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15 Reviews
Want to know how it feels to be a parent fighting cannibals to save your child? Then this is the game for you! You have to survive while searching through caves and countless amount of dangerous cannibals in hopes of finding your boy… you’ll do it right..?
The Forest isn’t just a survival game—it’s a full-blown experience. It throws you into the wreckage of a plane crash, stranded on a mysterious island with nothing but an axe, a lighter, and one very missing child. What follows is part survival sim, part psychological horror, part open-world mystery… and all gripping.
The loop is simple: gather resources by day, survive the horrors by night. But the genius of The Forest is how it layers that survival with genuine dread. You’re not just fighting hunger and thirst—you’re fighting fear. The enemy AI is smart and creepy. Sometimes they charge, sometimes they stalk you in the shadows, sometimes they just… watch. I’ve never been so unsettled by silence in a game.
And yet, it’s beautiful. The island is dense, atmospheric, and full of secrets. You’ll be chopping trees one minute and descending into a pitch-black cave system the next. The world tells a story, if you’re brave enough to explore it. There’s a full narrative here—and it’s surprisingly emotional.
Then there’s the building. My god, the building. It’s not just functional—it’s expressive. Want a cozy lakeside cabin? Do it. A full fortress with traps and zip lines? Go wild. Everything you build feels earned and personal.
I played The Forest with two friends. We laughed, screamed, and almost rage-quit when we lost everything to a mutant during a storm. And I wouldn’t trade that memory for anything.
The Forest has been a unique game for a long time now, it is a survival game with cannibals on an island. You crash with a plane on that island and lose your son, which you want to receive back.
Of course, you have to search for food and you need to build a sleeping place. Moreover, you build a campfire to cook the food and to warm your body.
As you can read, the survival aspect of the game is quite versatile but not too complex making it a fun occupation besides your other tasks:
One important activity is the exploration of caves to gain access to new items, which are for example various tools or weapons to either speed up your tree cutting or to increase the amount of damage you deal against the cannibals. Exploring caves, however, might be a bit scary sometimes as there are enemies in the caves as well but if it is too frightening you may just play with one ore more friends which moreover is even funnier.
Besides building, exploring, and fighting you of course progress in the story by discovering “sights” on and around the special island.
Personally, I love building large houses with many traps to defend myself from the enemies, which are becoming stronger each day. Since building requires a lot of materials collecting items by killing animals and chopping trees is a main task with my style of playing but if this bores me, I just explore the map and “visit” a new cave, which is exciting every time, even if you player the game already. As long as you take breaks from playing the game after a full playthrough, you still enjoy the game.
To sum it up, I really like this game. Playing with friends or your siblings is even more fun because of the great variety of the game. It offers you a lot of surprises and presents during the gameplay inciting you to keep playing and besides that the game is not too difficult or grindy which makes it so good.
Another positive aspect to say about the game is that there is a sequel to The Forest which is called “Sons of the Forest”, allowing you to continue the story if you finished the story of this game already (maybe even a few times).
The game that started a lot of people’s survival craze. The Forest, to this day, stands out in the crowd for other survival devs, but they will use it as a benchmark or a minimum value of what their game should be.
This is one game that had so much potential, but the game devs dropped the ball. The bones of this game are pretty decent, but the crazy amount of bugs that make it difficult to play at times can be frustrating. Especially when the game files don’t save and wipe all your progress. The devs abandoned this game, so don’t expect it to improve. They did release Sons of the Forest, which I’ve noticed from reviews seems to be better looking and runs better overall than this game so I’d probably recommend you get that title than this one at this point in time. I still did enjoy this game. I preferred to turn off the cannibals and play in peaceful mode which makes it more of a “Bear Grylls simulator” than anything else. I enjoyed base building, hunting, and exploring. Taking the cannibals out removes any stress from everything getting destroyed. I have played it with cannibals on and the difficulty can increase pretty quickly. So there’s a little something for everybody whether you want to play in peace or have more of a challenge.
