The Game Awards is one of the biggest events of the year, rivaled primarily by E3 in terms of the sheer scale and audience, arriving at the end of each year annually. Game developers and studios both indie and AAA alike take advantage of the event to announce their latest gadgets, gear, and games.
Fittingly, Endnight Games took the opportunity to release the sequel to their wildly popular survival horror game, The Forest. The new installment in the franchise is titled “Sons of the Forest,” and seems to be based around a similar premise.
Take a walk in the woods in Sons of the Forest, a new game from Endnight. https://t.co/t6BDBi5Lcy pic.twitter.com/LM10q9swK8
— IGN (@IGN) December 13, 2019
That premise, of course, is to try your hardest to survive while stranded on a strange, enigmatic island inhabited by cannibalistic mutants that come in a horrific array of varieties. Nothing major, of course. Bonus points if you manage to do so after surviving the crash of your air transport vehicle!
In The Forest, players followed a loose story after their plane suddenly crashlands on a seemingly uncharted and secluded island. Barely conscious enough to see a Red Man abscond with the unconscious form of your son, you spend The Forest trying desperately to fend off mutants and survive long enough to find your son.
The adventure sees you braving the nighttime and all of the horrors that come with it – from your run-of-the-mill cannibals to six-legged malformed creatures seemingly made of women fused together. It is, after all, a horror game.
The Forest was equal parts survival, exploration, and combat, with the horror elements penetrating each facet of the game. Players could choose to eschew their sanity when needed to resort to cannibalism if food was scarce, or skin their more feral enemies to make better armor.
With Sons of the Forest, it’s unclear what sort of game we’ll be getting – other than the fact that it looks like a fantastic sequel thus far. It’s impossible to tell at this moment if the sequel (assuming it even takes place after the events of The Forest) will be based on the same island. Maybe this makes story sense, maybe it doesn’t – we certainly aren’t spoiling The Forest for you!
The game may have more of a focus in combat. Firearms may be more prevalent as well, given that the reveal trailer shows a man wielding what seems to be a shotgun – something sorely missing from The Forest, along with all other firearms with the exception of a single flintlock pistol.
No release date has been given yet, but keep your eyes on the treeline: Sons of the Forest is on the way.
