When I first acquired The Forest, I did so with little expectations, as I had read about some bugs and whatnot, and I simply wanted the standard survival experience, crafting, base-building and all the other add-ons standard to this genre.

I was extremely and very pleasantly surprised once I got around to playing it. As of now, it'll probably be my most played survival game of 2020, competing only with No man's Sky in the same category and with a total time of 200 hours. Nonetheless, I acquired this game much later than the first title, and I'm not done yet with it.

But since this will be a positive review, I want to get the negative in front and out-of-the-way first:

You must be aware of two things: first, the game has a range of bugs ranging from comical, to game-breaking. I did not come across a wide array of them, but I did cross two particular instances where I was disappointed and frustrated. Nothing terrible, or life ending, yet frustrating enough to make me wonder why didn't they fix that. Now, when I say game-breaking, I mean that you might have one or a few of your structures disappear randomly. If you're in for the base-building aspect, or this is important to you as it is to me, this is very annoying. However this only became noticeable to me on my second playthrough, where I took on a massive building project.

And the second thing that you must be aware of is that the building system is pretty rudimentary. In this game, building is great fun, and there is a wide range of possibilities. Yet, the way on which you build is probably the worst one I've come across as of yet. With practice and possibly some searching you can learn how you can build all manners of bases in a workable way.

I think those are the two things that could potentially put you off from the game. Having said that, those were the only real problems I had with it: Two bugs and the weirdness of the building system, from there onwards, the rest is positive for me.

In my opinion, this game is a diamond in the rough, and it had the potential to be brilliant. It comes damn near close. It has everything I wanted. I have gotten an endless amount of fun out of it, but I am simply dumbfounded as to WHY didn't the developers give it just a little more time to polish off the bugs and systems and that really bring the title from a possible "phenomenal" to a "pretty damn fun, yet lacking the finishing touches".

So when I think of The Forest, I first see a solid foundation and all the right elements there. The gameplay is fun and engaging, the atmosphere of the game is executed properly, The crafting and building options are pretty satisfying, The design choices they made about gameplay are a much welcome break from a genre that has delved a little too deep into items that degrade and break after after using them 3 times and 10 status bars measuring different things. And finally, the story, although somewhat lite, manages to stay compelling and intriguing, something very difficult to do for a free-roam survival game.

I love this game. And it's why I'm absolutely puzzled about why it didn't get its deserved treatment. I can only guess, and hope, that the developers were simply too eager in working on the sequel straight away and that on that eagerness, or lack of resources, they decided to move forward a bit too early.

Thinking of titles similar to this game, in the sense of development cycle and final product received, I think of games like Star Wars KOTOR 2, Fallout 2, and Fallout: New Vegas. Games that were brilliant, but were rushed out the door a little too early. When it was clear that not all the details had been sorted yet. But that despite that, they managed to still be absolutely great regardless.

Now, for any fans of the survival genre, I would recommend checking out The Forest. If in doubt, maybe try it on a sale. I think the chances are that you will find a game that can be played for hours on end without the fun decreasing.

I could not describe the gameplay in a way that makes justice to it: I believe it's something you have to experience, or see (i.e: There's plenty of playthroughs on Youtube to get an idea of what the game is like, just make sure to avoid spoilers or out of date content), to get a good feeling of the game; It's why the review it's lacking such descriptions, but the gameplay loop of the game manages to stay fresh and fun after many hours in. After 200 hours, 195 of them in single player, I can testify to that.