Sons of the Forest

Sons of the Forest sold over two million copies in its first twenty-four hours and hit 250,000 concurrent players on Steam during its early access launch in February 2023. The sequel to The Forest, one of the defining survival horror games on PC, arrived with enormous expectations and mostly met them on the survival side while stumbling on the horror and narrative side. Developed by Endnight Games and fully released in February 2024, the game drops you on a remote island to search for a missing billionaire, armed with little more than a survival guidebook and whatever you can scavenge.

The Steam reception sits at “Very Positive” from over 113,000 reviews, though the sentiment is more complicated than that number suggests. Players who come for the sandbox survival and co-op tend to love it. Players who come for the story and horror tend to find it lacking. Both groups are reacting to the same game, which says a lot about where Sons of the Forest succeeds and where it falls short.

A Forest Worth Getting Lost In

The environment is the game’s strongest asset. The island is large, visually stunning, and varied enough to reward exploration across dozens of hours. Dense forests give way to snowy mountains, underground cave systems, and coastal areas, each with distinct resources and threats. The weather system and day-night cycle add atmospheric texture, and the transition from a sunny afternoon to a rainy night in a dark forest creates mood shifts that the game handles beautifully.

Building has been significantly expanded from the original. The freeform construction system lets you place logs, planks, and other materials with precision, enabling creative builds that range from simple survival shelters to elaborate fortresses. The system is intuitive enough that building feels like a core activity rather than a chore, and many players spend more time constructing than they do engaging with the story or combat.

Kelvin and Virginia, your AI companions, are unexpectedly one of the game’s highlights. Kelvin follows orders, gathering resources and helping with construction, while Virginia is an autonomous companion who gradually warms up to you if you don’t threaten her. Both characters have enough personality in their behavior to make the island feel less lonely, and watching Virginia show up at your base wearing armor she found on her own creates emergent moments that feel truly surprising.

Co-op for up to eight players transforms the experience. The island’s threats become manageable with friends, building projects scale up dramatically, and the shared experience of stumbling into a cannibal camp at night generates the kind of stories that keep co-op survival games alive. The multiplayer is smooth and easy to set up, which helps given how much better the game plays with a group.

The Story That Never Arrives

The narrative is the game’s biggest disappointment. The premise is intriguing: you’re searching for a missing billionaire on an island inhabited by mutants and cannibals, with hints of something stranger lurking underneath. But the story is delivered in scattered fragments, mostly through locations you stumble upon rather than a coherent narrative structure. The ending, when it comes, feels abrupt and unsatisfying, leaving major questions unanswered in ways that feel like gaps rather than mystery.

The horror elements don’t land as consistently as they did in the original. The cannibals and mutants are threatening early on, but as you gear up and learn their patterns, they become more of a nuisance than a source of fear. The underground sections have effective scares, but the surface-level encounters lose their edge quickly. Players who played The Forest remember being deeply unsettled by its enemies. Sons of the Forest rarely achieves that same level of dread.

Performance has been a persistent issue since early access. The game demands significant hardware, and even capable systems can experience frame rate drops in complex areas or during intense encounters. Optimization has improved since the 1.0 release, but it remains a concern for players without high-end hardware. The game is officially unsupported on Steam Deck for related reasons.

The survival mechanics, while functional, can feel disconnected from the rest of the experience. Hunger, thirst, and energy management exist alongside the story and combat, but they don’t create meaningful tension the way they do in tighter survival games. You manage them because the game requires it, not because they enhance the experience.

Surviving Without a Purpose

Sons of the Forest is at its best when you treat it as a sandbox. Build a base, explore the island, mess around with friends, and enjoy the atmosphere. It’s at its weakest when you try to follow its narrative thread, which meanders without payoff. The disconnect between these two experiences is the game’s core tension, and your enjoyment depends largely on which one you came for.

The modding community has added content and quality-of-life improvements that address some of the game’s rougher edges, and continued developer updates have expanded the experience since launch.

Should You Play Sons of the Forest?

If you enjoyed The Forest and want a bigger, prettier version of that sandbox with better building and AI companions, Sons of the Forest delivers. It’s also a strong co-op survival game for groups looking for their next shared project. Players who prioritize creative building and exploration over narrative will find plenty to enjoy.

Skip it if you’re coming for the story or the horror. If you want a survival game with a satisfying narrative arc or consistent scares, Sons of the Forest will likely disappoint on both fronts. Solo players may also find the experience thinner than the co-op version suggests.

The Verdict on Sons of the Forest

Sons of the Forest delivers a gorgeous, unsettling forest to survive in and expands on its predecessor in almost every mechanical way. The building is more flexible, the AI companions add genuine personality, and the atmosphere can shift from peaceful to terrifying in seconds. But the story never comes together, performance issues persist, and the survival and narrative threads run parallel instead of intertwining. It’s a better sandbox than a horror game, and a better co-op experience than a solo one. For players who know what they want from it, that’s enough.