The Forest
Endnight Games Ltd · Puzzle, Simulation, Survival, Horror
Overview
As the lone survivor of a passenger jet crash, you find yourself in a mysterious forest battling to stay alive against a society of cannibalistic mutants. Build, explore, survive in this terrifying first person survival horror simulator.
THE GAMEQ VERDICT10,000 reviews analyzed
What players are actually saying
1. Summary
The Forest's reviews keep coming back to one experience: crashing onto an island with friends, building a camp by day and panicking when the cannibals show up at night. Co-op comes up more than any other counted theme (37% of the longer reviews bring up friends, partners or multiplayer). Close behind is praise for the horror atmosphere, for enemies that stalk and watch before they attack, for caves that frighten people, and for a story told through scattered clues that some players did not expect from a survival game. Some reviewers say it still holds up years after release, runs on modest PCs and is cheap on sale.
Bugs and jank come up in 12% of the longer reviews and in a quarter of the negative ones: lost co-op inventories, log sleds that launch into the air, glitched achievements. Players are split on base building, which some call the best part and others call clunky and pointless for the story, and on the caves, which are the scariest part for some and too dark, samey and confusing for others. Other complaints cover gathering logs and sticks, hunger that drains fast, combat that is either trivial or brutal, and a lack of direction that sends people to wikis. Comparisons with Sons of the Forest cut both ways. Reviewers who bring up co-op tend to say the game is best with friends, while a smaller group of critics says they cannot see what the fuss is about.
2. What keeps coming up
What players praise
Co-op with friends makes the gameHigh
Playing together is the theme reviewers bring up most. 37% of the longer reviews mention friends, partners, siblings or multiplayer, and across all 10,000 reviews 15% do, many of them two-line "fun with friends" notes. The longer ones describe getting scared together, laughing at chaotic deaths, splitting chores, and building something big as a group. One review put it as "multiplayer carries this game the hardest." The same player described how the tone shifts: "when you're near friends, it's funny, but when you're alone, especially in the dark, it's scary."
Among the writers are couples, parents with kids, and old friend groups who reinstall it every year. Some players say the game is much weaker without company (see "Playing solo" below), and a few critics argue the co-op fun hides the game's flaws: "people mistakenly think that having a good time with their friends means the game itself is good."
Horror atmosphere and cannibals that behave like a societyHigh
27% of the longer reviews talk about fear, tension or atmosphere, and 21% bring up the cannibals or mutants. What people praise is how the enemies behave. Reviewers describe cannibals watching from a distance, circling the camp, feinting, retreating to call for help and ambushing anyone who chases a lone scout. "The cannibals are some of the scariest enemies in any game, simply because of the way they move and behave," wrote one player. Nights, rain and screaming in the trees are the moments several reviewers say stuck with them.
The fear fades as you gear up, and several reviews say so. One described the game as two halves: a frightening start and then "the ridiculous, hilarious, easy massacre after you find the boombox and the chainsaw." Some treat that change as part of the fun, while a few critics say the enemies end up a chore instead of a threat. VR players single out the caves and night stealth as especially intense.
A story told through clues, with a twist people talk aboutHigh
26% of the longer reviews mention the story, lore or endings. Players who praise it often say they expected a plain survival sandbox and found a mystery about their missing son, pieced together from drawings, notes and caves, ending in a lab and a choice between two endings. "bro, I did NOT expect the story to go this hard," one wrote, and others like that there is no dialogue and the story sits in the environment.
A minority calls the plot thin or incoherent ("The story is nonsense"), and several negative reviews dislike both endings, especially that the canonical ending requires a choice they found immoral. Jokes about forgetting Timmy while building a mansion turn up throughout the reviews, which suggests the story is easy to set aside for players who mostly want to build.
Cheap, small and kind to old hardwareMedium
8% of the longer reviews talk about price, sales or value, mostly in positive terms: people mention buying it for a few dollars, gifting four-packs, and getting dozens of hours out of it. A smaller group says it runs well on old laptops, office machines and the Steam Deck, and that the download is small ("It runs great on old and new hardware."). Not everyone agrees, as the performance complaints further down show.
