Sons of the Forest: First Impressions

I enjoyed The Forest in solo and co-op so I was very interested in a potential sequel that I hoped would expand and refine the original game and improve upon some its weaker aspects. And then, seemingly out of nowhere, Sons of the Forest released into Early Access. I wanted to try this early release and share my initial impressions, but with plenty of other games lined up to play and lots of actual work to do, I didn’t (and couldn’t) get too stuck into it just yet. So these impressions are based upon only 7 hours of play.

And to be honest, after those 7 hours I’m kind of happy to put this one down for now and wait for some more updates to roll out. I can’t say I didn’t enjoy what I played, but in terms of being a sequel and my expectations for a sequel, Sons of the Forest, in its current state, is a little disappointing. Because right now it’s just more Forest. It doesn’t really do anything the original didn’t and it doesn’t really do it as good.

Visually, Sons is obviously a significant step up. I really can’t fault the visuals, although I do think they either need to make the night less dark, or make ‘lighter’ nights an option. It gets dark on the island around 6pm and, regardless of a clear sky or not, everything suddenly becomes pitch black. It’s like you’ve suddenly been swallowed by a black hole.

This means that from 6pm onwards you can’t really do anything. Even trying to traverse with a torch is an absolute pain. You just have to sleep – if the annoying cannibal AI will let you, which is an issue I’ll touch upon later.

Like Forest, Sons sees you crash on a mysterious island. There’s a story that in order to progress through you’ll need to explore several different caves to retrieve key items. I’ve only explored a couple of caves in my time with the game and I have to say they were both a little disappointing compared to those of the original.

They were both short and very linear and neither really invoked that sense of fear and confusion those in the original had with their winding, diverging paths, or how they linked up to other cave systems. Maybe there are more complex caves in the game and I just didn’t see them, but of the few I did, they weren’t particularly inspiring.

And then we have the survival aspects in which you can build shelters and gather materials and craft tools and it’s all good stuff and I really do like the new building system but at the same time, there’s less stuff to build in Sons than in the original. In my view, a sequel should not only be refining what we had but building upon it. Sons does refine the building / crafting systems but right now, it offers less options and that’s also pretty disappointing.

One of the best things about the original was the cannibals on the island and their AI. Once again, I wanted to see a refinement and improvement of the original but Sons, in its current state, is a lot worse. In the original game I could go for days without seeing them if I was careful, avoided their camps and didn’t draw too much attention.

In Sons, however, they seem to swarm around me almost as soon as I step outside of the starting area. They’re not hostile, they just won’t leave me the f**k alone. And this causes real problems with Kelvin, your friendly AI. I love the idea of Kelvin. Being able to send him off to collect materials and do some of the tedious busywork is a great idea and just the kind of new and interesting system I want to see in a sequel.

Unfortunately, as soon as Kelvin sees the cannibals he tends to drop whatever you’ve assigned him to do. And because the cannibals seem to constantly follow you about, it makes Kelvin kind of useless. It also makes sleeping a real pain because the cannibals keep running around your camp and waking you up.

And when you do find a nice spot to build, even if you think you’ve managed to lose them, as soon as one tree hits the ground, another group appears. Even if I don’t attack them, they turn hostile and I’m forced to kill them but once I do, the bodies just disappear and more spawn in. They also have the annoying ability to hit you through walls, or even glitch through walls and into your base. That’s where I quit the game. It was impossible to do anything because I was constantly being attacked – and this was on Day 3 on Normal.

Maybe this was just a bug, but I’ve seen plenty of people complaining about it on the Steam forums. Maybe it’s just an AI aggression trigger that’s not working correctly. I don’t know. I never had this problem in the original so I know it’s not the way I’m playing. It’s like they just lock on to you as soon as you leave the starting area and it’s almost impossible to shake them. And even if you do, they can seemingly just spawn in, one group after another, right on top of you. Their AI clearly needs work.

And finally I have to talk more about Kelvin. In theory, he’s a really cool addition. In practice, his AI is also kind of bad. He’ll frequently wander off, ignoring your orders. He’ll drop anything he’s doing as soon as he sees a cannibal which is . . . often, as I’ve described. He can’t fight. He’s also prone to walking into your fire and setting himself on fire or running continuously into a wall.

If you tell him to gather logs he’s liable to cut down trees that you’ve used for your structures, resulting in their total collapse. I guess it’s kind of funny for the internet memes but at this point, I think I’d prefer to just kill him at the start and play without him.

Overall, I can’t really recommend Sons of the Forest in its current release state and I’m pretty disappointed that the game, aside from its visuals, offers less than the original. I’m fine with an Early Access release but I would have expected Sons, as a sequel, to still offer as much as the original did in order to then build upon that over time. Instead, it’s going to take time for Sons to even reach the same level of content as Forest.

Despite my issues, I do still kind of want to keep playing it because I do still find it compelling to play. But for now, I think I’ll wait and see what updates roll out. I’ve got plenty to keep me busy in the meantime.