Sons Of The Forest

My first session of Sons of the Forest ran four hours before I noticed the time, which for a survival game in 2024 is saying something. Endnight dropped this out of Early Access in February 2024, and the jump from Early Access to 1.0 is meaningful: new cutscenes, a tighter narrative thread, rebalanced enemy structure damage, and water sources that now need boiling before you can drink them without consequences. That last detail sounds minor until it isn't, and that's the game's whole personality in one mechanic. The island itself is the star. Four times larger than The Forest's map, it runs from lush canopy to snow-blasted peaks to pitch-black cave systems, with dynamic seasons that genuinely shift survival difficulty when winter locks in. You build, you craft, you scavenge. The custom building system lets you place logs and raise walls however you like rather than snapping to pre-set blueprints, which makes for satisfying, janky, deeply personal bases. It is also the game's most divisive element: some players love the freedom, others find it clunky and slow when all they want is a roof over their head before nightfall. Combat is first-person and physical, with weapons ranging from crafted spears and bows up to shotguns, chainsaws, and a katana, and the AI enemies scale aggressively on higher difficulties to the point where a poorly lit cave becomes a genuine emergency. Two AI companions round out solo play. Kelvin handles grunt work like log hauling and fire-tending via a notepad command system (he can't speak due to in-story trauma). Virginia, a three-legged mutant woman who gradually trusts you, can be armed and will fight alongside you. Neither is reliable enough to replace a real co-op partner, and companion pathfinding issues remain a known frustration post-launch. The co-op is where this game finds its best version of itself. Up to eight players online, shared loot scaling so no one is starved of resources, and story progression that carries across the whole group. There is no split-screen or local co-op, full stop, so couch sessions are out. Online sessions, though, naturally fall into roles: someone manages the base, someone hunts, someone drags Kelvin away from the trees he is about to accidentally destroy. It is genuinely funny, occasionally terrifying, and holds up well across a full playthrough that runs roughly 30-40 hours on a first run depending on how much cave-diving and base-building the group commits to. The criticisms worth knowing: the story is thin and the ending arrives abruptly, progression gating can grind to a halt when a required item (the shovel, the keycards) hides behind a chain of cave dives the game does not clearly signal, and the map's sheer scale means some stretches feel sparse. Visibility in dark areas was a documented issue post-launch. Veteran players of The Forest will recognise a lot of the loop, and opinion is split on whether the sequel innovates enough or simply iterates. For anyone new to the series, none of that friction reads as a flaw; it reads as the game.

Riley · Scout Team

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