The Forest is a game that has a lot of games in its genre, but when we dig deeper, it’s valuable for its diversity. Even though it’s a fun game to play with friends, a game that makes you curious while exploring, I think the game gets repetitive after a while. That’s why I got bored after a while playing with my friend. But other than that, even though the base building and crafting in the game is simple, it is quite enough for a game of this genre. Of course, we get a little wild in food, I won’t tell you what it is, so as not to spoil the excitement.
So there is actually not much to say other than that. If you have a friend, it is an above average game that can be played to pass the time.
The Forest is an excellent game. This game gets an 8/10 from me. I took off a point because of the annoying bugs and glitches that occasionally happen. It is almost perfect. If you don’t yet own the game, I would encourage you to get it. It’s great by yourself and even better with friends. Those of you who liked LOST, the TV show, you will most likely appreciate this one. But not the ending.
In “The Forest,” you start your journey as a survivor of a plane crash, with your child mysteriously abducted by a menacing stranger. The game throws you into a struggle for survival in a vast, beautifully rendered forest. With a simple yet effective interface, it keeps you immersed in the game, focusing on crafting, exploration, and your character’s well-being.
The forest itself is a pleasure to explore, despite some minor artifacts and collision bugs. The absence of an intrusive HUD enhances the immersion, and all essential information is organized in a journal that acts as your survival guide. Here, you’ll find crafting recipes, information about local wildlife, and clues about other passengers on the island.
The game presents a subtle, escalating challenge. Early encounters with the island’s inhabitants seem harmless, but as you venture further and deforest the land, the situation changes. Hostile tribes lurk in the shadows, and your presence is met with increasing aggression.
The crafting system is a highlight. Divided into fundamental survival items listed in your journal and experimental items found in your inventory, it encourages trial and error to discover new weapons, tools, and food recipes. The game maintains constant pressure, turning every day, every night, and every venture into an adventure filled with tension, sudden noises, and lurking threats.
However, the AI and pathfinding of the enemies sometimes disappoint, as they can appear clumsy. But their sheer numbers make up for it; there’s always one ready to strike. Caves, which you’ll find frequently on your journeys, hold the game’s hidden story and intrigue. These underground areas are one of the game’s greatest achievements, combining survival with an eerie, intriguing narrative. However, be prepared; cave exploration is challenging and will keep you on edge.
“The Forest” presents an impeccably balanced survival experience, blending elements of survival, exploration, and storytelling. Its visually captivating world, captivating narrative, and versatile gameplay options make it a must-play for genre enthusiasts.
Have you ever heard about the story of a guy stranded on an island?
Yes, I know you did, but this time you have the opportunity to live it by yourself, and with a little extra ingredient: some not so friendly cannibals!
In The Forest you will have the misfortune of being on a plane crash, but luckily you survived and have a whole island at your disposal to hunt, gather some fruits to eat and build a shelter as you will need to satisfy your hunger thirst and take care of your body temperature.
I must mention, though, you are not alone. Actually in your adventure you will have the company of some very curious cannibals who look at you in the same way you look at a Big Mac, and while you struggle doings the every-day tasks to keep yourself alive, they will remember you how tasty you seem to be.
Fighting with them is very entertaining! It feels really good and immersive, and they come in all colors and flavors! Good thing you also have your own variety of weapons to deal with these guys, you can even set up some defensive walls for your base and your own traps to let them know who is the smartest guy on this island.
Surviving is not the only thing in the game, it also has its own story I won’t tell you about, but is interesting enough to make you want to explore the island in the look for answers. And the exploration part of the game is one of his main strengths as there are a good amount of interesting things to find that will help you understand what happens on this lovely island, also if you are lucky you might even find some very useful unique items!
In conclusion, you will have a very amusing experience while you explore the island, deal with your necessities and a varied amount of enemies. 100% Recommended game.
The game is fun, but unfortunately I cannot recommend it at all.
If you are a streamer, and you are playing it in multiplayer, even if on a private server, the developers have abandoned the game it is really easy to hack into the servers and streamers are targeted. Of course, it is not only streamers, but these people that hack tend to look more for places with visability.
The two time I tried to stream the game I got hacked and one of them the hacker used the in-game chat to say some really bad things.
