Thank you to the developer A.Y.std and Publisher Crytivo for providing a fun game for me to escape, craft and explore.

My Steam rating: Very positive

One of the few things you can’t find among the hundreds if not thousands of survival games on steam is a finished game(We are finally starting to see some 1.0 releases). Well, good news we have one and better news it’s pretty good. Force of Nature 2 Ghost keeper is exactly what I look for in the genre: It’s complete, solid exploration, progression, deep crafting, farming, base building, fair combat and a solid achievement list.

FoN2 is an isometric action adventure survival rpg with some very minor base defense game play. As you begin the game you will be given one of the most bare bone settings for a game ever with some odd choices. The character creator is fine(M/F hair/skin color), video options only include resolution(UW supported), Vsync and quality*. There is no difficulty setting but you can choose an option for enemies to have greater health and deal more damage, have increased inventory, and faster crafting speed. Once in the game you have other options like respawning all enemies every time you restart, the ability to auto attack(works fine) and how to camera position your character on screen. You are given even more choices when going to sleep(bed) like recovering health, respawn all enemies and animals in this biome or respawn all enemies and animals in all locations. All of these are great for the player, but weird in how it is presented.

*I played FoN2 at 3440x1440 High settings/100fps and it ran phenomenal and the game looks great, better than expected.

Before starting in your randomly generated world, you actually start at home in your garage where you will go through a good tutorial of some of the basics. Once completed you will transport to a lush green biome where you will continue to go through more tutorials. As you complete these tasks and do some exploring you will finally come upon your main story objective. The story simply is to find 4 shattered stones, combine them to open a portal to get you back home. I really never paid too much attention to the story but it does end with a nice surprising twist.

So after learning of your quest, what do you do? Well, that is up to you as this is a sandbox but if you are a veteran of the genre you know the drill. It will be cutting down trees, gathering sticks, stones, food, water, etc. You will continue building a base, maybe just for crafting or you want to build a huge compound it really is up to you. The building in the game is very good and everything looks great. It really is intuitive and simple to build, move or destroy with hotkeys on the toolbar.

There are 21 skills to unlock for your character with each having multiple tiers. Each level you earn and defeating each boss gets you 3 pts to distribute. The skill tree is fine and pretty basic but I'm not a fan of having to spend x amount to unlock the next tier, 1 point should always suffice. There is also no sort of build specifics for a single character so you can fight with whatever you build and sometimes against certain bosses a ranged vs melee, maybe better? I played the majority of the game using halberds/maces with bombs and lightning magic. There are a lot of weapons to experiment and mix and match however you want to play and to make this easier, there are slots for 3 loadouts on your character sheet.

As you explore the 5 Biomes each will have different challenges being weather conditions, environmental obstacles and assortment of animals and enemies. The weather conditions….(Spoilers if I explain). There is a good variety of enemies to encounter in all locations but most will fall into 3 categories: cannon fodder(easy), melee(moderate), and ranged(lethal). The game feels like it wants to play like an ARPG and a base defense but neither of those goals are reached fully. And then we get to the bosses for FoN2 which are all really fun, challenging and sometimes a little infuriating but not impossible.

After defeating each boss you will be rewarded with some items(3 skill pts) , a puzzle to complete(optional) and the ghost of the defeated boss. The ghosts of the fallen will become servants at your base where you can direct them to do jobs like craft, gather, repair, build. These directions only adhere to what happens inside the base, you cant send them to go cut wood or get water, so they basically just help speed up crafting.

I want to address two things about mixed reviews:

-A lot of reviews seem to have issues with the amount of crafting, feeling it was a chore. I never felt that way as I would farm, craft, build, explore, etc. to level and get better gear, there was always something to do. I also never mind a little grind in a good game, so this will be different for everyone.

- I do however somewhat agree on the progression as the game definitely feels balanced for 2 player co-op which it provides. I can easily see one player just building a home base while one is handling all the crafting. Or maybe one player goes and drops portals and explores while one stays back and farms/crafts. I finished the game at 96 hrs and I can see that time being cut in half in co-op, but i still think it is a solid single player survival game.

Force of Nature 2 Ghost keeper is a hidden gem in the survival genre. It is a fully complete experience from start to end and looks and plays great. It allows the player to make a lot of QoL choices for how they want to play, the world is fun to explore and there is a deep crafting system in place which I enjoyed. The game would benefit with some more video settings and maybe a tweak for the single player balance, but neither diminished my enjoyment or my time with what is a really fun survival game.

A few tips:
If you want to get rid of anything, throw it on the ground and it will turn to garbage in a day.
Make sure to have 3-4 cows/chickens
Have 2 Mussel pools
You dont have to build a house, just build a floor to place certain crafting stations
You will have to respawn enemies in the first biome for more leather
After defeating a boss and collecting the reward, goto the FoN shrine.

Positives
A 100% complete survival game
How do you want to play choices
Phenomenal performance 3440x1440 high settings, looks great
Simple story, good ending
Crafting, progression, exploration, fun combat
Puzzles are good
Solid achievement list
Eating and drinking are not nuances
No degradation

Negatives
Bare bone video settings
Balanced better for 2 players
Skill tree is basic
Base defense is pretty much absent
Objection sheet becomes useless for some reason after tutorials are done