Speed is required: This not only applies to your reaction to the murderous cannibals in The Forest, but also to the currently strongest discount on the game ever. Only a few more hours, more precisely until 7 p.m., is the much-vaunted survival hit on Steam for only 5 dollars.
The Forest on Steam
You can read what makes the title so special in the further course of the article. After a long early access phase and VR mode added in 2019, the development of The Forest is now considered complete. You can find out when the eagerly awaited successor will be released here:
Sons of the Forest:
The most anticipated survival game at GameStar has a release
That’s what The Forest is about
It all begins with a fateful plane crash. You’ve just been tending to your son in the seat next to you and a few moments later you’re clutching your seat in panic because an engine has gone up in smoke.
When you come to you a little later, half dazed and injured, a half-naked and blood-covered figure is standing in front of you, picking up your unconscious child and carrying it away. Disoriented but determined to save little Timmy, you grab a fire ax lying around and begin your adventure on Cannibal Island.
As exciting and mysterious as this starting point is, after just a few minutes the story fades into the background and the excellent gameplay takes over. In typical survival fashion you collect raw materials, weapons and equipment in order to survive.
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The Forest 1.10 – Update Brings New Monster, Crossbow & Glider (Trailer)
The first deer will easily escape you and your short axe, but gradually you will develop suitable tools and strategies to reliably quench your hunger and thirst. The Forest treads moderate paths (depending on the level of difficulty) in terms of the frequency with which you have to satisfy your needs. A pleasant automatism develops over time.
From defense to offense
Once you’ve mastered the basics of survival, your goals and ambitions will continue to evolve. Some players go on the offensive immediately and haunt the cannibals in their villages and numerous caves in order to violently wrest answers from them.
Your opponents may appear human at first, but something is wrong with them. Like our early ancestors, they hunt in groups, but they are unusually agile and otherwise display rather bestial behavior patterns.
This nebulous image of the enemy and the questions it raises are among The Forest’s strengths. Its creators would like to further expand on the direct successor Sons of the Forest. What we know about the title so far, we have summarized for you in this video:
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What is Sons of the Forest about?
At the latest when you meet their mutated friends, the urge to expand your temporary sleeping quarters into a fortified facility could grow in you. With axes, chainsaws or explosives (*crazy laughter*) you defy the area and building materials of the eponymous forest and can plan your fortress with considerable freedom and gradually build it.
But beware: The more trees you cut down, the more aggressive the cannibals become and the longer you stay on the island, the more often the big mutants dare to come out of their caves. Once a multi-legged Virginia jumps into your living room and throws biting mutant babies around you, you’d probably better think about a reinforced palisade. You can also lay out slings and tripping hazards.
You can be just as creative in the deadly jungle of Green Hell. In order to find out how realistic the whole thing is, we sent two guinea pigs… sorry, experts into the thicket for you:
How realistic is Green Hell?
With my boyfriend on the deserted island™
Solo or Multiplayer?
You always have the choice of tackling your way through the forest alone or with up to eight friends. If you bring reinforcements with you, you weaken the oppressive atmosphere of loneliness, which also has its appeal, but you gain numerous tactical and structural possibilities.
Because every tree trunk in your log cabin corresponds to a tree that has actually been felled, larger construction projects can hardly be tackled alone. Of course, fighting becomes easier as well, since the enemy groups’ attention is split between multiple targets and you can help each other out when you get in trouble.
The Forest – View screenshots from the PS4 version
When you share your last supplies with your friends in the depths of a cannibal cave, not knowing whether you will make it to the surface to save yourself in time, a co-op feeling unfolds that only a few survival games have been able to create so far.
The girlfriend of our author Sascha Penzhorn, who was quickly eaten by him in Ark, found out that things can also be done less squeamishly.
PS: Unlike many other survival games, The Forest is actually playable. In co-op, of course, Timmy is only related to one of you, but you can still experience the finale with its different endings together.
Which of the three survival games mentioned here have you already tried or is next on your list? Let us know in the comments!