Peaceful mode and VR as extrasLow
A few reviewers recommend peaceful or creative mode for learning the map or just building, and a few VR players call it one of the scariest VR games they have played. Others find the VR controls rough. Both come up rarely, and mostly warmly.
Where players are split
Base building: freedom versus clunkHigh
Building is mentioned in 29% of the longer reviews and in 32% of the negative longer reviews. Fans love the physical feel of chopping logs, placing blueprints and growing a treehouse or fortress piece by piece: "You drop a blueprint, gather materials, and your base grows fast without fighting the controls." Some say they ignored the story entirely to build.
Critics have the opposite experience. They mention blueprints that overlap, doors that only open from one side, structures you cannot take apart for materials ("You also can't remove building blocks you've already placed"), and bases wiped out by a falling tree or a single mutant. Another complaint is that building barely matters, because the story and the best gear live in the caves and a basic shelter for saving is all you need. Several players who like the game still want a building update, and a few say Sons of the Forest handles deconstruction better.
The caves: the scariest part or the most tediousMedium
16% of the longer reviews mention caves. For some, the cave dives are the highlight: oppressive darkness, claustrophobic tunnels and the creatures waiting inside. Others are worn down by them. They say the caves look alike, hide required items in an unknown order, force backtracking, and are so dark that brightness settings do not help ("Even with the brightness set to the maximum, some caves are still extremely dark"). Critics joke that the game should be called "The Cave," since "An overwhelming majority of story related content takes place in caves, despite the game being called The Forest."
Players who enjoy the caves usually say they found the dark thrilling. Those who dislike them often say they turned to an online cave map.
Sons of the Forest comparisonsMedium
9% of the longer reviews mention the sequel, and they are divided. One camp prefers the original for its darker tone, tighter mystery and simpler systems: "I think the first game does a much better job of maintaining its mystery," and "i enjoyed the story MUCH more than sons of the forest." Some also prefer this game because their PC cannot run the sequel, or because it keeps VR support.
The other camp says the sequel does nearly everything better, especially building, inventory and quality of life, and that the original "plays like a beta compared to Sons of the Forest." Some suggest playing this one first, since going back after the sequel makes it feel dated, and several positive reviews end by saying they are moving on to the sequel next.
Playing soloMedium
11% of the longer reviews talk about playing alone, and they split on what that means. Some recommend a solo first run because it is the scariest and most immersive way to play. Others say solo is lonely, slow and boring, and only recommend the game with a group. One short review held both views at once: "Play solo = Its kinda scary and more creepy, kinda boring as well but all good." Single-player is rarely described as broken, only as a quieter game.
What frustrates players
Bugs, jank and a game that feels left behindMedium
12% of the longer reviews mention bugs or glitches, rising to a quarter of the negative longer reviews. Some fans call it charming jank. The reported problems are specific: backpacks disappearing after death in co-op, special arrows reverting to basic ones, log sleds and props flinging players into the air, enemies running in place, falling through the map during the final boss, and achievements that do not register for players who are not hosting. Some reviewers say the developers moved on to the sequel without fixing the original, and one negative review summed up the building side of it: "you can open a door from one side but not the other, you can climb down a rope but not up again." Several players say these glitches cost them hours of progress, which hurts more because the game only saves manually.
Grind: logs, sticks and an empty stomachMedium
About 5% of the longer reviews mention grinding, tedium or repetition. Some point to how many logs and sticks everything costs and to carrying a couple of logs at a time before the log sled; others to hunger and thirst that drain quickly even when food is plentiful. A few players found the loop relaxing. Others said it turned into chores once the novelty wore off, and a few lost hardcore runs to water sources they could not drink from.
Combat that is either trivial or brutalMedium
5% of the longer reviews discuss combat, and 13% of the negative longer reviews do. Critics describe the same problems: regular cannibals can be stunlocked by clicking repeatedly and beaten by standing on a rock, while mutants and late-game groups hit very hard and can wreck armor that took hours to make. "Against normal enemies, you can just permanently stunlock them with pretty much any weapon," one player wrote. Hit detection and the final boss also draw complaints. Fans tend to call combat simple but serviceable, and say bows and spears make most fights manageable.
