The Forest 2018

About

The Forest came out on April 30, 2018 for PC and SteamVR, then for PlayStation 4 on November 6, 2018. On Steam, 96% of 584,204 player reviews are positive (Overwhelmingly Positive). 5,718 people are playing it on Steam right now, with a peak of 15,574 in the last 30 days. It is Playable on Steam Deck. The main story takes about 5.5 hours, doing everything about 28 hours.

As the lone survivor of a passenger jet crash, you find yourself in a mysterious forest battling to stay alive against a society of cannibalistic mutants. Build, explore, survive in this terrifying first person survival horror simulator.

Story

The game begins with the player Eric Leblanc riding in an airplane with his son Timmy Leblanc when the plane mysteriously crashes on a remote island. The player and his son manage to survive the crash, but the player watches helplessly as his son is kidnapped by a man in red war paint. In addition to trying to survive in the wild and fending off hostile wildlife and feral, cannibalistic mutants, the player searches the peninsula for his son. The forest surface leaves clues to help the player puzzle out the story, but the majority of the plot takes place in the caves that riddle the underside of the peninsula. Eventually, the player discovers an abandoned underground lab complex that was studying an artifact capable of bringing the dead back to life, but requires the sacrifice of a child. The player discovers that the kidnapper intended to sacrifice the player's son in order to revive his daughter. However, the player discovers that the daughter had mutated into an aggressive, cannibalistic monster, similar to the other mutants that roam the peninsula. The player confronts the child, who seizes and mutates further before attacking him, leading to the daughter's death. The player then attempts to use the daughter's body to revive his son, but the process is a failure, since a live sacrifice is needed. The player explores the lab further and discovers a second artifact that functions as a type of EMP device capable of bringing down nearby planes, implying that it is the cause of his own plane crash. The player then uses the artifact to cause another plane to crash, intending to find a sacrifice to revive his son. One year later, the player and his son have apparently been rescued, and they are invited onto a talk show to promote a book that the player wrote, chronicling his experiences. However, during the show, the player's son collapses and begins to have a seizure, implying he is undergoing the same mutation that the daughter had.

What is happening now

The Forest is a puzzle-adventure simulator that launched in 2018 across PC and PlayStation 4, with a VR version available on SteamVR. The game places players in an atmospheric woodland setting where exploration and environmental problem-solving drive the experience. Recent coverage shows renewed interest in forest-themed games more broadly, though coverage specific to The Forest itself has been sparse. Instead, attention has shifted toward related titles: Wispwood, a nature-themed board game adaptation, and I Hear the Forest, an unsettling horror game that inverts the peaceful forest ranger fantasy with supernatural dread. Additionally, Warrior Cats: Clans of the Forest, a turn-based RPG adaptation, is launching across multiple platforms including PS5 and Switch later this year. These releases suggest a wider trend of nature-based games exploring different tones and genres.