Some time ago I played the game “The Forest” with Luzi, DeeDee and Rafi – where we crash-landed on a mysterious island and had to survive and uncover a secret. I wasn’t very impressed with the game at the time, to say the least. Could the sequel “Sons of the Forest” excite me this time?

Note: the images were processed using an AI tool. The camera image of the person playing was replaced and filled so that there is no gap. The core of the image or things that I focus on have not been changed.

Another note: we played the game in early access. As you can see from a screenshot, this was about a month before the final release. Contrary to my expectations, the release has improved a few things – but overall my criticisms should still apply.

When I was thinking about writing this article, I didn’t really know where to start, so I re-read the article from the first part. At the beginning I thought it would be quite easy, after all, many of my criticisms at the time still exist. On the other hand, this would be an unfair comparison: the second part was still in the early access phase when we played it, the first was already 9 years old – bugs, for example, have a completely different status in such a comparison.

Still, it’s hard not to see certain parallels and, being the pessimist that I am, assume that things won’t get much better here either. So I will definitely make comparisons – but hopefully in a thoughtful and fair way. Therefore, I won’t go into general bugs in the game at this point.

But let’s get to the positive first: what was good about this game? And I can clearly mention the graphics. The game looks beautiful and is really visually impressive. Not only the much more detailed and realistic textures themselves, but also the lighting effects and movements are much better done than in part one. The sound also worked properly in most places, creating a nice and appropriate atmosphere – I really liked that.

The second point I would like to mention positively was the inventiveness of new elements. Incorporating a golf cart and a monowheel as a means of transportation to explore the now much larger island was interesting. Placing 3D printers in certain locations was also (in my opinion) a good expansion of the possibilities. And, most importantly, the greater variety of weapons that could be found made many fights both more varied and more enjoyable.

Unfortunately, that’s basically it for the points that I remember as positive, so let’s move on to the (in my opinion) negative aspects. As already mentioned, I am leaving out bugs because these are to be expected in an early access title and therefore should not form a basis for evaluation.

The biggest problem with this game, in my opinion, is that it doesn’t have a clear direction. You’re supposed to explore, you’re supposed to build a base and survive, and you’re supposed to follow the story – none of these aspects are really fun in this game, because none of them are followed consistently. It’s hardly worth exploring because it’s one thing above all else: empty. The entire story of the game takes place on about a third of the map, with a short detour that wastes more time running back and forth than offers any real added value. There isn’t really much to find outside of this “story area”.

Building bases can be fun, but it somehow serves no purpose – why should I build a base if I can’t do anything special there? It is also rather a hindrance to the story, as it makes much more sense to set up a tent somewhere instead of always walking back the long distances after each ingame day. It offers practically no added value and only serves to extend playing time, if you do it at all.

And finally the story. Unlike the first part, you at least get a little more orientation that tells you roughly where to go. This slows down a lot, especially in the middle of the game, and you are completely lost again without help from the Internet (or days of searching). Especially since the story makes absolutely no sense and left me, at least in the end, more frustrated than excited.

The last point in particular made me very upset, as there was one thing in particular that delayed the story significantly and unnecessarily. At the beginning of the game you are given three GPS coordinates where you are supposed to search for something. One of them is a grave that obviously needs to be dug. We spent three quarters of our playing time looking for a shovel. That’s not an exaggeration. To get the shovel, you have to explore various caves and find various other tools (for example a harpoon with a rope attached) until you finally have it in your hands. To then dig up the grave, which is perhaps 30 centimeters deep.

The fact that we, as trained elite mercenaries, could not do this in any other way than with this spade, at a time when we were already able to build special armor, various electrical devices and furniture, is, in my opinion, unbearable in terms of ridiculousness and really frustrated me. This example is just one of many (keyword: spaceship) that shows that the story is in no way thought through or even coherent. The wildest topics are mixed up, nothing is explained and then a lot of loose ends are left untied – that’s a problem that, from what I’ve heard from others, the final release didn’t improve much.

With these as my biggest criticisms, I can only assign one attribute to the game – waste of time. At this point I can’t even say that multiplayer was much fun. Of course it was fun to fool around with various game mechanics every now and then, but that was it.

However, I was also neutral on many other points in this game. For example, our NPC, Kelvin. You can give them written orders, for example to collect resources and bring them to you. This was a useful feature for base building – if it weren’t so pointless in itself, Kelvin would probably be a somewhat useful mechanic in this game.

Another point was the weapons. We got a pistol relatively early in the game and later a shotgun. Bows and arrows were available to us almost immediately. Now we were able to find a crossbow relative to the end of the game – but it was slower and weaker compared to all the other weapons we had. Since we generally had few problems with ammunition, especially towards the end, there was never any reason to use this crossbow. That’s not a bad thing per se, but it confused me.

Last but not least, I would like to mention one type of monster, the demons. These cannot be defeated with conventional weapons, but only by ominously holding out a Christian cross and shaking it – the demons then begin to burn. Where they come from and why they have problems with this cross of all things is never explained – I couldn’t for the love of me think of a reason. Probably the developers weren’t able to, either.

But what is my conclusion? In my opinion, the story not only needs to be revised, but completely replaced. The map is far too large and can only be explored far too slowly with the existing vehicles (and without any real rewards for exploring). Building a base is fun in the short term, but serves no purpose at all in the long term and actually just makes it harder to get anything done. Therefore, I am convinced that even with future updates I will never touch this game again.

What do you think? Was it fun to watch, do you like the game or even played it yourself? Do you think my criticism is too harsh? Feel free to join the discussion on Discord!

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