Sons Of The Forest

[b]Sons of the Forest[/b] is a huge step up from the original game. [b]Endnight Games[/b] really nailed the survival-horror aspect, and the [b]AI[/b] is legitimately impressive, enemies feel [i]smart[/i] and [i]unpredictable[/i]. Having companions like [b]Kelvin[/b] is a game-changer; he makes the experience much less lonely and helps out a ton. Just a [b]pro-tip[/b]: treat him well, or you might find yourself on the receiving end of a tree to the face! [b]I’ll try to keep my review as clear and honest as possible.[/b] Is it worth playing if you haven't played the first one? [i]Definitely[/i]. The game is superb, and you won't have any trouble understanding it even if you missed out on the first one. However, I still recommend giving the first game a shot; even though it’s pretty old now, it hasn’t lost its charm, and I don't think it will anytime soon. It's currently on sale on Steam for [b]€3.69[/b] during the [i]Summer Sale[/i], or [b]€16.79[/b] at full price. ---Graphics--- 🥀 Beautiful 💀 Good 💀 Decent 💀 Bad 💀 Paint ---Gameplay--- 🥀 VERY GOOD 💀 Good 💀 It's just gameplay 💀 Mehh 💀 Watch paint dry instead ---Audience--- 💀 Kids 💀 Teens 🥀 Adult (18+) 🥀 Grandma ---Game Time--- 💀 You finish it before you start 💀 Short 💀 Average 🥀 Long ---PC Requirements--- 💀 Check If you can run paint 💀 Potato 🥀 Decent 💀 Fast 💀 Rich ---AI Mechanics--- 💀 Mehh 💀 Decent 🥀 Kelvin will ruin your base if you upset him 💀 Acts like a real player ---Difficulty-- 💀 Just press "W" 💀 Easy 🥀 Sighnificant brain usage 🥀 Dark Souls ---Horror--- 💀 It is not horror at all 💀 A little bit horror 🥀 Scary only if you’re new to horror 💀 You’ll need diapers to play ---Price--- 💀 It's free 🥀 Worth the price 💀 Wait for sale 💀 Not recommended 💀 You could also just burn your money The game is awesome when it comes to survival, though I did have slightly higher expectations for the [b]building mechanics[/b]. I know it’s not [i]Minecraft[/i], but it is a survival game after all. When the trailer dropped, I was expecting a bit more freedom to build, but it feels a bit limited. That said, this doesn’t change my overall opinion it’s still a fantastic game and worth every penny. ---Rate--- 🥀 10/10

Both members in the party need to save. Weird that a game in 2026 doesnt have an autosave feature once the host saves...

If you loved The Forest, the sequel takes everything that made the original great and turns it up a notch. It’s easily one of the most addictive survival games out there right now, successfully balancing genuine terror with absolute sandbox madness. The game is a total chameleon depending on how you want to play. If you go in solo, it’s a brilliant, incredibly tense psychological horror. Every snapping twig in the woods will have you spinning around in a panic. But the second you hop on with friends, the vibe completely shifts into hilarious, chaotic fun. One minute you're trying to coordinate a base build, and the next you're laughing your heads off at the bizarre cannibal AI trying to raid your camp. The dynamic seasons cycle is easily one of the best additions. Watching the island transition from a lush, sunny summer to a brutal, freezing winter isn't just eye candy; it completely changes the meta. It adds this amazing layer of unpredictability. A river that used to be a safe barrier and a great fishing spot suddenly freezes solid, meaning cannibals can just walk right across ice to get to you. You’re constantly forced to adapt, which keeps the gameplay loop feeling fresh. That said, it definitely has some quirks that remind you it’s still a video game, for better or worse. First off, nighttime lasts way too long. The pitch-black darkness is great for atmosphere initially, but it quickly crosses the line into tedious. You end up sitting around wasting resources just to see two feet in front of your face, which totally kills the momentum when you just want to build or explore. Then there are the bugs and exploits that can completely break the survival tension if you let them. The biggest offender is an incredibly easy item dupe: all your friend has to do is put their items in storage, log out of the game, and log back in. When they spawn back in, their full inventory is magically restored, but the stuff they put in the boxes is still there. If your group lacks self-control, the scarcity mechanic goes right out the window. Multiplayer progression can also feel a bit lazy in spots. Take the shovel, for instance. Only one person in the group actually needs to go get it. Since anything dug up by that player can be seen and grabbed by everyone else on the server, there's zero reason for the rest of the squad to bother grinding for their own. It kinda cheapens the reward of progression. Even with the long nights and the goofy exploits, Sons of the Forest is a blast. It hits that perfect sweet spot between terrifying survival and total creative freedom. Just try to resist the urge to dupe an endless supply of shotgun shells on day two!

