Sons of the Forest – Review

I used to have a bunch of PC games that I’d picked up at garage sales, and a few of them didn’t come with instructions. Playing them was like fumbling in the dark, but I persisted since even the smallest of successes felt like a big win under the circumstances. I suppose you have to get your hit of dopamine where you can.

I bring this up because the now Steam Early Access game Sons of the Forest had me thinking back to that time. There are six items concerning the game’s story, environment, and gameplay that aren’t explained for every one that is. When the game begins, you find yourself in the middle of a dangerous wilderness and must fend for yourself until help arrives.

That winds up being a plus in the long run. To add to the intrigue, SotF develops slowly and provides little in the way of exposition. If you get the hang of it, it’s surprisingly addicting and scary—though it could need some explanation of its controls and user interface.

When it comes to Sons of the Forest, the “survival” component of the genre is the focus at first. You have to discover and secure shelter, food, and potable water, all while fighting through opponents with limited resources.

You take on the role of a mercenary who, along with your team, has been dispatched to an unknown island in search of a certain item. You’ve set out to locate Edward Puffton, a billionaire who vanished along with his wife and children eight months ago.

Your team’s helicopters were shot down by an enemy force as they were approaching, and the only reason you survived the crash was pure luck. Kelvin, the lone other survivor, was left with permanent hearing loss, a concussion, and no fighting ability. That leaves you essentially defenceless against a group of cannibalistic mutants who inhabit the island with only an axe, a lighter, and a knife for protection.

You have a few more options in Sons than you had in its 2018 forerunner, The Forest. Your character also begins the game with greater combat prowess than Eric Leblanc from The Forest and a GPS map of the island. For the first few days of SotF, once you’ve scraped together the ingredients to build an improvised spear, you’ll be prepared for most encounters.

Yet, my initial impression of SotF was that it is unusually silent for a horror game. It doesn’t take long before you run into one of the island’s cannibals unless you’re playing on the low-conflict Peaceful mode, but unlike other games, SotF doesn’t have a dramatic musical sting or emotive cutscene to accompany your initial meeting. As such, hostiles are not dealt with as threats but rather as features of the island’s natural environment, along with the trees, rivers, rocks, bushes, and mutant cannibals.

Surprisingly, it works. Much of the island is a beautifully depicted, vibrant natural scenery, yet there is a palpable sense of foreboding that grows stronger the further you venture into the interior.

Totems fashioned from the bodies of the tormented are scattered throughout the shores, and even the island’s most tranquil spots likely hide a dead body or two. I spent two game days constructing a wood cabin on a remote river delta, and midway through, I discovered a spot beneath a rocky overhang where two characters had scuttled off to die. At any given moment, you might be no more than a few feet away from the scene of a gruesome murder.

The cannibals’ appearances are somewhat sporadic. They approach you with caution at first, but as time passes on the island, they will use greater force to eliminate you. Remember, this is not something you learn from SotF; on day one, you deal with the occasional bizarre ape-man, and by day 12, you’re fighting full skirmish parties.

Suddenly, you’re in an unusual weapons competition. If you want to complete your initial goals in SotF, you’ll have to delve deep into the island’s caves to find the tools you’ll need to reach previously unreachable areas.

The caves, on the other hand, have some of the most lethal monsters in the game and are therefore among the most horrifying places. Even though it’s basic and primitive, there are few things more terrifying in a video game than having to navigate the world by feel because you know something is around and will see you if you turn on a light.

In order to have any hope of making it through the caverns alive, you’ll need to do some exploring of the island to gather supplies, but you’re running out of time. In SotF, the burn phase is when the cannibals begin to field little armies in an attempt to wipe you off, and every day you spend exploring randomly or establishing a base brings you closer to this point.

Hence, I had a few false starts with SotF until I finally found a rhythm. The game is a horror game, and like with any horror game, it’s better to enter it blind.

But, there are a few essential game principles and pieces of equipment that aren’t explained in-game, so it’s helpful to conduct some research beforehand. The game’s quick-select concept, in which your character can equip an item by simply pulling it out of his backpack rather of opening his entire inventory, is crucial to your success but is never explained. (To elaborate, on February 28, 2023, Hotfix 2 was released for Sons of the Forest, which included the addition of numeric hotkeys.)

Because that spoilers are both deadly and practically necessary, Sons of the Forest must execute a rather odd balancing act.