Built using Unity, selling over 5.3 million copies by November of 2018, and placing 2nd in both 2014 and 2018’s Best Survival game, The Forest, by Endnight Games, is by far one of the most unique survival horror games out there. Though not having received any updates since the 10th of September 2019, it has still retained popularity through teasers of Endnight’s upcoming sequel to the game, Sons of the Forest. Something about The Forest constantly drives old and new players alike to the game, whether it be their first time experiencing the horror and story or an experienced veteran coming back to relive the lush environment of the peninsula.
Having lived through multiple scares and spending countless hours exploring the peninsula, there is little to no downtime when playing The Forest. There is always something new to try and achieve or small areas to view that a veteran has never noticed on previous playthroughs. I tend to stay around the same area, Geese Lake; it is a beautiful lake in which, like the name suggests, geese tend to hang around. Though there are countless other areas in which you can build.
Your main goal in The Forest is finding your son, Timmy. Upon crash landing on the peninsula, you regain your senses with a cutscene of your son being taken by a man covered in something red. In an attempt to crawl towards the red man, you blank out again, only to wake up in the plane surrounded by minimal resources like food and painkillers to help start your journey. The first few days are relatively safe, you may only run into small packs of cannibals, but over time, the more difficult it becomes, which is where mutants come into play.
What stood out to me the most was Endnight’s unique take on building mechanics, out of the many open-world survival-type games I’ve played, The Forest has an amazing way of how the building mechanics work. You can create custom structures using your imagination along with pre-built blueprints to live in but combining the two can come with promising results and builds that look natural. Be sure to include traps to protect yourself from cannibals – they’re relentless and will stop at nothing to get to you, including destroying the things you build.
Like every game though, The Forest has some pesky bugs that can be annoying to any player. And since Endnight hasn’t pushed any update and most likely will not be due to their new game, they remain unfixed. You may run into small issues like the building mechanics making things poke out of your builds to rocks causing log carts that launch you miles into the sky, only for you to fall back down and die.
Overall, The Forest has been the best and most unique game that I’ve played. I would give it a solid 9/10, anyone who likes survival games should give it a try. The horror aspect just adds to the overall gameplay, even if you’re not a big fan of horror, this is a game that anyone should try at least once. Play with friends if you must, take in the open world and lush landscape, and enjoy it.
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