Sons of the Forest: Game Review

March 3, 2023 Alexis Behilo

As someone who doesn’t like horror-type games, I was surprised to find myself buying the game “Sons of the Forest ” made by Endnight Games. The gameplay, graphics, buildability, and storyline are what made me decide to play it. This game is sort of a sequel to the previous game, “The Forest”, where you have to survive on an island full of cannibals, human mutants, and other creepy humanoid monsters. “Sons of the Forest” is much the same but with a different storyline, better graphics, more buildability, and even more creepy monsters. I haven’t played “The Forest”, so I cannot comment on the comparisons between the two games. In this game review, I’ll go over my favorite parts of “Sons of the Forest”. Although I won’t spoil the storyline, I’ll mention a bit about the monsters you will encounter in this game.

“Sons of the Forest” is currently in early access mode. Meaning they’re still in development of the game and its storyline but other than that, everything is complete. You can play this game on PC now, but you will have to wait a while for other gaming platforms. Even though it’s in early access mode, the game is completely playable. You can play either singleplayer or multiplayer with up to 8 people. For singleplayer, you can choose which level of difficulty you want. For example, ‘Peaceful’ mode means there are no monsters except for in the caves where the main storyline takes place. It allows players who want to just enjoy the graphics, explore the world, and build things not to be distracted by monsters trying to kill them. Or for people like me who are terrified of jump scares and random terrifying screams in the woods. The other game modes are ‘Normal’ and ‘Hard’, which are self-explanatory. Although I have heard that in ‘Hard’ mode, monsters attack you practically every five minutes or so.

For the storyline, you’re a military person hired to find some billionaires that went missing on this island when your helicopter crashed. When you come to your senses, another military person survived the crash with you. The other person that survives the crash, Kelvin, is an NPC that you can use to help you gather materials and such. As you play the game, your GPS tells you different locations to go to, bringing you to underground bunkers and caves where the storyline will progress. This game is also very cool in that the seasons change. While playing the game long enough, you can go through all four seasons Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter.

Monsters

In the game, there are multiple different kinds of monsters and humans that will attack you. For example, around the world there are camps, where cannibals and mutants exist. Cannibals are humans that will come after you in groups to attack you, or you might come across one of their campsites. Mutants are humanoid creatures but are not humans. They are like the creature above, where they might have parts of humans mixed together which is what mutants are. There are multiple different mutants in the game, such as two humans combined together at the torso, a blob of human appendages, a humanoid creature that runs like a spider, pale faceless humanoids, and more. There are also animals in the game that you can come across, such as moose, deer, birds, squirrels, etc.

During the day, mutants and cannibals will show up near you to attack at random times, so you always need to be alert. For example, I was just peacefully building a wall, and a massive cannibal with a club jump scares me from around the corner to attack. The mutants and cannibals both will attack you and your base, so after you kill them, you will need to repair if any damages have occurred. During the nighttime, there might be different mutants that come out to attack you and your base. I have found these to be much harder to kill and much scarier to look at.

Gameplay and Building

One of the elements of the game that made me want to play was the buildability and how your character lives. For example, in the game, you need to drink water, eat food, and sleep just like in real life; if you don’t do these things, you won’t feel good. This element of the game makes it even harder because besides trying to fend off monsters and build a fort to keep you safe, you also need to keep up your energy; otherwise you won’t be able to move fast.

I found that the building element of the game is one of my favorite parts. You build your fort out of trees that you need to cut down. The graphics of cutting down the tree are amazing.When you use your ax, you can see chunks of the tree falling out, and where you cut depends on where it falls, just like in real life. When you cut down wood, there are multiple options for you to use that wood and build your base. Not only can you build a house and walls, but you can build tools such as a hammer, bow, and more. When you kill monsters, they have some items that they drop. Or when you’re walking around the island, you can find abandoned places or campsites that have some other resources to scavenge. With these items, you can craft all different kinds of items.

Overall, I think that this horror survival game is really fun to play. It’s especially fun to play with other people and extremely horrifying to play by yourself. The graphics are so beautiful and clean when you interact with the environment. The environment is also very pretty, with tall mountains, lakes, and lush forests. The creature designs are very well made in that they scare me a lot, especially when I hear a random scream in the forest and turn around to see a blob of human appendages sprinting toward me. The way they contrast the beauty of the environment with the disgustingness of the creatures is very well done. If you want to play a game that is visually beautiful and horrifying, then this is the game for you.

Illustration credit: Clancy ( https://www.instagram.com/tiramisoou/ )