Sons of the Forest - Early Access Review
Endnight Games from Vancouver Canada caught lightning in a bottle with their second ever release back in 2018 with the release of their survival horror game The Forest, originally released on PC and then on PlayStation 4 shortly after the game went on to sell 5 million copies within its first six month of release, no small feat for a small indie developer! A sequel entitled Sons Of The Forest was announced way back in December 2019 and after two significant delays the game has just been released into early access on Steam, it’s time once again to creep through the forest and run from cannibals and all kinds of monsters and demons and not soil our underwear in the process.
In Sons Of The Forest you are sent on a mission to find a missing billionaire and his family only to have your helicopter crash and find yourself trapped in a cannibal-infested hellscape that players of the original game will be all too familiar with. This time around though you are not alone as after surviving the helicopter crash you realise that another one of the crew on you mission has also survived, Kelvin though a bit shaken up and totally deaf from the accident is your AI sidekick that can be ordered around to perform simple tasks such as gathering rocks and stick or cutting down trees, you can issue commands to him by writing what you want him to do on pieces of notepaper and showing them to him, this is a really cool and original touch and even though only basic commands can be given to him the system works well, just be sure to not issue commands to Kelvin to cut down trees if you have decided to build a treehouse base, the result of this can be both comical and disastrous at the same time.
As in the original game the main aim here is to collect resources to survive and slowly explore the island to reveal its secrets and gather equipment to help you unravel its mysteries. You will also want to look for a prime spot to set up a base while you are exploring, preferably somewhere near water and with a thriving local animal population to hunt in order to ensure you remain well fed and hydrated, food and water seem to be much less of a problem in this game than the first one which I am thankful for as the lack of food and water in the original title could get annoying at times. Speaking of bases, the building system in Sons Of The Forest is much more advanced than the first title which in most cases only allowed you to build from certain templates that were made available to you, you can now build in freeform and while the building system can at first appear clunky and complicated especially because there is not much of a tutorial available to hand hold you, once you get the hang of it the mechanics start to become incredibly intuitive and satisfying as you split logs in half and slot in floorboards and use your axe to cut out sections of logs to create windows. Players created some amazing structures with the restrictive and modular building system from the first game so I cannot wait to see what type of buildings get created with the new system, it is a great addition to the franchise.
Once you have a base established you can then choose what you want to do in the game, if you are of the architectural persuasion you can simply decide to gather resources and keep building up structures as much as you want, for the more adventurous and those who want to learn the secrets of the forest then it is imperative that you set out and explore the islands nooks, crannies and caves in order to find unique items and learn more about how to complete the mission you originally embarked on. This is one of the areas where Sons Of The Forest absolutely shines, there is no hand holding here, no set patch or quest markers to navigate towards, how you tackle the island and unlock it’s mysteries is up to you. Of course it is not just the environment and its changing seasons you have to deal with, there are also cannibals and other freakish creatures on the island that you will need to deal with, both the original game and its sequel are a masterclass in horror and pacing in regards to the way these creatures are revealed to you.
At first you will start to see cannibals darting around in the brush curious as to what you are doing, after a while they will gather up the courage to get closer to you and even attack you if they feel compelled to do so, defend yourself and that will of course bring down the fury of other cannibals upon you. Without spoiling anything, the longer you stay on the island the more you will realise that it is not only cannibals that you need to deal with as you start seeing some freakish monstrosities out of the corner of your eyes, monstrosities that will start to become hell bent on attacking you and ending your time on the island, some of the things I have seen during my time with the game are that chilling that they are best left unspoken. The games AI is some of the best I have ever seen with how the islands inhabitants react to your every movement both threatening and non-threatening, it is so refreshing to have enemies that don’t just stand around waiting for you to hack them up or put a bullet through their skulls, the randomness of the encounters I have had in the game add not only to the atmosphere but also the dread and horror you experience especially when exploring the island at night.
Graphically the game just oozes atmosphere from when you are deep in the forest cutting down trees and look up to watch them fall with the sun slowly descending overhead through to the magnificent views you can see from the tops of snow-capped mountains that have dozens of waterfalls snaking down them, the attention to visual detail in this game shines through in every part of the world that Endnight have created. This carries through to the audio components of the game as well, from the funky 80s synthwave title tune through to the sounds of the woods around you, deer running around haphazardly when startles and the horrifying grunts and screams of the cannibals echoing through the forest, the sound design is not perfect though as several times I encountered bugs where the worlds ambient sounds would become distorted, with the only way of fixing it being to restart the game, this issue can easily be forgiven though due to the game currently being in early access and I am sure it will be fixed in one of the many upcoming updates.
While Sons Of The Forest is fun to play alone, as with the original game it really shines when you have a couple of friends to bring along with you (you can play with a maximum of 8 players) and I had a blast playing with some of my mates and even just joining random servers through the games server browser. Sons Of The Forest is an early access title but you would be hard pushed to notice it, sure there are some bugs here and there and the netcode could use some work as I did suffer a few random disconnections here and there, but overall the game is more polished than a lot of recent AAA full release games. The length of the game may also be a worry for some people as you can complete the game in under 10 hours if you look up guides on how to do so, for me though I would rather stumble in the dark exploring my way around the islands many nooks and crannies discovering things for myself than spoil the story by reading a guide, I guess it really depends on your preferences as to how you tackle the game but I promise you that you will get much more out of it by going in blind without a guide.
Sons Of The Forest sets an amazing stage and solid foundation for an early access game and I cannot wait to see what the developers add to the game through the next few months. If you like survival games with a horror twist then I can promise you that you will enjoy every minute you spend with Sons Of The Forest.
The game is in early access and as such, parts of it will change between now and the full release. As such we are unable to provide a score for the game. If you wish to play the game now and provide your feedback, you can get it via Steam.
