How to Find and Customize Your Cat in IRON NEST — Companion Guide

Live build (post-Patch #8) / Updated: October 23, 2026

IRON NEST is a game about a 5,000-ton turret, a ballistic calculator, and the slow horror of counter-battery fire. It also has a cat. The Customizable Cat Companion is listed as a key feature on the official store page, and it is exactly what it sounds like: a cosmetic pet that wanders your turret, gets underfoot at the worst moment, and can be recolored to look like the cat at home.

This guide covers where the cat lives, how to enable it, how to customize it, and how to get it out of the way without leaving your station.

What the Cat Is (and Is Not)

The cat is a companion, not a crew member. It does not calculate elevation, read the tactical map, load shells, or improve your score. Community guides are unanimous on this point: the cat provides company and charm, not a gameplay bonus.

That does not make it useless. IRON NEST is a slow, deliberate simulator, and the cat is part of its texture — something alive in a machine built for destruction. It also has a documented habit of standing exactly where you need to look, which is why the movement controls matter.

How to Enable the Cat

The cat is enabled by default, according to community guides. If yours is missing, check the settings before you assume a bug.

Press Esc to open the clipboard.
Select Options (some references call this the game options menu).
Find the pet cat setting. Confirm it is enabled.
In the same section, find the Upstairs checkbox.

The Upstairs option controls how far the cat can roam:

Off — the cat stays in the lower area, around the personal quarters.
On — the cat can explore the upper levels of the turret as well.

If you want the cat nearby while you work, leave Upstairs off. If you want it to feel like it lives in the whole machine, turn it on and accept that you will lose track of it occasionally.

How to Customize the Cat

The customization menu sits directly below the main cat settings in the same Options section.

Press Esc.
Open Options.
Find the cat settings.
Open the Customization (or Customize Cat) section below them.

Community guides list appearance options including eye color, fur shade, ears, nose, and cheeks, with additional body and face options reported by some sources. The exact option count is not officially documented, so treat any specific number as [Unconfirmed] — the menu is the authority.

Customization is cosmetic. Changing the cat's fur does not change its behavior, its pathing, or its tendency to sit on the thing you are trying to read. It does make the turret feel more like yours, which is the point.

Where to Find the Cat

The cat wanders the personal quarters in the lower section of the turret. If Upstairs is enabled, it may also be somewhere above.

It is a small animal in a large machine, so "I cannot see it" is normal. Before you go searching every ladder:

Check the personal quarters first.
Check the stairs and the hatch area if Upstairs is on.
Listen for it — the cat is not a silent object, though audio cues are not documented as a tracking mechanic. [Unconfirmed]

Which Levels the Cat Can Reach

The cat does not roam the whole turret by default — the real question behind "levels" is whether the cat is on your deck or a floor above.

Upstairs setting	Where the cat can go
Off	Stays in the lower area around the personal quarters
On	Can explore the upper levels of the turret as well

That single checkbox in Options is the whole level system for the cat. With it off, a missing cat is almost certainly in the personal quarters. With it on, check the stairs and the hatch area as well as the lower deck — and if the search drags, use the customization-menu reset to put it back at the downstairs hatch.

How to Reset a Lost Cat

There is a community-reported reset trick that is faster than a manual search:

Open the cat customization menu.
Close it immediately.
The cat respawns next to the hatch downstairs.

Both NineWiki and Prodigy Gamers describe this behavior. It is the fastest way to bring the cat back to a known location, and it is especially useful if the cat has somehow ended up somewhere you cannot reach.

This is a reset, not a summon. The cat appears at the hatch, not in your hands. You still have to walk over and pick it up if you want it elsewhere.

How to Move the Cat

Two controls are consistently reported by community guides:

Key	Action	When to use
F	Pick up the cat, then place it somewhere else	When you want the cat in a specific spot
G	Shoo the cat away	When you just need it out of the frame

Both are described as the standard cat-handling controls in current builds. Keybinds can be remapped, so if F or G does something else in your build, check the controls menu before assuming the guide is wrong. [Community-reported]

A practical routine:

Before a firing solution, shoo the cat off the station with G.
When you want it nearby, pick it up with F and place it on a clear surface.
Do not carry it while operating stations. Patch #6 fixed a bug where the cat could block your view while held and interacting with stations, but the clean habit is still to put it down first.

The Patch History That Matters

Two official fixes explain most of the cat weirdness players reported at launch:

Patch #2 (August 8, 2026) fixed the cat's eyes disappearing on Very Low graphics settings, and fixed the cat still being carried after finishing a mission, which could cause it to glitch.
Patch #6 (August 22, 2026) fixed the cat blocking the view if held while interacting with stations.

If you are on an older build and the cat looks wrong or follows you between missions, update first. These are known and fixed issues, not features.

Renaming the Cat

One community guide reports that the cat can be renamed and that the name may reset to a default, reported as "Hastur." Other references do not corroborate the rename key, and one control reference lists E as the general interact key, which conflicts with the reported rename binding.

Treat renaming as [Unconfirmed]: it may exist, the key may vary, and the reset behavior is not officially documented. If you try it, do it at a safe moment and do not expect the name to persist. The cat does not care what you call it.

What the Cat Does Not Do

It does not improve artillery accuracy. No spotting, no range-finding, no ballistic correction.
It does not reload or crew a station.
It does not grant achievements. The achievement list is about missions, medals, and performance; the cat is not a documented requirement. [Unconfirmed]
It does not need food, water, or maintenance. There is no cat-management loop.

What it does do is leave a paw print on shells, according to community guides — a cosmetic detail, not a stat bonus.

Cat FAQ

Is the cat missable? No. It is enabled by default and can be reset to the hatch at any time. Can I turn the cat off? Yes. The pet cat setting is in Options. Why did my cat disappear upstairs? Upstairs roaming lets it move through more of the turret. Use the customization-menu reset to bring it back to the hatch. Does carrying the cat block my view? Patch #6 fixed the station-interaction case. If it still happens, you are likely on an older build. Can I rename it? Reported by one community guide, not officially documented. See the section above. [Unconfirmed]

Cat Checklist

[ ] Confirm the pet cat setting is enabled in Options
[ ] Decide whether Upstairs roaming is on
[ ] Customize eye color, fur, ears, nose, and cheeks to taste
[ ] Use G to shoo the cat before a firing solution
[ ] Use F to pick it up and place it deliberately
[ ] Use the customization-menu reset if the cat is lost
[ ] Put the cat down before interacting with stations
[ ] Update to the latest patch if the cat renders or persists incorrectly

The cat will not win you a gold medal. It will make the turret feel less empty between salvos, which is its own kind of value.