What is Sons of the Forest, the cannibal survival game that sold 2m copies in a day?
L ate last month, a game called Sons of the Forest launched on the Steam Early Access programme, which allows players to buy unfinished games still in active development, and immediately became one of the biggest new titles of 2023. Within 24 hours, it had sold 2m copies, and it has remained near the top of Steam’s top-sellers list ever since.
Sons of the Forest’s phenomenal success has seemingly appeared out of nowhere, but the momentum has been quietly building for years. Canadian developer Endnight Games has carved out a niche, delivering immersive, tangible and thrilling survival games.
It’s a survival game that throws players into the wilderness and tasks them with staying alive for as long as possible. You play a member of a special forces team sent to track down a missing billionaire and his family on a large, forested island. But after an introductory cutscene that resembles a deleted scene from Predator, your helicopter crashes, scattering your team and leaving you stranded on a beach with most of your hi-tech equipment at the bottom of the ocean.
Like most survival games, Sons of the Forest simulates basic bodily experiences such as hunger, thirst and changing energy levels, alongside weather and temperature. Your immediate goal is to tend to physical needs. You have to locate drinkable water, find food by foraging or hunting animals, and construct a basic shelter where you can sleep. The game features elaborate crafting and building, letting you construct shelters ranging from simple tents to log cabins, and make useful items such as spears and bows to hunt and defend yourself.
This latter point hints at what separates Sons of the Forest from other survival games: Sons of the Forest isn’tjust about withstanding
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