Most survival games have an element of horror, giving us an inhuman hunger that’ll kill us if we don’t eat a three-course meal every five minutes. I like jokes. The Forest goes hard on horror, having cannibals and mutants stalk us, and the story-driven survival game’s sequel is looking just as wonderfully horrible. The developers, Endnight Games have announced they plan to release Sons Of The Forest in 2021, and shared a new trailer showing what’s waiting for us in the trees. I do not like it, which I like.
A few things:
- Is this a friendly mutant? (I’d be half-inclined to guess a hallucination, just cos horror tropes.)
- I like the animations and effects for crafting and building. Knocking out that chunk of log for a window is dead slick.
- I’m glad the baddies still have a slow, cautious, deliberate pace. Circling is so much creepier than charging.
- Also great: the fella trying to steal one of our logs. They’re trying to survive out here too. The fella afraid to die is just awful.
- But oh man, I very much do not like what appears to be us masquerading as one of them with, uh, a mask. Will have the absolute fear that they’ll see through the disguise at a most inconvenient time.
The Forest first entered early access in 2014, finally launching in full in 2018. Our former John (RPS in peace) called it “a huge achievement, and a survival horror game that somehow manages to keep those two elements surprisingly separate and yet let each impose upon the other in very interesting ways” in his The Forest review. It was still a little raw, but Endnight kept on patching, including adding VR support. Years on, we still say it’s one of the best survival games. Oh hey, it’s half-price in the Steam Winter Sale.
