Sons Of The Forest: Game Review

Sons Of The Forest Game Review

The forest survival simulator is back. Again, you have to look for food, build a base and fight off the savages. In addition, in the early version, the outlines of the plot have already appeared, which can be passed from beginning to end. But the answer to the main question of whether Sons Of The Forest is fun to play is not in the current state.

Smooth landing

The story of Sons Of The Forest begins with a rescue mission. Together with a detachment of professional fighters, the player was sent to explore the island. The goal is to find and evacuate the director of a large corporation and his family. Alone or in the company of friends, you will have to find out what happened to them.

First of all, the main characters need help. Helicopters with rescuers are shot down on approach. Judging by the bullet holes, they shot from a machine gun. The helicopter crashes in a random location on the island. Of all the comrades, only one survived – Calvin.

sons of the forest release date

Together, stuck in this wilderness, you must survive. And besides this – to find the director, his wife and daughter. At the same time, you need to figure out what is happening on this damned island. There is a lot of work to be done!

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Difficult to study in Sons Of The Forest

At first, it is difficult to understand the mechanics of the game, especially if you have not played the first part before. The survival guide is divided into two parts.

In the first, the player clicks on the image of a building or object to place it in the right place. Everything will build itself – the main thing is to collect resources and bring them to the construction site. The second part of the guide shows the actions that the player himself must perform for the construction – in a specific way, place logs, boards, sticks, bones, or combine something with something. This is more difficult, but gives room for creativity.

Confused and inventory in Sons Of The Forest. This is such a big bag where the main character stores the collected resources. Over time, a bunch of everything accumulates there: weapons, resources, spare parts, food, books, human remains – the list is endless, it seems. It’s easy to get confused in all this stuff.

sons of the forest genres

Next, it’s worth understanding the local physics, which is made “under realism”, albeit full of conventions. If you decide to stand under a falling tree, you will get hurt in the head. Wood that has fallen into the water floats along the river, and thus it can be easily transported to the right place. The fire dies out when it rains, and in winter you need to prepare for frost – look for warm clothes, do not go fishing in a blizzard. Features – a lot.

The character in Sons of the Forest wants to eat, drink and sleep. And if the source of water is easy to find, then food is another story. Nuts and berries do not satisfy hunger, so our choice is hunting! Place traps for nimble deer and fish. Cook the mined meat or hang it to dry over the fire so that the prey does not spoil. Make sure that a fire and a warm bed are waiting at home. After all, you can’t fight hungry and sleepy, you can’t cut down a tree!

The next stage is a cozy house, which will have to be made from a log house. The process is reduced to a ruthless, but such a pleasant cutting down of the local flora. An average house, with all the amenities and a palisade, will take a decent site like this!

The mechanics of interaction with companions in Sons Of The Forest is also interesting. At the moment there are two of them: Calvin and Virginia.

  • The commando hit his head hard. He became deaf in both ears and lost the power of speech. Ideally, he should be healed. But in reality, it can and should be harnessed. Write to him in a notebook: “build, fish, follow me” – there are enough options for interaction. The guy is intelligent and will do everything in the best possible way.
  • Virginia is a blonde with extra limbs. At first, she shuns the player. But over time, it becomes more trusting, and begins to bring medicinal herbs or food. To know where she is, the mutant girl is allowed to be marked with a GPS tracker. And in order to be able to stand up for herself – to give out weapons. With the latter, she handles deftly and becomes a good assistant in protecting the base.
sons of the forest release

If you are tired of equipping the base in Sons Of The Forest, then it’s time to do reconnaissance. Scattered in caves and underground complexes are modern equipment that makes life easier – a shovel, scuba gear, even more modern weapons.

But you shouldn’t do it for the sake of the plot – in the current version, this is a boring set of loosely connected scenes. The plot locations are monotonous and filled with mutants, which are uninteresting and even painful to fight.

Johnny they’re in the trees

From time to time in Sons of the Forest, cannibals with mutants will visit the player – these vandals break all the buildings on the way to get to you. We’ll have to learn to stand up for ourselves and deceive the savages.

Walls with traps or a palisade help against intruders as the first stage of defense. We’ll have to use the created and found weapons against them – pistols, a crossbow, a homemade bow. But the most pleasant thing to use is the shotgun. A shot literally removes the enemy from life, tearing off limbs – if they remain at all after an encounter with buckshot. And if someone else was behind the reptile, he will get it too.

sons of the forest gameplay

For cannibals in Sons Of The Forest, by the way, it is interesting to watch. They jump up trees and try to intimidate the player with their screams. A person thrown into a cannibal is quickly eaten – why not distract the brutalized individuals? If you kill a male savage in the camp, then the woman of this savage will begin to mourn the deceased. Toward the end of the game, there is a way to avoid conflict altogether – find a golden mask that will deceive the cannibals and they will not attack you. But for a new chandelier in a fashionable log house, a lot of human skulls are needed – a peaceful option is not even considered.

Atmosphere Sons of the Forest

The island in Sons of the Forest is striking in its beauty. I want to watch the flow of water or the rustle of leaves, pouring rain or falling snow captivate the eye – this place is full of life. If you lift a stone, then under it we see beetles and spiders. Here the eagle caught a hare for his dinner. The deer rest quietly at the watering hole, not knowing that they will end the day in the player’s stomach.

Great sound also contributes to the immersion. Thanks to him, you feel like in the wild – the gnashing of falling trees, the murmur of water or the singing of birds are conveyed so realistically that you just want to stand and listen.

All character actions in Sons of the Forest are animated and this has a positive effect on immersion. It is pleasing to the eye how the hero turns a pile of rubbish into tools or weapons.

the sons of the forest

Alas, such beauty has a price. At high graphics settings, only people with the latest series of Nvidia video cards will be able to play. On medium or weak machines, it makes no sense to even try to set high settings – the frame rate will not rise above 30-35 frames per second. But even at low settings, the game is unusually beautiful.

Also, performance issues are noticeable when opening the inventory, when items are loaded after a couple of seconds, and the frame rate rises or falls depending on the number of items in the backpack.

Diagnosis

Even though Sons of the Forest is out in Early Access, it’s already a great sandbox today. An interesting and atmospheric survival game in which you want to spend time alone or with friends. But for a comfortable game, there is still a lot of things missing – new drawings for construction, opportunities for survival, a compartment in the inventory for a clear orientation between objects. The optimization was also disappointing – it is simply impossible to release projects in this form.

But the main problem of the game is the story. Story locations are boring and tiring to go through. Developers need to seriously work on the balance of battles with mutants and the number of enemies in the dungeons. And the information received in the bunkers and points of interest does not shed any light on what is happening.

I would like to believe that Sons of the Forest will be brought to mind in the release version. In the meantime, it is better not to spend money and calmly wait a year or two.

Questions about this game:

When does Sons of the Forest come out?

Sons of the Forest release date – Feb 23, 2023.

How much will Sons of the Forest cost?

The PC version Sons Of The Forest is available in the US for $29.99.