Sons Of The Forest Reviews

I liked the game play and I like the adventure, but this game had the worst ending of all time. SOOOO anticlimactic. It almost ruins the whole game honestly.

I seldom leave reviews for games, let alone negative ones but I just had to for this game. The worst part is until I actually finished the game my thoughts on this game were only positive. My thoughts come from the run that I did with two friends that lasted 30+ hours & 5-6+ solo time. We finished the game last night and I've never seen the mood switch so fast for a game. Firstly the story made less and less sense the more we progressed through the game. Seeing weird little ghost dudes flying about in some alien world just shattered any immersion. The final nail in the coffin was being teleported to the surface and fighting the big toe man. The impression we got was that the ending was rushed. Looking back the lack of direction the game gives you is awful. I was reluctant to use the online map but in the end it was a necessity. None of us had the time to aimlessly wander the huge island to stumble across what we needed to progress. Unlike the first game, there weren't any times that I came across a location or scene that made me do more than shrug. It feels like they tried to wow you with notes you find around the island. However, when you have sometimes a 1-2 weeks between playing, you're not going to remember all of the little snippets of lore the game drip feeds you. A spaceship, random cultists, spies and weird parallel universe dreams was crazy, and not in the good way. There are countless ways to tell a story with those elements that are simpler and more satisfying but the devs didn't. Its frustrating to pour hours into a game only to be left dissatisfied after loving the game up until then. The worst part about all of this is that it's made much smaller issues become more apparent. First, here are some pros I liked about the game: - The visuals are stunning and the game manages it's resources quite well most of the time. - The AI of a lot of the enemies is very well done and has caused a lot of genuine scares both in solo play and multiplayer. - The sound design of the game is very well done, however I'd lessen the amount of radios playing house music everywhere. - The new mutant enemies were very unique in their designs and posed quite a big threat early game. - The clothes having more varied and useful uses was a good idea. Now for what I don't like: - Armour, whilst vital seems to block the most random amount of damage and is destroyed so easily, no matter what armour it is. Plus, and I don't know if this was due to us playing multiplayer or not, but we found that we had such an abundance of armour after a while that getting damage was trivial. We died more to the janky glider physics than cannibals after the first few hours. - Guns took away a lot of fear from the game. It felt so rewarding to craft the gun in the first game but just finding a pistol on rubber dingy just felt so cheap. Plus we found so much ammunition. There wasn't one time that any of us actually ran out of ammo. I also thought there were way too many weapons in the game. Having a 10 + items, (4 of them guns) just felt so overwhelming. Not to mention that were supposed to be playing as a reporter and it's very surprising that he could just pick up any of these weapons and know how to use them (and mod them) instantly. - Survival in this survival game is very odd. I expected to live off the land eventually, but I always had at least 5+ of soda, snack bars and MRE's on my person at all times. - Base building was fun but pointless. We built a huge base and barely used it. Saving, sleeping, and cooking could be done anywhere. - tem distribution was weird. Common things like sticks ran out (in a forest by the way), while stuff like wire overflowed. I wish items were more logically placed—rope at fishing camps, tape at military sites, etc. - The vehicles, whilst very fun (and a necessity) are painful to use. The Knight V seems to be the only one worth using since its pretty easy to pick back up when you inevitably hit a tree or boulder. The same can't be said about the golf cart. Not only is driving for more than 10 seconds near impossible but it confuses me as to why you can use a glider one handed but I cant have a sip of my water canteen without having to dismount the entire thing. Unfortunately the existence of these vehicles highlights the fact that the map is just too big. It's very cool at first but when it's a choice between walking for half an hour or lose your mind hitting every tree with a golf cart it doesn't do a lot to keep me hooked. - The inventory, whilst very cool visually, leaves a lot to be desired late game, at least for me. Not only is it hard to find small items in the sea of sticks but also I personally really hated the fact you had to turn to see parts of your inventory to the point where I didn't realise I had items because they were barely on my screen. I also was not a fan of the crafting. Having to play the full animation for every item was so tedious. Just show the animation once, and then just skip it from then on. It just made me hesitant to craft at all. That extends to eating too. Mass crafting health mixes or sticky bombs was very tiresome. - Maybe I was just an idiot but I didn't actually realise that if you get downed after the first one in solo that you just die and have to reload the save. The first time this happened I hadn't saved in over 2 hours. Needless to say I was very unhappy. I think there should be at least an autosave option. Losing my whole base because I forgot to save when I was playing casually was not enjoyable, especially since my IRL schedule doesn't allow me to play often. - Something that I really missed from the first game was the sanity system. In the first game, your descent into madness made sense. Here, you're sticking arms on sticks an hour after crashing. - Blueprints in this game felt so hit and miss. Some were very useful and then you just have the leg lamp. I feel like the devs had a few good ideas and felt like they needed to pad out the rest of the blueprints with weird and borderline gore fetish items. Instead what could have been cooler could have been recipes for cooking. Like why do we know how to make Greg soup from the get go. It's a very powerful and easy to make recipe from day one. Instead it'd be cooler if you found it in one of the countless empty cannibal camps. It's also quite crazy that some of the blueprints aren't even relevant until after you complete the story. The teleporter isn't even that powerful in the grand scheme of the game and the fact that you cant use it until you don't even really need it is kinda astonishing. I'd understand if there was more to do after the story but from what we found, there was nothing. -Kelvin was borderline useless 80% of the time. He died in our run and we barely noticed a change. The game just got more tedious, especially since his body never despawns. According to the wiki he is a "highly trained soldier" & yet he can't be given any sort of weapon & actively flees from danger. I get that he is supposed to be brain damaged from the crash, but he chops trees just fine. Then there is Virginia. Ignoring the fact that she also seems like weird fetish content for the devs, she is definitely the better out of the two. Although she doesn't gather resources like Kelvin, the way you have to build her trust and the gifts she brings you are very unique and should have been expanded upon a lot more. Plus, let's ignore the fact she gets a gun and Kelvin doesn't... So much wasted potential on a game that looks amazing and had such a big audience wanting more from the previous game. I'm hoping in the future they'll make some updates to try and remedy the story of the game if nothing else. I think a lot of the issued I listed above could be ignored if the ending had been better. Before last night my rating would have been 8/10 but now it sits at 5/10.

