Clans of the Forest has three game modes: Prophecy Mode (four Clan campaigns), Defender Mode (a single-run survival challenge) and asynchronous Skirmish Mode.
Clans of the Forest Game Modes: Prophecy, Defender, Skirmish
Clans of the forest game modes come down to three, and they are the headline feature on the store page: Prophecy Mode, Defender Mode and Skirmish Mode. Prophecy Mode is the campaign - four original stories, one per Clan. Defender Mode is a single-run survival challenge against the game's fiercest enemies. Skirmish Mode is asynchronous online play, not real-time.
- Prophecy Mode - four original stories about the trials and tribulations of Clan life, one campaign per Clan
- Defender Mode - test how long you can last against the game's fiercest enemies in a single run
- Skirmish Mode - battle other players online asynchronously, and visit a friend's den to gift them materials
- Procedurally generated characters, quests and stories - no two playthroughs are the same
- No boss names are published yet, so Defender Mode has no documented roster
The three-mode structure is the top feature bullet on the Steam store page; the Defender Mode description comes from the Wikipedia entry, and the four-campaign structure from the publisher's game page.
What are the three game modes in Clans of the Forest?
| Mode | What it is | What it needs |
|---|---|---|
| Prophecy Mode | Four original stories about Clan life, one campaign per Clan | Single-player story content |
| Defender Mode | A single run against the game's fiercest enemies - survive as long as you can | Your build, your run |
| Skirmish Mode | Asynchronous battles with other players, plus den visits and gifting | Online, but not at the same time |
That is the complete published list. There is no fourth mode, and no mode has been announced but left undescribed. If a page somewhere claims otherwise, it is guessing. The system overview collects the other headline features that sit alongside the modes, and the multiplayer page goes deeper on what Skirmish Mode does and does not include.
What is Prophecy Mode?
Prophecy Mode is the story content, and it is the largest part of the game. The store description describes it as four original stories about the trials and tribulations of Clan life, and the publisher's own site confirms that each of the four Clans has its own campaign with distinct prophecies, rivalries, characters and challenges. Four campaigns means four separate stories rather than one story with four coats of paint.
You pick the Clan you belong to before you start, and that choice decides which of the four campaigns you are playing. The four Clans and their territories page covers the choice, the four territories and the two sacred locations in more detail.
What is Defender Mode?
Defender Mode is the run-based challenge mode. The published description is a survival test: you battle the game's fiercest enemies and the mode is about how long you can last within a single run. That is a run-based structure, not a campaign - your run either ends or it does not, and there is no documented list of what you are fighting.
What is not published matters here. The store page names the enemy types - badgers, mice, squirrels, vicious foxes, imposing Dobermanns and rival Clan cats, then "many more" - while birds, rabbits and squirrels are prey you hunt rather than enemies, and snakes and dogs are named separately as predators to fight off. No boss has been named by any publisher source, and no rotation or difficulty scaling has been described. Our combat page lists the enemies that are confirmed and flags the rest as unannounced. Anyone writing a Defender Mode boss guide today would be inventing it.
What can you do in Skirmish Mode?
Skirmish Mode is the online mode, and the important word in its description is asynchronously. You battle other players online asynchronously - which means you set something up, and the result resolves without both players being online at the same time. There is no real-time co-op in this game.
The mode also includes visiting a friend's camp or den online, again asynchronously, and gifting them materials. That is the social layer: a small amount of trading and visiting rather than a persistent shared world. Our multiplayer and cross-save page covers what the online side does and the two things nobody has announced yet.
Why is there no fixed walkthrough?
Because the game generates its content. Characters, quests and stories are procedurally generated, and the store page states plainly that no two playthroughs are the same. A conventional quest-by-quest walkthrough would therefore not describe one canonical route through the game - it would describe one of many, and would be wrong for the next player.
That is also why this site is not selling you a story guide before launch. There is nothing to walk through yet, and what there will be is different every time. What we can do is document the systems those runs are built from: the three modes listed above, the cat creator that builds your cat before the first run, and the combat rules that decide what happens inside one.
If you are undecided, Prophecy Mode is the campaign content and the reason most players are buying the game; Defender and Skirmish are the replay layer on top of it. But the choice is not locked in a way that forecloses the others - each Clan has its own campaign, and our beginner's guide covers what the opening choices actually are.
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