Clans of the Forest Hunting Guide: Prey, Tracking & Clan Duties

Hunting is one of the core Warrior Cat activities

Hunting is not being presented as a tiny side activity added only for flavor. The official Warrior Cats announcement describes the player beginning as an apprentice in a Clan facing a new prophecy, then learning the practical responsibilities of Clan life. Those responsibilities include defending borders and hunting to feed the Clan. That wording makes hunting part of the role-playing fantasy rather than simply another way to collect generic crafting materials.

The newer storefront descriptions are even more specific. Steam, PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo now state that players can track and hunt birds, rabbits, squirrels and other prey. That is the strongest pre-release prey list currently available, so this guide treats those three animals as confirmed prey instead of trying to build a much larger speculative bestiary.

This also matters for how the wiki categorizes creatures. Our enemy guide separates predators, rival Clan cats and prey because official copy sometimes uses broad language that can blur those roles. A squirrel, for example, appears in older storefront wording near enemies, but the newer feature list explicitly identifies squirrels as prey. For guide purposes, the more specific hunting classification is the useful one.

Confirmed prey in Clans of the Forest

The phrase “other prey” strongly suggests the launch game includes more than three huntable species, but it does not justify guessing a full list from the Warrior Cats books. Until Trailmark Games, Bamtang Games or released gameplay identifies additional animals, birds, rabbits and squirrels are the safest verified entries.

How tracking may connect to hunting

Exploration descriptions repeatedly mention the ability to track scents. Players can also climb trees, pounce through undergrowth and travel across the territories of ThunderClan, RiverClan, ShadowClan and WindClan as well as the Moonpool and The Island.

Those verbs naturally sound like hunting mechanics, especially scent tracking and pouncing. However, the current official text does not explicitly say that every scent trail leads to prey or that pouncing is a dedicated hunting input. It is possible that those actions serve multiple exploration systems.

For that reason, this page distinguishes between what is confirmed and what is only a reasonable possibility:

• Confirmed: scent tracking exists.
• Confirmed: pouncing through undergrowth is part of exploration.
• Confirmed: birds, rabbits and squirrels can be tracked and hunted.
• Not yet confirmed: whether hunting uses a visible scent trail interface.
• Not yet confirmed: whether pounces use timing prompts or quick-time events.
• Not yet confirmed: whether prey can detect the player and flee based on noise or wind direction.
• Not yet confirmed: whether different Clans receive hunting bonuses.

That separation is important because pre-release hunting guides can easily become fictional mechanic lists if normal Warrior Cats lore is mistaken for game-specific systems.

Hunting vs combat

Hunting and combat should not be treated as the same system unless launch gameplay proves otherwise.

Combat is already described in substantial detail: the game uses turn-based battles with teams of up to 3v3, includes 75 combat moves, lets players exploit enemy weaknesses and features threats such as badgers, foxes, Dobermanns and rival Clan cats. You can read the full breakdown in our combat guide.

Hunting, by contrast, is described with verbs such as track and hunt, with prey specifically named as birds, rabbits and squirrels. No official source currently says that catching a rabbit launches the same 3v3 turn-based battle system used against hostile enemies.

So this wiki will not claim that prey has combat HP, attack patterns, elemental weaknesses or move sets unless those mechanics are actually demonstrated.

Hunting vs foraging

Hunting is also different from foraging. Official descriptions say players can forage the land and find materials that can be used to craft items in the den. That makes foraging a material-gathering activity connected to the crafting system.

Hunting has a different stated purpose: feeding the Clan.

The two systems may overlap in exploration — both happen while traveling through Clan territories — but they should remain separate categories in the wiki:

This distinction will become especially useful after launch when players search for specific resource routes, prey locations or quest objectives.

Does hunting connect to quests?

It probably can, but the exact structure has not been published.

The game includes a variety of quests used to gain favor with the player's Clan, and quests are among the systems described as procedurally generated. Because hunting is a core Clan duty, it would be unsurprising to encounter hunting-related objectives. Still, there is currently no official mission example saying “hunt three rabbits” or confirming repeatable prey-delivery tasks.

Our quests guide therefore treats hunting objectives as a launch-day data point to verify rather than a pre-release fact.

Does each Clan have different prey?

No official prey-by-territory table exists yet.

The four Clan territories are environmentally different: ThunderClan has dense forest, RiverClan has marshlands, ShadowClan has dark pine swamps, and WindClan has open moors. From a game-design perspective, those environments could support different prey distributions. But the publisher has not published spawn tables or territory-exclusive prey lists.

We should not import assumptions from the books and present them as game data. After release, this page should document prey locations from direct observation and then link to the individual locations guide for exact hunting spots.

Is there a fresh-kill pile or Clan food meter?

Neither system has been confirmed.

The official announcement says hunting helps feed your Clan, but it does not explain how that responsibility appears mechanically. There may be quest objectives, narrative checks, inventory items, reputation rewards or another system entirely. At this stage, none of the following should be treated as confirmed:

• a fresh-kill pile inventory;
• a Clan-wide hunger meter;
• daily food quotas;
• prey freshness or decay;
• prey weight or quality ratings;
• hunting scores or medals;
• seasonal prey scarcity;
• automatic Clan reputation gains per catch.

If any of these systems appear in released gameplay, the guide can be updated with exact rules rather than guesses.

Does hunting improve your cat?

Official sources say players strengthen their cat through questing and combat progression and can unlock new combat moves. They do not currently say hunting directly awards XP, stats or combat abilities.

That means we should avoid claims such as “hunting increases agility” or “rabbits grant more XP than birds.” Those kinds of numbers are useful after launch only if they can be tested.

Hunting within the apprentice fantasy

One of the strongest reasons hunting matters is the game's starting role. The official Warrior Cats announcement says you train as an apprentice, explore iconic locations, defend borders and hunt to feed the Clan. Combined with the four separate Clan campaigns in Prophecy Mode, hunting helps sell the idea that the player is actually living through Clan responsibilities rather than moving from battle to battle.

That may ultimately be more important than whether hunting is technically presented as a minigame. It gives exploration a purpose and connects the player-created cat to the daily life of the Clan.

Official trailer

The currently available official announcement trailer provides the broadest verified look at the game. We have not found a dedicated official hunting tutorial or hunting-system video yet, so we are not embedding fan speculation as if it were a mechanics guide.

What we will test after release

When the game launches on October 23, 2026, this guide should evolve from a pre-release overview into a practical hunting database. The highest-priority questions are:

1. How scent tracking identifies prey.
2. Whether prey can escape or detect the player.
3. How pouncing works.
4. Which prey appears in each territory.
5. Whether weather, time or story progress affects spawns.
6. Whether hunting rewards Clan favor or another resource.
7. Whether quests request specific prey.
8. Whether prey is stored, delivered or immediately counted.
9. Whether each Clan has different hunting mechanics or bonuses.
10. Whether rare prey exists.

Frequently asked questions

Related guides

• Enemies and predators
• Combat system
• Foraging
• Quests
• Exploration
• Locations
• Prophecy Mode

References

1. Steam — Warrior Cats: Clans of the ForestConfirms huntable birds, rabbits and squirrels, scent tracking, exploration, combat, crafting and other current game features.
2. Warrior Cats — official game announcementConfirms apprenticeship, hunting to feed the Clan, border defense, four Clan stories and other role-playing features.
3. PlayStation Store — Warrior Cats: Clans of the ForestCorroborates the current prey list, exploration features, enemies and release information.
4. Xbox — Warrior Cats: Clans of the ForestCorroborates huntable prey and the current feature list.