Sons of the Forest delayed again, but new gameplay footage sure looks nice

Sons of the Forest, the sequel to the deliciously hectic survival gem The Forest, won’t release in October as planned. Instead, Endnight Games has announced that it will now release on February 23, 2023. This is the game’s second delay—it was originally meant to release in May.

“Due to the scope of our new game Sons Of The Forest, it has been hard to pinpoint an exact release date, and today we have to delay one last time,” the studio tweeted. “Giving us time to complete the polish we feel is needed, we will release Feb 23, 20233, priced at $29.99USD.”

It’s sad news if, like me, Sons of the Forest is at the top of your most anticipated list. For my money, the first game is the best singleplayer survival game. It had all the usual survival ingredients—eating, drinking, tree punching, base building—but the horror component was genuinely terrifying. Some of the beasties are unbelievably ghastly.

And that body horror tradition is present in this sequel too, if a new 12-second collage of gameplay footage is anything to go by. We see what can only be described as a mouth-with-legs approaching the player-character (thankfully, they’re armed with a chainsaw), the usual lightning quick sprinters (one of them cops an arrow in the head), and because that is all a bit stressful, some footage of logs flowing down a river.

As Andy noted back when Sons of the Forest was announced, this sequel definitely looks like a more narrative-driven affair than the original. Which is exciting, because those who persevered with The Forest will have discovered that the first had some quite breathtaking narrative beats up its sleeve.