Now Playing: The Forest

The Forest is a first person survival game in which you play as the survivor of a plane crash upon a mysterious island. I recently played The Long Dark, another first person survival game with a similar premise. But whereas The Long Dark is a more slow, methodical tale of surviving the desolate wilderness – where the cold is your greatest threat – The Forest is a faster paced, more action focused game. Because in The Forest, you’re sharing the mysterious island upon which you crash with a tribe of flesh eating cannibals.

And the cannibals are probably the most interesting and unique part of The Forest experience. Although you can choose to play without their presence, it’s the cannibals which are easily the star of the show, and they elevate The Forest beyond what would otherwise be a rather mundane and repetitive survival experience.

Your first encounters with this tribe may not necessarily be hostile. They seem curious about you and your activity. They won’t just attack. They may observe, they may approach, but they won’t get too close, not unless they feel threatened. By relocating your camp, not lighting fires at night, and staying on the move, it’s possible to avoid contact entirely.

But the more you impose yourself upon their world – by felling trees, hunting wildlife and building outposts, the more aware and wary of you they become. You’re as much of a threat to their world, as they are to your life. Conflict becomes inevitable, and the first cannibal life you take won’t be your last.

 

As time goes on, the tribe will become increasingly hostile, and you’ll be dealing with deadlier threats than a cannibal hunting party. Greater dangers lurk in the extensive cave network beneath the island. And once you begin delving into these dark and gloomy caverns, The Forest begins to feel more like a survival horror game.

Unlike many survival focused games, The Forest isn’t entirely a sandbox experience. You can play it that way, but the game does have a ‘story’ of sorts and a primary objective to complete – to locate your missing son. You’ll also unlock side objectives as you explore. But these objectives remain entirely optional.

The problem is, The Forest both is and isn’t a sandbox experience. It attempts to walk the line and it wobbles. The sandbox element lacks the randomisation that would benefit repeat play. I’m not expecting the entire layout of the island to change, but cannibal villages, patrol routes and most notably – unique items – could be randomised each game.

And because the ‘story’ is entirely optional, it’s also not very good. There’s no real sense of progression, of taking the logical steps to locate your son. You simply have to explore the island thoroughly until you locate the necessary story items and final location. I stumbled upon it whilst exploring one of the caves. And although I quite enjoyed the final story area, I didn’t feel like I’d progressed through the story in any way. I just kind of fell into the ending by accident.

 

But I do like that The Forest gives the player a goal beyond survival for the sake of survival. Because like so many survival games which focus purely on the sandbox experience, once you’ve established your outpost and have access to a steady supply of food and water, it’s easy to fall into a safe but monotonous routine. But by giving the player a goal to achieve, it forces them to take risks – to enter the cave network beneath the island in the hope of finding their son.

Exploring the cave network can be a genuinely unsettling experience. And it’s not just cannibals that lurk beneath the surface. I won’t spoil the kind of threats that lie below, because I wasn’t aware of them going in, and the first time I encountered one was pretty f**king unnerving. I can’t recall the last time a game made me say ‘NOPE!’ and backtrack out the way I came in.

But if you want to progress through the story and also discover all of the unique and useful items in the game – tools and weapons that will make your survival that little bit easier – then you need to sack up and head below. Just make sure you’re prepared for what’s waiting for you. I just wish they’d made these unique items easier to spot in the dark and sometimes cluttered cave environments. It’s very easy to simply walk by a key story item.

As you’d expect, there’s a crafting system in the game for tools and weapons, and a fairly decent construction system allowing you to build your own large or small outposts. You can build anywhere you want – you’re not locked to pre-set locations – and although building a big walled fortress isn’t strictly necessary to your survival – and probably detrimental given how visible it is – it can be a lot of fun to design and construct your own base.

 

Although I’ve praised the cannibal aspect, I must admit there does come a point when they’re more annoying than dangerous, and once you understand their behaviour, it’s pretty easy to exploit or abuse their limited AI. Like so many video game foes, they’re entirely baffled by rocks. Even the strongest enemies in the game can be easily defeated by positioning yourself upon a slightly raised position.

It’s also a shame we can’t interact with the cannibals more beyond ‘avoid’ or ‘murder and eat’. I’d have liked there to be multiple tribes, each with their own territory. Maybe we could even build some kind of ‘relationship’ with a tribe, through trade or gifts. I understand this isn’t a big budget game, I just think it’s a shame the cannibal interactions and behaviour are so limited, because that aspect of The Forest is by far the most interesting to me.

Overall, The Forest is an enjoyable survival game. I just wish it had explored and developed those unique aspects more – the cannibal behaviour and the story elements – because they elevate the game beyond its somewhat rudimentary survival mechanics. But alongside The Long Dark, it’s probably one of the best survival themed games on the market right now and certainly worth checking out.

7/10