Companion Modes: Offensive, Defensive and Catch

Aniimo gives you two ways to bring a creature into a fight. You can Twine, merging with it and controlling it directly, or you can leave it as a separate body on the field and fight alongside it at your command. Modes only exist for the second one.

When the creature is fighting beside you, you stay on the battlefield yourself and issue ability commands to it. That is the part players expect. What catches people out is the gap between those commands. Your Aniimo is not idle while it waits for the next order, and what it does in that gap is entirely down to the mode.

One naming note before the modes, because the word does double duty. In co-op you can become Companions with another player, which draws a visible link between the two of you showing how far apart you are. It makes travelling together much easier, since you can see at a glance when someone has drifted. That is a party feature, not an AI setting, and it has nothing to do with anything below.

Offensive mode is the aggressive setting. Your companion attacks nearby enemies automatically, with no prompting from you. You handle positioning and the abilities you care about, and it fills the space in between by hitting whatever is close.

Defensive mode inverts that. Your Aniimo attacks only when it is struck. It will not open a fight on your behalf, which is what you want when you are crossing ground you would rather not clear, or when you are lining something up and need your creature to keep its hands to itself until you say otherwise.

The practical difference is who decides the fight starts. On offensive, proximity decides. On defensive, you do, or the enemy does.

Catch mode is the setting to know about, because it fixes a specific and very annoying way to lose a creature you wanted. Your companion fights normally, then stops attacking once the wild target's health drops below a certain threshold. It backs off and leaves the target standing for you.

That is the whole purpose. An enthusiastic companion on offensive mode will happily finish off the rare thing you spent five minutes tracking, and it will do it one hit before you were ready to throw. Catch mode takes that outcome off the table without you having to babysit every exchange.

Weakening is not the only lever, either. Catching an Aniimo while it is asleep further increases the displayed catch chance, so sleep and a low health bar stack in your favour. You can also skip combat completely: stealth, traps and Aniipod throws will land a capture outside of battle without attacking the target at all. That approach has its own guide.

04Where to start

Set offensive when you are clearing, defensive when you are travelling or setting something up, and catch mode the moment you see something you want to keep. Switching it after the fight has started is usually one hit too late.