Endnight Games announces that Sons of the Forest will now launch via Steam Early Access. As the much-anticipated follow-up to The Forest, one of the best horror survival games on PC, fans are likely eager to get their hands on this sequel. The good news is that there’s no change to the Sons of the Forest release date – rather than any further delays, Endnight has made the choice to instead launch the game in early access.
In a post shared just weeks ahead of the game’s proposed release date, Endnight Games says, “It’s been a long journey since we first started Sons of the Forest development and it’s grown into the biggest, most complex game we have ever made.” It adds that there are many more things the team wants to add to the cannibal-infested nightmare island including more items, new mechanics, and further gameplay balance.
“We didn’t want to delay again,” Endnight explains, “so have instead decided to involve the community in the continued development of this project and keep our February 23 release date but instead release in early access.” Continuing, it attributes the success of The Forest “mostly to the awesome community and the suggestions, feedback, and bug reports the players shared with us,” implying that it hopes the same will ring true for its next survival horror outing.
Early access has proven a fantastic boon for many games, with many titles such as Supergiant’s Hades along with survival games including Unknown Worlds’s Subnautica, Hinterland’s The Long Dark, and Klei’s Don’t Starve seeing huge success following lengthy periods in an early access state. It’s a great way for the community to help shape a game’s direction and iron out potential problems.
Nevertheless, there will no doubt be some questions around the decision to shift to an early access release so close to launch – functionally it can likely be seen as a tag to let potential buyers know that the game isn’t yet feature-complete, or is likely to be a little unpolished. Endnight says it currently plans to keep Sons of the Forest in early access for “around 6-8 months, but this could change.”
Get your gaming PC ready now, by checking the Sons of the Forest system requirements.
While you wait for Sons of the Forest to arrive, there are plenty more of the best horror games on PC to keep you busy – take a look at our Dead Space Remake review to see what we thought of one of the biggest entries for the genre so far this year. You might also want to look through the best The Forest mods and all The Forest cheats if you feel like checking out where the series began.