Not a lot of replay value

[ElectronicSource]

Well I just finished the game together with a friend and the ending was... well super disappointing. I feel like Forest 1 had way better story telling and a lot more depth. We just went from Point A to B to C ... and suddenly it ended with as much confusion as it could leave back.

Also I hoped that the game would mature until 1.0. Sadly the building system is still as broken and bad as it was in the early days. Hours of frustration not being able to build things because the system was lacking at so many points. After all that I don't feel like continuing the game at all. I know there are more endings and we still haven't found everything (at least one artifact piece is missing and finding it is tedious).

I really hoped for more. As of now I don't see much effort from the devs to fix things and polish the game.

Hopefully in a year or two I can come back to it and things got better. It was nice, we had fun. But I feel like it didn't live up to it's predecessor yet...

Anyone else feeling like this?

[almost_a_jill_sandwich]

the game is like two hours of content, and whats there is so awful I have no incentive to every play though this game again. let's be real, the majority of story mode is holding forward to get from bunker to bunker with your head buried in the gps, what incredible gameplay.

the only replay value offered in this game is the building, but as there is literally no reason or incentive to ever build a base, I feel like i'm just throwing my life away collecting hundreds of logs for a structure which just ends up being so bugged I can never complete my planned designs. like you build a symmetrical house, and for some reason the left side let's you place logs but the right side wont.

building is full of bugs, and the devs abandoned this game so they are here to stay

[The Guy in Your Closet]

I actually found the ending of the original Forest to be a climactic twist. You repeating the cycle, and probably stealing someone else’s child in order to save your own. Brutal, the canon ending, and on top of that you’re celebrated as this awesome guy who survived the island even though you’re actually a mass murderer

The story telling for as simple as it was, it was actually a fantastic story

Sons of the Forest however, you fail your entire original purpose. I guess Virginia is saved so you failed 2/3rds of it

Then your entire “nemesis” has no actual real narration behind them, just a few books or papers. In the end she barely matters

A friend of mine told me the end fight with the helicopters reminds him of a fight in Skibidi toilet where everything is just all random and I can’t help but get that idea out of my head

[Commander-S.R.]

after 200+ hours I still enjoy finding new places for base location and exploring the canibals ai system like today I caught a canibal woman sneaking into to our food supply building and eating fish!! I snuck in behind her and locked the door she then spotted me after a little while feasting on our fish and began to chase me around a bit until she finally decide to dug under the wall and escape :D

I mean these things are fun and interesting to watch and now I wanna try and build a prison/cage and see if I can catch one! xD sure finished the story yesterday but the story is just filler to keep you occupied while getting some gear the game is about the world and your interactions with it!

but have to agree the building system is finicky as hell and at times counterintuitive and still too many bugs the leaky roof/house bug is annoying as hell!

but overall still alot of fun too play and I hope the devs will keep at it implementing VR and improving upon the canibals ai could bring tons of enjoyment.

[LILI]

Originally posted by almost_a_jill_sandwich:

building is full of bugs, and the devs abandoned this game so they are here to stay

Thank you for the fake news !! Do you have some more information for sustaining this statement, or just drunk already on a Sunday morning ... ?
2024 Feb 22 - V1
2024 Feb 24 - Hotfix
2024 Feb 25 - Hotfix
2024 Feb 26 - Hotfix
2024 Feb 28 - Hotfix
2024 Mar 01 - Hotfix
2024 Mar 04 - Hotfix
2024 Mar 13 - Hotfix
very nice for a game abandoned by devs !!!


Now, regarding what the OP genuinely asks, it is true that the story is rather short, and as I am a builder, I enjoy most of my 263h times trying to survive in the hardest setting, and test my building skills.
It is not yet a real survival game, but it is already much better than it was a year ago at start of the Early Access.

[ElectronicSource]

It's just sad because the ending was so rushed and the story telling was super poorly implemented. Me and my friend were just confused the entire time. Some random person appears, yeeting through the caves with lightspeed, some weird cryptic stuff and suddenly you fight another person which never made sense what their intention was.

Maybe you need to find all documents and patch them together to get it, but since you find them randomly and they're not ordered and looking through them is tedious ... I don't know. Not sure what the whole story really was about.

Building and so many things are just broken. Like doors barely ever functioned for us. Most of the time they were just stuck. Our tower got destroyed because it was impossible to finish it due to the half-baked building system, some structures just looked odd due to the workarounds needed to place the logs, ...

I don't know. It could have been so much more. For the fact that they acquired some funds and grew their team after Forest it's crazy that this game feels so lackluster. Sometimes it almost feels like one of these Unity Asset Shop patchwork games.

We had fun, but like the first commentor said, it's just running from bunker A to B with GPS equipped all the time. And it's nice that the island is big, it has plenty of nice little spots to discover. But also makes it tedious to go around even with all the transport options you have.

