The Sons of the Forest team lays out some of its update plans for the horror survival game as it answers questions from the community, and it sounds like there’s plenty of welcome additions in the works. Since its launch via Steam Early Access, the Sons of the Forest player count has proven just how high demand is for the cannibal-infested sequel, and there are lots more coming for fans to look forward to.
The Sons of the Forest Discord organised a Q&A session with the development team at Endnight Games, and had plenty of questions to ask. While the team is obviously reluctant to give all its future plans away and emphasises, “We don’t want to promise features that might not make it,” it did give us some glimpses at what we can expect in the coming months.
Companion improvements are first on the cards – both Kelvin and Virginia in Sons of the Forest are already helpful, but there’s more coming. The team is working on more possible tasks for Kelvin, including “having him help construct a wall around your base, or fortify/repair the base when needed.” As for Virginia, the team wants her to have “more bravery if she has a weapon, and also depending on how many mutants and cannibals she has killed.”
Endnight wants those Sons of the Forest mutants and cannibals to have more personality, as well. It’s planning “more ambient actions for the cannibals to do around their villages,” along with “more types of structures they can live in to give the different camps more variety.” There’s “at least one [enemy] character that wasn’t ready for the first launch” in the works and potential for more “including variations on some of the current enemies.”
Dedicated servers are a much-discussed topic, and Endnight says, “This is something we are working on in the background but we don’t have an exact date yet.” As for tools to deal with griefers, the team admits, “This is always really tricky, our hope as developers is that people just be nice to each other but unfortunately that isn’t what happens.” It adds that the team is looking into options to help limit griefing risks for the future.
One common complaint is just how powerful the Sons of the Forest GPS locator is – with its ability to locate the entire story immediately, some players worry it’s detrimental to the game’s natural pacing. “We do agree it’s an issue and some players are just running all the way to the ending instead of living/existing in the world,” Endnight says, “we have a bunch of ideas internally but don’t yet have a perfect solution.”
The community asks about the possibility of faster transportation tools, and Endnight says, “We do have what we think is a really cool idea for this.” However, it says it’s wary of disclosing more details for now “in case it isn’t as fun as we think it might be, or doesn’t work well with the environment.”
What about log sleds, though? The much-loved tool from The Forest isn’t currently part of its sequel, but it sounds like a return might be on the cards. “This is one of the really cool things about early access,” Endnight says, “Internally we didn’t realise how much people really liked the log sled, and due to the amount of bugs it had in the first game we were not sure if it was worth putting back in or not, but it’s become clear that it’s something players miss.”
Among the other improvements discussed in the interview are expanded crafting, new building options and ghost blueprints, and “a more advanced cooking system” that the team says is currently in a prototype state and will “likely come into the game in a future patch.” As for the potential for more wildlife, the team says, “we don’t currently plan on adding bears or wolves [which were mentioned in the question], but possibly other animals.”
Ensure your survival by learning how to get water in Sons of the Forest, picking out the best Sons of the Forest weapons, grabbing yourself the Sons of the Forest can opener, and finding out if Sons of the Forest trees grow back. We’ve also got the latest on Sons of the Forest cheats and console commands.