PROS: + Great visuals and scenery between the changing seasons + Combat mechanics and the clever AI of enemy NPC behaviour + Very immersive game of survival with consequences + Engaging building and upgrading + Kelvin and Virginia are helpful companions in gameplay CONS: - The game does not provide clear direction or guidance on where you need to go and what you need to do in order to progress the main story. The map markers are not clear or non-existent. This should be a setting to have on or off based on preference. Without the help of tutorials by the community, this game would be pretty much impossible to go through for the first time, as the tiniest unmarked details need to happen in a specific order or you end up wasting hours of your time running through woods or caves aimlessly just to find out you're missing something. CONCLUSION: Overall this is a very great game that I would recommend, but it is not one that I would replay again for the story, only for the free-roam, building, survival and combat.

Hauntingly beautiful in both visuals and atmosphere. One of the better survival games. Building my own home was the majority of the game for me, then starting to range further out and explore. Building trust with [spoiler]Virginia[/spoiler] was the highlight of the game for me. Personality is [spoiler]sweet and innocent[/spoiler] in my opinion. Performance was spotless. No problems encountered. Some creepy monsters which make more sense toward the ending. Survival aspect was really done well. Having built my own home a couple of decades ago alongside my dad, it was a great opportunity to try it all over again in a location similar. Fantastic survival / horror experience. Maybe not quite as much horror as there could be, but definitely creepy factor. If you are a survial / horror addict like me, get this. Devs, you created a masterpiece, more please!

Big thank you to the Subnautica 2 dev that "sarcastically" told everyone that did not like how you could not keel the fish in Sub 2 (you could in Sub 1 and BZ) to go play Sons of the Forest. One of my new favorite games. I almost refunded the game at 1 hour 58 min, but decided to keep doing after watching a couple of YouTube clips and saw it gets pretty messed up later in the game. Kind of like Event Horizon fused with The Thing. I don't remember the last time a game made me jump out of my skin like this game. If you don't jump out of your skin buy the end of this game. I'll give you 0.2 worth of a bitcoin. Seriously though give it a try. There are moments in this game that happened. That will haunt me emotionally for the rest of my life.

Very peak game. Playing alone is terrifying but play with your friends makes the game more funny than scary. I would recommend this game if you like open world games that you crash on an island with some tools and a partner to help you. Very nice quality for a game in 2024. All I gotta say is chop down a tree and you'll be set since the graphics are so good and realistic.

The actual base building, scavenging and such is pretty fun, but once the waves of cannibals start, any fun you had is going to go away really fast. There's no combination of settings where enemies don't feel like impossible damage sponges compared to your own health. There is NO WAY anything is going to survive 4 headshots in a row and still swing a club at you. But this is exactly what happened to me. Something is really off about this game's enemy mechanics and it makes the game pretty much unplayable unless you're some kind of MLG tryhard. In single player, there is apparently an unwritten cooldown on deaths that can be several real-life hours, and if you trip that cooldown's mechanic, you basically have the game erasing your progress. Why is this an issue? Because some places you can wake up will instantly kill you again if you're unlucky. In short, I really wanted something more interesting than peaceful mode, but I feel relegated to it solely because of how badly done the entire enemy system is. I wouldn't recommend this game be bought at full price until things look a lot better.

If you are planning on playing this game in co-op, then don't, it's not worth it. It crashes a lot, saving is client side only, if you crash, you lose your progress. Also the game itself just doesn't feel polished, not sure why so many reviews are positive. Maybe the singleplayer experience is much better.

I am a big fan of survival games, and I really like the overall concept of Sons of the Forest. The game has some amazing ideas, and visually it can be absolutely breathtaking. The scenic views are among the best I have seen in any survival game. That said, the game became frustrating for me because many basic mechanics are not explained well enough. The lack of a proper tutorial makes the early experience unnecessarily confusing. I had to watch multiple YouTube videos just to understand some of the basic systems. For example, I found the Knight V and kept it in my cabin for a while because I had no idea what it was or how to use it. I only discovered its function by accident when it suddenly started moving. The glider was even more frustrating. I spent around 30 minutes jumping off cliffs and reloading the game because I could not figure out how to use it. Eventually, I watched a YouTube video and realized the mechanic was very unintuitive. Honestly, the glider was the last straw for me, and it is what made me uninstall the game. Some items do have small tutorials, such as the zipline, but even those are not always helpful. I found the zipline in a dark cave and had no idea what was happening or how I was supposed to use it. The building system is also fascinating in theory, but many structures, placements, fittings, and interactions require hours of trial and error or YouTube tutorials to understand properly. I am blown away but what people make. There are also several smaller issues that add up. Doors feel almost useless, and many players seem to rely on alternative building mechanics just to close entrances properly. The lack of a global map is annoying. The caves are extremely dark, and although you can make and place torches, the light is very weak and only illuminates a tiny area around them. The building book could also be organized better. I found some structures, like brick building options, almost by chance. The inventory system looks cool, but it is not always clear how it works. For example, I did not realize you could look to the right to find armor, while the left side does not work the same way. One minor issue would be acceptable, but when there are many small confusing design choices scattered throughout the game, the experience becomes frustrating. For casual players like me, the game has a lot of potential, but it often feels unnecessarily difficult to understand and enjoy.