Sons of the Forest Will Release in Early Access

It has just been announced that Sons of the Forest, the upcoming sequel to The Forest, will now release in early access. According to developer Endnight, this is due to there being “so much more [they] want to add” — not wanting to delay the game again, they’ve decided to instead release the game in early access. Fortunately, despite the shift to EA, the release date of February 23rd is unchanged.

While this means the game won’t be “done” on release, it also means that Endnight will be able to add a lot more to the game, as they rightly point out in the official announcement. The Forest released in early access, and became an absolutely incredible game thanks to the feedback they received from the community. Of course, no game is truly “done” on release nowadays, and it’s not as if they couldn’t have continued to improve SotF after a 1.0 release.

This announcement does seem to suggest that there simply wasn’t enough time for the developers to get the game finished on time, and rather than compromise on what to include, they’ve instead decided to make it an early access title. While some players might balk at the move, given the choice between more content later and a “finished” game sooner, we’re sure plenty of fans of The Forest won’t mind being patient. The official announcement is as follows:

Hey Everyone,

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. There is still so much more we want to add; items, new mechanics, gameplay balance and more. We didn’t want to delay again so have instead decided to involve the community in the continued development of this project and keep our February 23rd release date but instead release in Early Access.

‘The Forest’ turned out to be a massive success, due mostly to the awesome community and the suggestions, feedback, and bug reports the players shared with us. We are really excited and hope that players want to come on this new journey with us to make this the ultimate survival horror simulator.

The team at endnight

What do you think about the switch to an early access release for SotF? Let us know in the comments!