Sons of The Forest

Well this was a waste of $30. I came into this game with some "positive" attitude, since I liked the first game a bit I was hoping this would be like the former. Though that "positivity" was only go to be so much since my worries is it would be like the former. let me explain, The Forest was a fun, but hellishly clunky game. A bag full of fun, stupid ideas and then bad, stupid ideas. Sons of The Forest is no different. I first off saying what I really enjoyed, the building. The freedom in it's building mechanics are ones that rival many of the best sandbox games. There were many times I would build very elaborate huts with the multitude of options I had when it came to building. With being able to shape exactly what it looks like to an extent a liberating, fun way to personalize everything instead of generic pre modeled build like in the first game. Though with such freedom comes with the freedom to self destruct. kind of of an odd thing to say, but what I mean is the building is slow and time consuming. There is a reason I only built huts, because they were small, easy and allowed my to use all the potential in the building mechanics, but anything beyond that was a slog. Placing each log and stone, then having to go back and forth to get resources. It heavily demotivates actually putting a base, especially since bases are never full protection and you'll be constantly moving around the island. About that island, It's massive, and pretty looking. it has good mix of colors and lighting to really make you sit and think for a second, almost like real life, but then the geometry ruins it. It's like it was built was blocks from how "bricky" it is. the Golf cart, which would be an extremely fun and useful item, is unusable because of all the bumps in the road. You get stuck on half the things here and can't build on the other half, which goes into my building point earlier. Why give me all these cool things to touch and mess with, only for them to be ruined by dumb minor things, it's annoying, and it isn't the only annoying thin. Have you seen the GPS you use? it's so small and low res you can't see anything on the island, which is made 20x worse because the island is bigger than your mother. I had to use a google image so I would know where I was heading. With bigger island you usually know what that means...... big caves, well more caves. there are a lot more caves to explore in this game and each time you find one they don't get marked on your GPS unlike the previous game, which would be fine If you could some how drop the GPS markers!!!! I don't know why you can't do this, it's stupid. There is so many caves and third of them can't be seen from the standard view on the map, so why does dropping GPS markers not work? like they work on the soldiers you find them on, but are they just for show? I don't know, but with all this anger and dumb clank I can't at least release my anger out on Calvin. Calvin is a one of a kind specimen. Is he neuro divergent? maybe, but he's a great tool and creative one at that. I would love to see more games have companions that can actually be of assistance instead of just shooting everything that moves. and the other 3 arm lady is a fun one too. With you slowly gaining her trust being a delight in this lonely cold island. I like them both and they make the game more fun and dynamic, but they suffer also from clank. They are really dumb, Calvin will sometimes just deny orders and I don't know why, it's stupid. That's a common thing with this game, dynamic mechanics that allow for a multitude of results, freedom, and possibilities that are stabbed in the chest from all the games clunk, a really sad display. Though not as sad as how piss poor the music and story are, like god it sucks like really sucks.

A classic example of a game with good concepts that is held back by the developer's ability to release it unfinished with the "Early Access" label.
It's been a year since launch and the game is far from complete, often feeling empty or lacking in content; only made up for by it's overreliance on the mostly enjoyable, if not shallow, content that is there.

There is not much attempt to majorly separate it from 'The Forest' aside from overhauling already existing systems, so the cultural impact that game had on the 'Survival Crafting' genre is likely non-existent for Sons of The Forest.

I don't believe Endnight truly know what they want to do with this game; making it Early Access as a way to sidestep this issue and excuse baffling decisions on where to allocate resources. Electricity was one major update that serves no purpose, with almost no function, and having no impact on the gameplay loop. This describes many of the updates.
Meanwhile functionality of the major antagonists: Cannibals and Mutants, is near identical to launch; a force that is mostly used as a nuisance in the overworld, and in story caves can be completely ignored.

Just play a more fleshed out survival crafting game instead.

Same thing as The Forest, gets boring after like 10 hours. Annoying antagonist. Atrocious inventory system and janky as fuck combat. But the graphics are stunning.