gaming – Pain In The Bud

Warriors, the globally popular series of novels about clans of feral and stray cats, has sold 90 million books.

Now the franchise has turned its sights on conquering two new mediums with a TV show (see our June post about the upcoming series) and a newly-announced video game.

Titled “Warrior Cats: Clans of the Forest,” the upcoming release from Trailmark Games is a turn-based role-playing game that allows players to create their own unique cat who will run with his or her own crew and interact with major characters and the four clans from the novel universe.

The developers say the game world will include locations familiar to readers of the books, and quests will allow them to choose alliances and make other decisions that impact the story and the gameplay.

Before entering the world of Warriors, players will be able to name and create their own protagonist cat, complete with customized coat colors, markings, eye color and other features.

Since the majority of players will doubtlessly create characters based on their own felines, I’ve taken the liberty of using the game’s art style and editing a screen shot to add Buddy leaping through the air and casting two of his powerful spells, Wrath of Nature and Turkey Rejuvenation. The latter, of course, is a healing spell that restores health points via the magic of delicious turkey, in keeping with Buddesian lore. (And the behavior of the real life Buddy.)

Warrior Cats: Clans of the Forest is scheduled for a fall 2026 release date on PC (Steam), Nintendo Switch/Switch 2, XBox X/S, and Playstation 5.

Here are some real screenshots from the game:

The character creation screen showing part of the customization options for the player’s cat.

Cats will square off against each other as well as vicious dogs, snakes raccoons and other animals.

Players will be able to interact with beloved cat characters from the novels.

Over the years I’ve developed kind of an obsession with virtual recreations of real places, and since I’ve mentioned it in the past on PITB, I figured virtual London would be a good place to start.

The gates of Buckingham Palace at night. Although Legion depicts a future London, Queen Elizabeth II was still going strong in 2020 when the game was released, and her reign felt like it could go on forever. There’s a hologram portrait of her somewhere in the city, but I cannot remember where I saw it. (Near the British Museum perhaps?)

So the next best thing is an illustrative image of the gates of Buckingham Palace in this future dystopian London, where a private security megacontractor has essentially taken over the city, leaving people pining for a sight of the queen:

In Legion you’re part of an activist/hacker collective called DedSec, fighting back against a police state. As a result, any Londoner is a potential ally. You can recruit police officers, judges, barristers, construction workers, street cleaners, assassins, spies, office workers, store clerks, disc jockeys, the homeless, and people from any background you can think of.

Each has its advantages: judges and cops allow you to get access to restricted spaces and manipulate the legal system from within. Construction workers have access to equipment no one else can touch, and security won’t think twice about them walking into a construction site. Street sweepers are largely invisible to a public that ignores them, allowing them to listen in on conversations.

Every person has a different attitude toward authority, challenging it, and the direction the UK has been heading. Recruiting them involves winning them over to your side by proving you can be trusted, sometimes by helping them out personally, sometimes by keeping secrets, and sometimes by striking back at the authorities.

One of the most fun parts is that DedSec’s secret headquarters is tucked into the back of this pub, The Earl’s Fortune, accessible via a secret door in a back room:

Early morning in Piccadilly Circus, before the crowds:

The Sky Garden at the top of the “walkie talkie building” affords incredible views of the city:

The Eye. Yes, you can ride it. Yes, you can take photos from it.

This is called Waterloo Plaza in the game. I’m not sure if it’s a real place or if it’s been renamed due to rights issues:

A tube station with an advertisement that reads “Illegals hurt homegrown Brits.” The game clearly took inspiration from real life political events and grievances:

The “gherkin” from the Sky Garden. Again because of rights issues, the logo is from a company that does not exist in the real world:

Beefeaters standing guard:

“Larry?! Larry, where have you run off to?”

The authorities do not like you getting anywhere near No. 10 Downing St. It took a lot of sneaking around for me to get this close and get these screenshots. Sadly, I did not see Larry.

I’m not sure exactly where this is, but the game recreates streets and neighborhoods in astonishing detail. Note the puddle on the pavement. Modern gaming technology actually recreates the way light bounces off of water, stone, windows, plants, etc. In the past, if you saw a reflection in a game, it was a static texture. Thanks to ray tracing technology, all reflections are dynamic, meaning if you’re looking in a store window and a bus passes behind you, you see the bus pass in the reflection. It’s awesome.

A street adjacent to Piccadilly Circus:

The view from an Eye capsule. The Thames is dirty AF!

Big Ben:

In reference to the ray tracing effects mentioned above, note the way the windows reflect the surrounding area. You can see the light behaves differently based on whether it’s in shadow or sunlight, and the surrounding structures are reflected in the windows. At night the windows behave dynamically so they are turned on and off randomly. Using shaders, you can see the interior rooms from street level.

Regretfully I did not take enough photos of random neighborhoods. In Southwark, for example, there are run-down areas, public housing and you don’t see the grand structures of historic neighborhoods.

There are parks with people kicking footballs around and laying in the grass, bicyclists, buskers, people talking on their phones, mimes, cops on the beat.