Sons Of The Forest Enters Steam Early Access This Week
Players can venture into the wilderness again and impact the development of this sequel.
Sons Of The Forest, a sequel to the hit horror survival game The Forest from Endnight Games, begins Early Access on Steam this Thursday. The game will cost $29.99. The price will remain the same once it leaves Early Access and officially launches.
Originally set to be a full release, the independent Vancouver-based studio previously announced the game’s launch change earlier this month. The studio said the decision was made in order to prevent further delays, to continue to add more features and also get more ongoing player feedback in much the same way the original game did.
The Early Access period for Sons Of The Forest is estimated to last between 6-8 months. The length of it depends on how the studio feels development is progressing though. The game was created with the Unity engine.
The Forest first entered Early Access on Steam in May 2014, evolving during development from player feedback and eventually becoming an official full release in April 2018. There’s also a console version on PlayStation 4 that released in November 2018.
Sons Of The Forest was first announced in December 2019 during The Game Awards. It has been delayed several times already, with a release set for 2021, then into May 2022, further into October 2022 and finally for a Feb. 23 launch.
The game is centered around a new story about searching for a billionaire gone missing on an island filled with cannibals and other mutants. After surviving a helicopter crash while being sent with other mercenaries to the island, the player sets out for answers. The island has a connection to the events of The Forest.
The sequel has several new features. There’s now an AI companion character named Kelvin who can offer support, fight enemies and follow orders like gathering supplies or other tasks. However Kelvin can face permanent death in the game if players don’t want his help anymore. There will also be other companions discoverable on the island, like mutants. There will be dynamic weather seasons like warm and winter environments that change during the game and affect how the player faces the open world and the enemy’s response to it as well. The building mechanics are much more detailed and realistic compared to the first game, like cutting down a tree or creating a house. Players will build the full structures out themselves, piece by piece. You can now place logs and other objects into exact positions and designs instead of the whole building being automatically created from a blueprint format like in The Forest. There’s also a digging mechanic that has been added.
Visually the game is a major improvement over the original. The game’s island is about four times larger than The Forest, according to the developers. There are new water sources and a lot more trees and other forms of nature. The number of objects like trees and bushes in the first game were around 40,000 and in the sequel there are now around two million, according to Rod Green, the studio’s project director. Enemy AI is also a lot smarter, who will remember and adjust to the player’s behavior and have their own character traits, stats and even leadership qualities. They might even do things like begin to wear more armor to defend against the player. Factions between different enemy groups will also fight each other in certain situations.
Sons Of The Forest will include co-operative multiplayer like the first game with up to seven other players. The game is played in first-person mode.
“The Forest turned out to be a massive success, due mostly to the awesome community and the suggestions, feedback, and bug reports the players shared with us,” Endnight Games said in a statement. “We are really excited and hope that players want to come on this new journey with us to make this the ultimate survival horror simulator.”
Sons Of The Forest is a lot more advanced graphically and technologically compared to the first release. PC requirements for the game include an Intel Core i5-8400/AMD Ryzen 3 3300X, 12GN of RAM, and a GeForce GTX 1060 3GB/AMD Radeon RX 570 4GB. The recommended settings are with an Intel Core i7-8700K/AMD Ryzen 5 3600X, 16GB of RAM and GeForce 1080Ti/AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT.
Console versions for Sons Of The Forest haven’t been announced yet.
Endnight Games had announced in November 2018 that The Forest sold over 5.3 million copies just on PC at the time.
Watch the game’s latest trailer focused on its multiplayer:
Quarter Disorder 
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[…] Of The Forest launched in Steam Early Access on Thursday and sold over two million copies in just 24 hours. The developer Endnight Games made the […]