No direction, so players reach for wikisLow
About 5% of the longer reviews complain about the lack of guidance, and 10% of the negative longer reviews do. There is no tutorial, the crafting menu hides recipes behind a gear icon, the map is hard to read, and progress depends on visiting caves in an order the game never explains. One review that still recommends the game said this ends up "forcing players to search wikis and outside content just to learn the basic controls." Fans counter that discovering things without help is the point.
Clunky inventory, UI and controlsLow
4% of the longer reviews criticize the inventory, interface or controls, against 14% of the negative ones. Players mention the tarp-style inventory, awkward dropping and sharing of items in co-op, limited storage, raw and cooked meat looking the same, and key bindings that cannot use mouse buttons. One negative review called it "the worst ui ive ever used in a game."
Performance, crashes and save lossLow
About 5% of the longer reviews mention frame rate, lag, freezing or crashing. Reports include drops in caves and snowy areas, crashes on alt-tab in fullscreen, loading screens that hang, and GPUs running hot. With only manual saves, a crash can erase a session: "it crashes every time I alt-tab, and since the game only has manual saves even in co-op mode, it's guaranteed lost progress." Several co-op players also learned that each player must save their own progress.
Raids that escalate too fastLow
A small number of the longer reviews talk about raids, hordes or bases being destroyed. They say attacks become constant after a few weeks of in-game time, with mutants flattening bases built over many hours ("Cannibal and mutant raids start becoming genuinely ridiculous as early as 14 days in though."). Some want custom enemy settings like the sequel's.
Public servers, crossplay and voice chatLow
A small number of reviews raise multiplayer extras: cheaters and griefers on public servers, no crossplay with PlayStation friends, and in-game voice limited to walkie-talkies with no proximity chat.
3. The player conversation
The tone is affectionate and often nostalgic. Some reviewers first saw the game in YouTube videos as kids, played it on PS4, and came back years later with friends, and jokes about forgetting Timmy, eating cannibals, or naked enemies wrecking a cabin turn up throughout. Weekly positive share stayed between 88% and 98% in every week with at least 100 reviews from December 2025 through October 2026.
Negative reviews (6% of the slice) spread across several complaints: jank and bugs, building that does not feel worth it, dark repetitive caves, clunky combat and no direction. Some critics say they cannot understand the Overwhelmingly Positive rating and put it down to co-op and YouTube nostalgia. What people raise also depends on how far they got. Players who quit early tend to complain about controls, unclear crafting, hunger, crashes at launch or getting killed in the first minutes. Players who stuck with it and finished the story are more likely to raise end-game problems: escalating raids, achievements that fail in co-op, lost multiplayer inventories, the final boss and the endings. Comparisons with Sons of the Forest run through both groups.
4. What the developers could do
- Fix the long-standing co-op and save bugs. Lost backpacks, reverting arrows, per-player saves that wipe inventories, falling through the map and broken co-op achievements are the bugs that cost players real hours, and bugs come up in a quarter of the negative longer reviews.
- Let players deconstruct buildings and fix blueprint glitches. Building comes up often in negative reviews, and the specific asks are refunds when taking structures apart, doors that work both ways and blueprints that stop overlapping.
- Add optional guidance for new players. A basic tutorial, visible crafting recipes and hints about which caves to explore first would answer the reviews that say they needed a wiki or YouTube to make progress.
- Rebalance combat at both ends. Players want regular cannibals that cannot be stunlocked or cheesed from a rock, and mutants and late-game groups that do not shred hours of armor in a few hits.
- Ease the early grind and survival drain. Reviewers ask for slower hunger and thirst, fewer logs per structure and more reliable drinking water, the chores that some say push them away once the novelty fades.
- Add an autosave or crash-safe saving. With manual saves only, every crash, alt-tab or freeze can erase a session, and several players quit after losing progress that way.
- Clean up the inventory and controls. Easier dropping and sharing of items in co-op, more storage, clearer cooked versus raw food and mouse-button key binding are all specific requests from players who found the interface fighting them.
- Offer raid and cave visibility settings. A custom enemy-frequency option and a brightness setting that actually lightens caves would help players who say attacks become constant and caves are too dark to enjoy.
