Sons of the Forest is another example of a rushed, Early Access game that has so often become the norm these days. The first game was beloved, but I'm actually quite shocked that the community has still supported this game with positive reviews after it was released in this state. Though, they are probably used to it, given the state of the first Forest's release.

I'll start with a few positives: the game's environment is absolutely gorgeous, and the enemies are unique and interesting. That's... pretty much where most of my praise ends. I'll give a few more notes about things I liked, but pretty much any area where the game does something right, it does something else very wrong.

Though the game looks beautiful in it's environment, it certainly doesn't run beautifully. I'm at 1440p on a 3080ti, and the game will not exceed 90 FPS no matter how low I turn the settings. 90 would be acceptable for a game like this, but it fluctuates wildly, sometimes going as low as 50-60 after you build up a big base, or the first time it snowed.

The combat is another area where the game's good graphics really fall short. The impact that you feel with weapons is almost non-existent, it feels like there's no connection happening between your weapon and the enemy. There's not a great deal of blood, and there's no juicy impact sound, especially when you throw a spear or shoot someone. Guns sound and feel pitiful. The combat is probably one of the weakest aspects of this entire game.

And while the enemies look cool, their AI leaves a lot to be desired. There seems to be absolutely no difficulty to this game whatsoever, a stark contrast to the previous title where your base would often be raided and you would need to constantly defend it and repair it. In this game, you can just run wherever you like, leaving enemies in the dust as you can easily outrun them. If you give one a few stabs, it will usually run away and leave you alone as well.

I feel no fear in this game, when really, I should. Going out into the dark night should be terrifying with these creatures lurking in the bushes, but I know I can just hold W and they will literally never hurt me... very disappointing.

The other survival elements from the game are also neutered. Outside of the first few minutes, we never felt that we were low on food or water, and these things just became a simple tedious side-note.

The island feels super exciting to explore early on, finding caves and looking for goodies. That is until you realize that all you end up doing is going from marker to marker on your map, progressing the extremely linear spelunking missions that will progress your gear to the next required thing. There's no reason to explore on your own because it's all just marked for you on your GPS. And boy, that GPS is such a clunky device to use. You literally can't even mark things with it.

You will find some pretty fun and interesting tools and weapons as you progress, but most of them will either be just something that is required to move on (like the re-breather) or just not that useful (like the zipline). I thought the zipline was actually really well done, but it just has no need to be used.

The sled is another one of those super fun items, and it might be one of the best parts of the game. But, the entertainment you can have with it is probably a bit more limited than I would hope. We wanted to build a ski slope, but found that building walls to try and keep you on a course was impossible because any contact with a wall instantly stopped all your momentum.

This game also features 'canned animations' that you will be watching often. Some people like this, and say it increases their immersion. I say that finding myself locked in a first person animation that I cannot move in or cancel is the quickest way to make me feel removed from the game.

The animations look decent enough, but there are so many of them that you will have to watch, from skinning animations to eating food, to climbing up or down a ladder or climbing into the raft, you'll find yourself locked in these quite often.

There are some good ones, however, such as cutting down trees, picking up logs, and digging dirt. These are the only animations that allow you to still move while doing them, and that little bit of control goes a long way. Building a base by carrying logs into place is actually pretty awesome, and it's one of the few things I thought this game did very well. Unfortunately, building a base is basically not needed at all, since you carry your entire inventory on you at all times.

The inventory is another area that drove me crazy. Open it up, and you'll have to enter a couple of second-long animation. Again, can't be cancelled, so if you accidentally open it while an enemy is about to attack you from behind (with no footsteps, by the way. Enemies make NO FOOTSTEPS), you will find yourself getting hit several times and losing a big chunk of armor as you struggle to get out of your inventory. It's also extremely slow to pan around in, almost like it was built for a controller. Some people say this inventory looks neat, but I think it's just a gimmick. Give me a classic inventory any day, much faster and less tedious.

Another annoying thing about the uncontrollable animations is some strange control decisions. For example, if you hold E when you try to pick something up, you'll instantly use it. This will result in many players chowing down on a raw arm or leg the first time they try to pick it up, and spamming buttons to try and cancel it to no avail. Congrats, you're now a cannibal.

The same thing applies to hotkeyed items such as meds. If you are switching through your weapons and accidentally hit your medicine hotkey, you'll get to watch helplessly as your character swallows a whole bottle of pills, even if they were at full health. There's just a lot of things around the controls and interactions of the game like this that make me feel it to be super clunky.

Alright, I think that sums up all the 'nitpicky' things that I have with the game. Now, for a much broader problem that all players can probably understand: This game has no content. We completed the main storyline in eleven (11) meager hours. It features three (3) very silly and terrible cutscenes (GET DOWN, SON!!) and I feel like I have to wonder how much of their budget went towards that instead of developing a decent co-op game.

There was no end boss, no boss whatsoever, and we just breezed through the final mission, shotgunning everything without a care in the world.

This game feels empty. All spawns are fixed, so you know exactly where all the items are after a single playthrough, leaving no real reason to want to play through it again. I think this game would've been better as a procedural generation type of survival game, instead of this linear, content-less experience that attempted to merge an interesting 'story' into something that really didn't need it.

Worst $30 spent in quite a while.