Recent reviews by kJs-

While it's early access I cannot in good faith recommend this game in its current state, there's some decent bone structure here but holy smokes is the core gameplay loop abysmal. The networking is god awful, there is no solo/private lobby, EAC for a coop game without any friendly fire interactions, no infection or real survival issues outside of an easily manageable healthpool, zombie hitboxes are a joke, incredibly consistent bugs involving the creation of unkillable god zombies when using pipebombs/explosives, dismemberment bugs, animation bugs, terrain clipping causing players to get stuck, i really could go on... How this was considered to be a releasable product even for early access is beyond me. Redfall might be a better game than this.

If you're thinking about buying this game come back for 1.0 launch instead if that ever happens.

The new update was a step in the right direction for a-lot of things but the fact that my trained operator comes off as a child that's never fired his weapon before is wild, even from just taking a couple steps and going prone. Also basically "nerfing" infantry while just leaving vehicles to be directly and indirectly buffed has made infantry game play feel the worst its ever been. Weapon stability NEEDS to be fixed and vehicles need to receive the same treatment infantry just had.

After finally completing my first play-through I can fully say this game is incredible. I've been a long-time fan of the Baldur's Gate video games and DnD style RPGs as a whole. Playing this game alone or with friends creates an immersive and genuinely enjoyable open-ended experience where you feel like your choices matter with genuine weight to the world. THIS is how modern games NEED to be made, regardless of genre. You can feel the care and effort put into this around every corner.

There were some minor issues with quests in the Third Act specifically where the branching seems to be working incorrectly (i.e. finishing 1 quest breaks and wont let you complete the other) and in the same act some FPS issues when taking part in some of the more visually heavy combat (for me personally at-least). However I don't think this detracts from the game too much. A genuine 9/10 product on release for me.

This is more-so a mixed review as there are things I've liked and disliked and things I haven't fully experienced yet. Most of my time has been on default Hard options in a multiplayer server. I will be continuing to play the game and my review is likely to change as updates roll out.

Survival Mechanics-

There virtually isn't any, somehow they've shipped a survival game with less nature survival features than its predecessor (outside of the addition of what appears to be a lite clothing system for the snow biome I have yet to experience). To me this feels like the most unacceptable part, it's a survival game and after the first couple days you can have a structure and infinite water/food depending on where you intend on basing.

Water is just a free resource generally across the map via the water streams, there is no opportunity for collecting & boiling water from the ocean as far as I can tell (I could be wrong). You can make a water collector but it feels like an empty necessity if you're constantly around running streams.

Food is the standard kill something cook it and its incredibly simplistic. Even eating raw meat and/or human meat feels as though there is no consequences. Additionally, once you explore a couple caves or a POI the amount of food (and water) resources you're carrying on-hand can survive you for MANY days completely negating the need to trap fish/small animals. As I mentioned before, there doesn't appear to be any negative effect for eating human meat either so on Hard since you're going to get a raid every day or so you can just chop off limbs, put them on a drying rack and infinite food source the cannibals.

Your stamina degradation is incredibly easily managed by continuously drinking water or eating via the sources mentioned above. Having an empty sleep bar also doesn't visibly or noticeably impact my character (I could be completely missing something when it comes to this as I don't let it stay empty for long or often). The what I believe to be strength leveling up mechanic also generally just feels shallow.

Exploration / Story-

You can find GPS trackers to mark POIs but the game already gives you a bunch of POIs for free so you almost instantly feel like you're already being told to go to specific places rather than explore for yourself. Perhaps this is the intention and there are many more hidden places, but it just makes what I felt like was a key part of the initial playthrough of The Forest unexciting.

The environment is quite well done and in many of the areas you feel almost nomad like traveling through a dense forest and want to stop and enjoy the scenery, until you hear that screech behind you and remember you're always being watched.

I haven't fully explored the map or every POI and my experience with the story is limited so I won't go any further into details.

Construction / Animations-

This is easily the most impressive part of the game, I was locked in for quite a few hours just experiencing the animations for various things. Manipulating logs, sticks and the various other construction items feels quite immersive. Free building is incredibly good and while building on slopes can get a little wonky it's not a deal breaker. My friends and I kept joking it really did feel like a "pioneer / lumberjack simulator", especially early on.

Some of the animations appear to have performance issues and while not entirely immersion breaking are slightly annoying. I will explain this more below.

General Issues / Bugs-

The AI pathing can get pretty atrocious. The mud covered cannibals that crawl around on all fours have multiple times now been locked in a path where they run in circles around a small tree that would only yield sticks. Virginia also has numerous times run into my home (while running away from my presence) and then gotten stuck running into a corner to then flail around the house looking for the exit.

Kelvin himself is quite useful provided his task area is clear of a structure, he has numerous times now walked into the side of my house or another structure and just infinitely walks there into you remove the blocking item(s) (which in some cases can get quite inconvenient). Additionally getting him to drop logs can put him into a "spin cycle" where it reaches too many logs in one spot as he groups them and they'll roll away. He'll then continue to grab the same logs over and over again and drop them 2 feet away.

Water physics with logs is laughable (actually, it caused comedic effect the first couple times my group saw it). I assume this is why we're unable to build boat houses like The Forest. They just bounce incredibly high and appear to be on ice skates when pushed.

Optimization is an interesting topic, the games minimum is a 1060 or recommended 1080. I'm on a 2080 with high/med settings and can rarely pull through 60fps (out in nature). A buddy of mine is on a 1060 and was generally playing on sub 25fps for alot of the time (even on all settings as low as they can go). Logs in water also seem to cause FPS to nose dive though this could've just been coincidental.

This is yet another game where Hard = bullet sponge but mob 2 shots you (if unarmored). I personally dislike bullet sponging especially since a brute - not sure if they have a specific name, incredibly large guys with skull mace - takes ~14 arrows to the head but can get lucky once and stunlock and kill you.

Weather doesn't appear to be entirely synchronized when playing multiplayer. There was a few times where one of my buddies (we were at one point 4 players) would mention they were in what felt like a hurricane, while some of us had light rain with clouds or in some cases just a sun shower. This appears to be an issue across the board with all weather forms.

The intro is awkwardly quiet, no screaming and light on voicelines. It just feels like a pantomime of a helicopter crash. I can't complain about this too hard since the previous game was also like this, was just hoping they'd perhaps try and flex some lite voice acting muscles for the sake of immersion and overall impressiveness.

TLDR-

Overall SUPER impressed with the construction and animation systems available for use, the immersion these can provide is quite enjoyable. Incredibly underwhelmed by the natural survival mechanics, somehow it has less impact on the gameplay than the previous game. More general issues and performance problems than expected for a project that has been in development for many years with a base game to take ideas from.

I haven't fully experienced the game so some of my criticisms may extend from not knowing about a feature or lack of experience in a particular area of the game.

I understand the game is Early Access and can be fixed or adjust so hopefully I can keep the review updated to reflect my opinion accordingly.

Campaign is too short for 90$, visuals are stunning but is about half as long as it should be. Multiplayer is the worst its ever been, not even close to an improvement over WZ1.

Such a simple concept yet astonishingly fun and replayable.

I can't recommend this game while AGS is involved. Everything this company is involved in falls apart.

billion dollar studio btw

yes