Also, if you play the game by yourself, it is really unforgiving when you go to the caves.
If you are trying to actually complete the game, I do recommend doing it with friends.
With over 2’000 hours in the game, I can say it truly is incredible, especially when you take into account that the “World” you are on is not very big. Base building is fantastic (but can be extremely time consuming), and you can go as big or small as you want. I also appreciate the fact that if you feel things are getting too easy, you can set yourself challenges, like Melee only, or like i did recently, Slingshot only. The story is cool, but you can ignore it if you wish. I spent 300 days in my first playthrough not doing a single story based objective, which is refreshing.
As mentioned in my Cons, its sad that there are no longer updates for the game, but it is understandable with “Sons of the Forest” coming out. Just would have been nice to get something added every 6 months or so, even if its something small, like randomized loot spawn, since it can become very predictable after a while.
However I recommend that you need to play this if you are into survival games. I rate this as my #1 survival game of all time.
Time to fight for your own survival in this horror cannibal game which comes to the most extreme cases where these enemies want to eat you alive. So be prepared to survive and fight them!
I think what is most important to say about The Forest is that it is an open-world survival game that actually left Early Access playing like a real game. In these dire times, that is an accomplishment in itself, and I think The Forest deserves praise for sticking with it this entire time. Now about the game itself:
The Forest sees you crashing upon an island in an airliner, and then TIMMY is abducted right before your eyes. You must recover TIMMY wherever he is on this island and survive its cannibalistic locals. So that’s what you do. In classic survival game fashion, this involves chopping wood, getting stone, finding ancient caves full of dynamite, and generally drinking mud water and eating suspicious meat to satisfy the dark survival meter gods. The Forest is a great game, and I warmly recommend it. Its systems are varied, interactions are genuine, and you will get real spooked by natives appearing out of nowhere at least 3 times. The lore in the game is also super interesting, and there will be some genuine “HUH??” moments for all involved.
My only problems with the game are the parts that come from it being an open-world survival game. Like a lot of other similar games, there is just a lot of clutter in the game that is not finished or half-finished. Interaction with natives seems to hint at a larger system, but that system is nowhere to be found. Buildings you place sometimes seem to have no real use other than cosmetic, or that use is again hard to ascertain. Finally, there is a lot of water. I hate water. It’s coarse, rough, and gets everywhere. Unlike sand. Anyway, I give this game an 8/10.
The whole of this game is brilliant from the way combat feels to just simply taking in the scenery. It does throw you right it at the deep end and lets you figure life out yourself, which can be good or bad depending on your style. The storyline is amazing and leaves you scratching your head and wanting more answers all the way through. Overall an amazing game!
The Forest feels like a classic masterpiece for survival games. There are so many little details and game mechanics that years later you still learn new things about the game.
It sets a goal for you right out of the gate, Find Timmy (Your son) but after that you can do what ever you want.
Resources are scattered all over the place and unlike most survival games you do not upgrade your tools by finding a better material. You find better tools. This is really nice for veterans who know where these items are.
This is not to say there is no crafting in the game, since there is but it is mainly for smaller things like bags or armor.
Even though The Forest is not a story heavy game, if you look around the surface world and the underground caverns you will find a lot of story elements. But most of this is up to how you interpret what went down before you got to the island.
The Forests combat is more in depth than you might think. There are multiple weapons both melee and ranged to choose from but they have there own strengths and weaknesses. Especially melee since it has a good amount of different weapons. You could even build larger siege weapons.
The ambiance of The Forest is really good. The caves in this game feel really scary, This is mostly thanks to the sound design. They put in a lot of detail from water dripping to the noise of the wind blowing trough the cave. The music in the game is really good as well and unlike other games you get to pick the songs from a list of cassettes you find across the map.
Building is this game on a smaller scale is pretty good, there are even a few decorations to spruce up your home. But if you are the type of player who likes to build large structures there are a few challenges to overcome. The main one is the terrain itself. There is no way to flat the terrain and most of it is not exactly flat. There are foundations you can use but this does not feel the same. And for larger structures you really feel the lack of decorative items.
The Forest is a must play if you love survival games.