Sons of the Forest

Sons of the Forest Review

Welcome to my review of Sons of the Forest from developers EndNight Games Ltd (The Forest) and publisher NewNight. I’m not too sure who NewNight are, speculation on sites such as Reddit is that NewNight is a publishing title created by EndNight Games so it doesn’t limit them to only The Forest franchise.

Sons of the Forest is the sequel to The Forest which was originally released in May 2014 to Steam Early Access.

They Did It Again!

So you can already guess I absolutely love this game. EndNight Games Ltd have done it again and smashed it with this sequel just like they did The Forest. Why do I think this? Continue reading to find out!

The Game

So the start of the story tells us about a billionaire who has gone missing on a remote island. Our protagonist is part of a special unit sent to rescue the billionaire and the others who went missing with him. As with all survival games the shit soon hits the fan and our special units choppers are shot down. When recovering consciousness there are one of two places your chopper would have crashed in. One is situated in the water just offshore of a large beach, and I’m not actually sure where the other is as I’ve only stuck to this one play-through.

Once we’re out of the crashed chopper and on land, we’re greeted by Kelvin, a fellow soldier who has survived the crash. However, Kelvin has a problem and he cannot speak or hear us due to a severe injury to the head. Kelvin is a valuable asset in the game though, so keep him alive at all costs. If he dies, he dies permanently. Apparently, there is a way to bring him back, but I am unaware of how to do this as I’ve managed to keep him alive.

Moving on.

Ok so that’s the intro to the game done, now it’s over to the player to survive this hell hole. The game has a lot of similarities to the first but on the flip side, it also has a lot of differences.

One thing to take note of is you start the game with a tactical axe and some other basic tools. This becomes a huge help compared to the original game where you have to make some basic tools yourself before finding some more permanent tools around the island. This is also the case with this game, but the fact you start with an axe makes it so much easier to start a building and also defend yourself.

Sons of the Forest
Use a skull of your enemies to slaughter more enemies!

Story aside, one of the key differences is building. The building mechanic has been completely reworked for Sons of the Forest. We still the original method in which we can pop a blueprint down on the ground, find sticks, rocks, and logs if needed, and tap a key to place the items. The new mechanic is incredible. It gives you a true sense of freedom in the way that you can place four logs to shape a square on the ground and this becomes a frame for you to start building a structure.

This doesn’t have to be a square. It can make a defensive wall this way by placing logs so they’re standing upright and then snapping more logs onto the side of it to form a wall. You can then chop the top off with your axe to give it a sharp point to help prevent mutants/cannibals from hopping over.

Now We Survive…

That’s the basics of building, but you’ll also want to consider how on earth you’re going to survive. Fortunately, there are quite a lot of rivers and ponds for fresh water, as well as berry bushes and wild animals for food. There are also containers and crates that you can find around the island. These are very useful as they can contain a number of different items such as energy drinks and energy bars, duct tape, pills to help you heal, and much more.

Sons of the Forest
With buildings, the sky is the limit!

The game has a lot of caves for you to explore too. Bear in mind these caves are pitch black in most cases, and usually contain a lot of hostile cannibals and mutants. So be prepared for a fight when entering them. However, it’s key that you explore the caves as they usually contain some highly valuable loot such as new tools, weapons, and even useful items. They will also help you progress through the story, which is most definitely interesting.

Just keep stocking up on healing pills, food, and water, and you will be fine.

Look & Sound

I think I speak for more than just myself when I say that this game is absolutely effing beautiful. Below is a screenshot that I took during one of my sessions on Sons of the Forest. I’m not even running the game on the highest graphical settings. This is because my 3060 Ti PC and 3080 Laptop GPU seem to have a few issues now and again. However, that’s to be expected because as I’ve mentioned already this is an early-access title.

Considering EndNight has only just released the first major patch for the game, it runs bloody fantastic. I’ve experienced zero crashes in my ~40 hours of gameplay which I might add is impressive for such an early release.

Everything about the game looks so good, the trees, grass, other foliage, water, ice, and even the dark and scary caves look awesome.

Sons of the Forest
Absolutely stunning.

The sound effects in Sons of the Forest sound incredibly real. I’m talking simple stuff too such as lobbing a small rock into water or down a cave. The way it echoes down the cave and back around your ears (if wearing a headset that is) sounds amazing.

The music, as expected, has a very eery and creepy vibe to it.

Length & Replayability

The current state of the story didn’t last me too long, something around 15 hours. The other 25 hours I’ve played have literally been wandering around and creating structures. This was to play around with the new build mechanics. Because of this freedom, you can play the game for as long as you like. Well, until you’re bored with the game that is.

The game also has 28 achievements for you to unlock. I’ve unlocked 15 of them without really trying and just playing the game.

Conclusions

I am a big fan of the first game The Forest. EndNight has done an absolutely amazing job with the sequel. I will admit that I think this one, even so early, is better than the original game. The story needs a bit more work to it but it’s still very young in its development cycle. However, as it stands, the game is already fantastic.

At the time of writing, Sons of the Forest is not supported on Steam Deck. The game also doesn’t have cloud save compatibility just yet but you can manually transfer saves from say your gaming PC to a gaming laptop if you’re on the go.

EndNight Games has just released a huge update for the game too, you can read about that here.

I score Sons of the Forest a 10/10!

 

We Score This Game

rating score: 10

Absolutely Fantastic!

Subscribe
Notify of
guest
2 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
2
0
Would love your thoughts, please comment.x
()
x