an encounter, with up to three participants on each side. New moves are learned through story progression and completing sidequests (normally fetch quests or combat challenges, although there are a couple of timed races sprinkled in there for good measure) and can be swapped out back at your camp, and as you can only equip four moves at once, making sure you’re prepared for every eventuality is quite important. Moves all have their own stamina cost, and many inflict status effects that can make battles much easier. The game is not overly challenging, although it does encourage a very specific playstyle of ganging up on a single opponent with all of your party members before moving on to the next one. Enemies will hit very hard, and the title is notably anti-grind because it takes a very long time to level up. Combat is easily the most enjoyable part of the gameplay and what you’ll spend a lot of time doing, although the lack of an option to speed up battles becomes very noticeable after a few hours.

Cats from your Clan will join and leave your party throughout the game as you undertake different story missions and sidequests, but this also lacks any real weight. Outside of picking which moves your allies use in battle, there is no other form of interaction with them, making the constant switching feel arbitrary at best. Each one comes with its own preset moves, but these can be changed to suit your purposes as well, and it’s disappointing that more wasn’t done to make them feel unique, particularly if you’ve taken the time to talk to them between missions and gotten a glimpse at their personalities.

Although the dialogue choices you’ll make won’t have much of a lasting impact in the grand scheme of things, this aspect is a little more interesting in combat, with buffs being applied depending on your choices. Choosing to cheer on your uncertain party member may grant them a temporary strength boost, and being humble in victory will grant you an experience point bonus. At times, the outcome may even be permanent: at the end of a harrowing confrontation with a cat from a rival Clan, I was given the choice between dodging their final ferocious lunge or taking it head-on, and was quite surprised to find that attempting the former resulted in having a large chunk of my cat’s left ear torn off. You can choose to disable battle scars like this entirely from the menu, but it’s a nice visual depiction of your own journey through the game’s campaigns. My RiverClan and ShadowClan cats escaped largely unscathed thanks to my decisions, but my ThunderClan leader in particular was a grizzled veteran by journey’s end.

From a technical standpoint, Clans of the Forest is quite a disappointment on Nintendo Switch 2, with a juddery frame rate in both docked and handheld mode and a noticeably lower resolution in handheld. The game has a cel-shaded graphics option for characters locked behind the Prophecy Pack, which can be purchased separately or as part of the Feral Edition of the game. It does make characters look more striking, with a bolder color palette and sharper contrast, but it doesn’t notably improve performance and makes things only slightly clearer in handheld mode. If you plan on playing the game docked and want the best possible visuals, it’s worth consideration, but it ultimately doesn’t quite justify the price point.

Warrior Cats: Clans of the Forest is a game that tries to appeal to the broadest possible audience, but it fails to establish any kind of meaningful identity for itself as a result. It’s a basic entry-level RPG themed around an existing IP that doesn’t embrace it. Everybody wants to be a cat, but this is not where it’s at.

Warrior Cats: Clans of the Forest copy provided by the publisher for the purposes of this review.

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