[T9]

Sounds like a cash grab, I will skip

[Ataxio]

I take a month long beef sandwich induced vacation and the same drivel is being recanted endlessly here, imagine my shock.

[distantlight]

After 500 hours played, I still feel the need to turn this game on almost every day.

It just never gets old. Fighting, building, zipping around the island... it's just one of the most fun games I've ever played. The setting and the feeling of immersion in it is just about unmatched.

I love the non-linear sandbox feel, like you can just go anywhere and do whatever you feel like. It's like a f*** around and find out simulator. There are so many awesome little details it just feels like a labour of love from the developers. The game looks fantastic and runs really well, with no loading screens.

I do a lot of building, and only ran into a couple of issues. I do wish there was a little more freedom when placing logs. It definitely takes some trial and error. That, and the awkward enemy spawning, are my only real complaints.

I find it really weird that people say the game was a "cash grab" or the devs "gave up" on it. They could've EASILY made a 1.1 remake of The Forest, but they chose not to. They added a bunch of ambitious new features because they didn't want to make the same game again.

They patched the game several times even after their 1.0 release. And they specifically changed the game to address the most common complaints:

- added more details to better explain the storyline
- made building anims faster or skippable, so building isn't so slow
- made the hanglider OP so you can travel around the island much faster and easier
- added the artifact to play around with after the end game is finished

Only thing they didn't add is bears and boats I guess. LOL

[Schranzi]

Originally posted by t9:

Sounds like a cash grab, I will skip

best choice

[jswarpaint]

There are different options you can set to make things more challenging and different there is cheatstick so you can add an item during a replay if you want so you don't have to go through all the gyrations to get it again... if you want.. so perhaps the only limitations to replayability is due to ones imagination.

[threethreethree]

I (and possibly another) am making a game-in-the-game. Many did that in the first Forest. SOTF is a good canvas upon which to do such a thing.

[Cruizerman]

I've not completed the story yet in 1.0 but i have in early access. And i've played a lot of The Forest and Sons of The Forest. The story can be confusing yes. But to understand more, you need to explore the map and find a lot of clues around like notes. Which often will help to understand more on whats going on. Just rushing through the game without exploring, you leave a lot of story clues behind. Ofc it then will be confusing. But if u find a lot of clues around and still find it a bit confusing. You can always google about the story after to learn more. both Forest games is a lot about exploring and finding out things going around on the island.

Also i see a lot of players who just play sotf like it was a campaign game. Just rushing through the story and be confused and right away say ''BAD GAME'' (in my opinion they play the game a bit wrong. But you play it how you want). I play Forest for its beauty, survival horror feeling. Have fun building creative bases, deffend my base against all the creepy enemies. explore the map. Like you do in many other survival games. Like i don't play minecraft (for an example) to rush beat the ender dragon and then be like: Was that it? ''Wow Minecraft freaking sucks''

But hey. You play the game how you want. Which is also why i love both Forest games. no ''missions'' to follow or something you need to do. Just do what ever you want in what pace you want.

But the main reason i loved Forest since i started playing it in 2014 was the horror survival feeling, and needing to deffend myself and the base against those creepy enemies.

I also love SOTF a lot cuz i love realistic looking games and the realistic building and the gameplay compared to other survival games. And yes, the building can sometimes be confusing/challenging. But for me its fine. My patience handles it.

And i guess what is similar to most/all open world, survival craft games is your own creativity which set the limits on how long you can play before getting bored

[distantlight]

Yeah. That's what I love about it; the non-linearity, the openness.

The designers tried to tie these two elements together: the exploration and the story development. So yeah, if you just follow the GPS markers you miss tons of story details because they're scattered all over the map. So there is a reason to explore and the exploring also makes the storyline more coherent.

I would agree if you only follow the critical path, it's not a great experience, but then The Forest was the same (actually even worse). The Forest's "campaign" can be literally finished in an hour if you know what to do.

[BORG]

OP, it's not just you. The game is shallow and has little to no replay value. The only ones who get replay value out of this game are the easily amused with any droll thing, obsessed die hard fans and the builders.

Originally posted by Schranzi:

Originally posted by t9:

Sounds like a cash grab, I will skip

best choice

Indeed.

[jedijoe84]

I love the game and play it every day. It does feel like it could use some more updates or dlc. Would be nice if there was an extra super bunker that could only be accessed by choosing to stay on the island. The bunkers were my favorite part of the game, but too short. Idk i'm thinking something along the lines of Puffton had a secret vault or something like that. Just... something more to push for after beating the game besides turning your base gold. Of course they could also just make an expansion that adds a whole new island and reintroduce the rafts from the first game. I like that Armsy and Virginia mutants are back, but sucks you have to beat the game for them to appear. Wish Cowman and the Worm returned as well. Do I have gripes? Yes, of course. But I love the Forest and am super curious to see where they take the story now. Also curious to see what, if any, future updates they implement.