10 hours of chopping wood just to build gigasmall cursed shelter, no thanks. also i hated every second of inventory system

Sons of The Forest improves on graphics, animations, story, and more, but fails with the core game mechanics compared to The Forest. Building is needlessly obtuse compared to the first game and lackluster UI/UX that permeates throughout all the game's mechanics, especially in the crafting menu, turning what should've been simple things, like in the first game, into figuring out how the UI works. My biggest gripe with Sons of The Forest is the cave system. In the first game, you would often want to explore caves and be amazed by where you ended up both within the cave system and the overworld map, but Sons of The Forest fails in this regard. Caves are all separate linear paths to objectives rather than the sprawling, connected cave systems seen in the first game. You as the player do not want to explore the caves in this game; you want to find objectives. If you played the first game and want to play more of a similar game with friends, it's a decent buy on discount, otherwise consider whether you want to spend your limited time on a better game instead.

10/10 – Survived the forest… barely. Would get terrorized by mutant cannibals again. Sons of the Forest is like that one camping trip you never signed up for—except instead of marshmallows and s’mores, you get bloodthirsty mutants, creepy underground lairs, and a constant existential crisis about why you ever thought leaving civilization was a good idea. This game takes survival horror and cranks it up to eleven, then throws you into a nightmare where every rustle in the bushes makes you question your life choices. Pro tip: don’t trust anything that smiles. Seriously. Not even the trees. The crafting system is so deep, I spent more time building traps than running from freaky forest dwellers. The AI is so smart it’s basically a nature documentary directed by Stephen King. I’ve screamed more times here than at every horror movie combined—and I love it. If you like your horror with a side of “holy crap, run!”, some surprisingly heartfelt moments, and the thrill of “Did I just punch a mutant in the face or my own sanity?”, then Sons of the Forest is your dream nightmare. In conclusion: This game will steal your sleep, your calm, and maybe your soul. But hey, at least you’ll have a killer story to tell. 12/10, would get hunted by mutant cannibals and still come back for more.

CINE PUCHITO + I’M MONEY MAKE + MINIME NATIVE TITS + VIRGINIA = PROFIT Great survival vibes, same chaos with friends. 10/10 would build another ugly base (mentira Santi) Saludos joaco.

This game is honestly pretty bland compared to the original, and most of the cool new 'features' people talk about with the building are actually just more ways to make it needlessly grindy. It's not a bad game by any means, but I really find it hard to recommend, so I won't. Make no mistake, if you play with friends you'll probably have a decent time, but for fuck sake don't play it alone. Literally nothing about the game is made for it, and thanks to the combat somehow being even worse than the first game's, there's little you'll actually enjoy from the solo experience.

I went into Sons of the Forest thinking it was a survival game. Turns out it’s also a horror game, a comedy, and an exercise in bad decision-making. The first hour? Chopping trees, building a little camp, befriending Kelvin (best AI buddy ever). The second hour? Realizing Kelvin cut down the tree holding up my house. The rest of my time? Wandering through creepy caves, screaming at every noise, and accidentally eating something poisonous. The game is gorgeous. The forest feels alive, the lighting is stunning, and every sound makes you paranoid. The crafting is deep, the survival mechanics are engaging, and the mutants… well, let’s just say they don’t respect personal space. After 6 hours, my conclusion is: It’s beautiful, it’s terrifying, and I will 100% die here again.

I rotted on Sons last night for 4 hours for the first time alone. I played a few hours with a friend last week with no prior knowledge and it was hilarious.. but let me say I AM OBSESSED. Kelvin and I be tearing it up!! Survival is one of my favorite genres of games and I can honestly say this really makes you feel like you just out there but you're given enough tools to start to get it all going. Im excited to play more tonight cause I wanna make more stuff and camp out fighting cannibals lmao

Sons of the Forest is a true evolution of the original The Forest in every possible way. The game is bigger, more beautiful, and offers an incredible, mysterious and dark storyline that ties directly back to the first game. It genuinely feels like the developers listened to all the feedback players had about the original. For example, I used to hate how, in the first game, you never really knew where to go. In this sequel, you arrive on the island with several points of interest already marked, which helps guide your progression through the story. Another major improvement is the reduced grinding. In the first game, building a base required collecting an exhausting amount of resources. In Sons of the Forest, you have an NPC companion who follows commands and helps you maintain your base. There's even another NPC you can form a relationship with, who is also tied into the narrative and adds depth to the story. One of the game’s strongest aspects is how effectively it delivers genuine scares. I've played all the Resident Evil and Silent Hill games and barely flinched, but Sons of the Forest had moments so intense I honestly thought I might have a heart attack. In short, this game is everything a survival title should be. It's easily one of the best in the genre. My only real complaint is the lack of a decent fast travel option early on, which leads to some sections feeling a bit like a walking simulator. Other than that, it’s close to perfect. Score: 9/10