The hit from Sons of the Forest has been tremendous. The Endnight Games title has been a colossal success and has only been with us for five days, but this explosion of popularity is logical considering the fame of The Forest. I have wanted to discover what is hidden among so many trees, strange sounds at night and I have entered the most terrifying forest that I remember.
First days of nightmare
If you are an upstart in the universe of Sons of the Forest and the most you’ve seen on survival is a Bear Grylls show, you’re pretty sold. The first contact with the work is not exactly pleasant, because we fly over the map where he will have to survive when suddenly everything goes to hell. The helicopter crashes at a random point, we see how a person hits us with a weapon after having escaped the accident and the party has started.
In my case I have come face to face with an icy mountain and a not very encouraging landscape. The remains of the device are twisted and scattered around the area, so I rush to collect the most basic survival kits, but there is a differentiating element compared to the 2014 work. Here we meet Kelvin, one of our colleagues who has also survived, although he has gone completely deaf. His function is as basic as that we can give him orders through notes, so he will be in charge of carrying out simple tasks in which we should not waste time.
The truth is that Kelvin’s range of actions is varied, being able to collect fish, logs, follow us tirelessly and fulfill specific patterns. All in all, you and your ingenuity take the lead when it comes to planning the next move, since he is not in charge of saving you from the threats in the forest. The great particularity that he distinguishes Sons of the Forest compared to other survival titles is the atmosphere it creates, the feeling that there really is a threat much worse among the foliage of the forest. The best part is that the game has managed to send that feeling down my spine within a few minutes of starting to play.
The first night is horrible, but for positive and negative reasons. The positives are that the setting is suffocating and yes, that movement that you have seen among the rocks has not been your imagination. The darkness of the night is utterly sinister and you can hardly see anything, even with a campfire at your feet. The tribes of savages, with men bathed in mud, mutants that impale the soldiers of your commando for display and creepy aberrations are very real. I’m going to have nightmares of Virginia Puffton coming out of the dark to poke around and offer me berries with hers three arms and legs of hers. However, the anguish accelerates because the novice does not know how to face what is coming.
Yes, I got resources, I had my tactical axe, canvas, sticks and other utensils, but I was not able to take advantage of it. It is true that there is a construction book that shows in drawing how to create certain tools and buildings, but access to material is highly cumbersome. A huge inventory can be displayed, but there are items that go off screen at first glance and the mouse wheel is useless for quickly selecting whether you want a stick or stone in hand. There are no clear indications in this regard, having to resort to the controls section of the menu or looking for help on the Internet. The newcomer is barely lent a line, so the input filter is smaller than you might expect. In contrast, if you are hardened in a thousand battles in the The Forest original, here you will feel like a fish in water.
fatigue companions
After a few days of real boredom trying to understand what are the most basic concepts to survive, I decided to jump into the multiplayer arena. behold the true Sons of Forest experience, because working side by side produces a very satisfying reward. We can create our own game, customizing multiple aspects such as difficulty or player limit. In my case, I tried to launch myself into a field already created by a group of unknown users, who became my guardian angels.
The nooks and crannies that the work hides are multiple, since the GPS map indicates points of interest where we will find ways to advance by leaps and bounds. The caves are dark and sinister places where we will come across underground bunkers and scientific complexes. Places that have been completely swept away by a wave of violence, but where we can get quantum leaps for the game. For example, there is a 3D printer capable of creating technological armor that helps resist the attacks of enemies; another time you will find an improved ax that makes chopping wood easier. They are incentives so that you do not stand still in a single point and that exploration is also important.
Obviously, the path to these scenarios is not easy. Sons of the Forest The difficulty of survival does not precisely focus on the needs of our character, which also, but on the environment itself. Swimming to discover that there is a lifeboat can end with us being eaten by a shark and facing enemies can be a sentence to wake up in a cannibal camp. The challenge is how to defend against all the threats that orbit around us, literally, and in relation to that is where I have found my most fun hours of play on the forested island.
The process of building a fort, with the great investment of time and effort that it entails, is tremendously rewarding. Cutting down trees, getting logs, laying a foundation for a house, laying down planks for the flooring, and building a solid wall are all pleasant processes that are best carried out in company. This is where Kelvin loses much of its usefulness, because with several human hands speeding up the processes, more time is wasted telling it what to do at each moment than in the benefit we receive.
It’s not that entertaining having to put up with the tribes, which seem endless. Even when you are located near a river to have a nearby water source and that they drown when entering it, they are still a nuisance. They stalk, but they don’t always attack. They observe erratically and sometimes decide that throwing rocks is the best form of communication. Climbing trees, carrying sharp weapons and constantly interrupting any task you set out to do. Endnight Games must review the appearance of these beings, since their proliferation throughout the map is excessive. Beyond that, they are tremendously sticky.
It is true that we are talking about Early Access and it is clear that we are going to have content for a long time. The community itself is the one that feeds the rhythm of the games, the one that creates their internal dynamics and Sons of the Forest it does nothing more than put the chips and the board to play. Solid as a rock playing in Ultra settings with an RTX 3070, we are talking about a title that technically does not surprise, since it is not the objective either. The mission for the future is to polish the bugs and errors that allow me to break the game in a very short time, but what I have learned is that my only requirement is to sleep under the stars with a partner by my side.
- Platforms: PC
- Multiplayer: Yes
- Developer: Endnight Games
- Company: Newnight
- Release: February 23, 2023
