The Forest for Windows

The Forest is an experimental open-world survival simulator with an extensive crafting system and concepts borrowed from Resident Evil, Silent Hill and Minecraft.

An unusual genre mixture instantly draws into an atmosphere of indescribable horror: strange rustles and sounds, a boundless island with the ruins of unexplored civilizations and traces of local aborigines wind hardly transmitted emotions and make you believe in a reality distorted by fear. But first things first…

Features of The Forest

• The world is not generated every time from a blank slate, but is overgrown with elements exclusive for each of the playthroughs and zones intended for exploration;
• The crafting system in The Forest changes with each update – new recipes, technologies and ideas appear. Extensive ration, additional equipment and weapons;
• The mechanics in the survival simulator from Endnight Games are implemented unusual for the genre: the inventory is presented differently, the plot is retold extremely superficially, and the events are full of unpredictable elements;
• Battles and head-on collisions are not the best way to resist predators and local aborigines: sometimes you need to rely solely on silent movement;
• Events in The Forest are often transported from the surface of the earth to caves – confusing and frightening, but only there are important things for the story hidden …

Atmosphere, history and events

Developers moved the events to the near future, when a passenger plane, performing a completely standard flight, unexpectedly crashes on a half-empty tropical island. There were practically no survivors, except for the protagonist The Forest and Timmy, a son who was lost somewhere on the island. After the disaster, a very lazy plot narration begins, divided into chapters and following the events almost in the background (much more often you have to survive than to follow how the story moves).

But the plot is just the tip of the iceberg: the atmosphere is much brighter. Wandering around the island, peering into the outlines of some objects and things, and at the same time trying to listen to every rustle does not get bored even many hours later. And a clash with local aborigines at some point will turn into a nightmare in reality, which only the strong in spirit can survive!

Gameplay, Mechanics & Updates

The lion’s share of the playing time in The Forest is concentrated mainly around the struggle with natural factors and human weaknesses: immediately after the plane crash, you have to look for resources, collect useful supplies, fill the scale of hunger and thirst. A little later, secondary problems, familiar from Minecraft, will appear: the world is quite friendly during the day, but at night it turns into a gladiatorial arena with wandering opponents and predators. Without a temporary shelter, you cannot cope with opponents, and therefore you have to get a tree and defend yourself from local aboriginal cannibals. As you progress through, access to equipment and weapons is unlocked, and there it is a stone’s throw from traps, poison and stretch marks. But hardly the same cannibals will be scared …

Although The Forest was released back in 2018, the developers from Endnight Games did not stop releasing intermediate and global updates: the survival simulator was repeatedly overgrown with additional content, became balanced in terms of complexity and plot presentation, and at the same time