Sons of the Forest

Even in early access, Sons of the Forest is already a strong survival crafter sequel that takes all the things The Forest did so well and does them a little bit better.

"There's a lot of weirdness in the world that just begs for more investigation"

A properly transportive trip to an island full of jerks - if you look past the clunky combat and immersion-sapping progress gates.

Unfortunately, Sons of the Forest doesn’t quite manage to bring all of its elements together in a tidy package. While the building, crafting, and survival elements are neat, they’re not intertwined with the story, with both feeling like they’re completely separate ideas. Even the story seems unsure of what it wants to be, with odd pacing and poor audio design. I feel that fans of the original Forest game will relish the experience on offer here, but for everyone else, there are far better survival games out there.

Sons of the Forest is an impressive survival game that suffers from several problems such as poor optimization and a poor ranged weapon model. However, elements such as building objects, exploration and any openness in solving the island puzzle are definitely positive choices made by the game's developers. I am able to fully recommend Sons of the Forest to all fans of survival games who are looking for fun for a dozen or even several dozen hours of gameplay, especially in co-op mode.

Sons of the Forest can fumble with its narrative, but its survival crafting fundamentals and sandbox still warrant a look.

Sons of the Forest is an incredibly unique, immersive, and terrifying horror survival game that pits you against the mutated inhabitants of an island far away from civilization. The story is incredibly interesting and forces you out of your comfort zone as you delve deep underground and brave the horrors of the island while seeking answers.

Despite having less content, Sons of the Forest in its early access state is a shinier and better version of its predecessor and I look forward to future updates.

Sons of the Forest is an utterly engrossing game, and in losing myself in it, hours went by as I explored. For me, the main concerns are in content density, lack of direction, and a lingering feeling of being unfinished which, to be fair, is totally understandable from an early-access title. The building is a little clunky. There are visual issues with certain animations. It’s also given way to many hilarious glitches, including a physics issue that launched my character into the sky while chopping down a tree.