This is the wackiest ♥♥♥♥ imaginable, if you poke a dead raccoon corpse (with its skin still on) it'll make snack bars and soda fly out of it (it seems like only up to 3 items can be gotten from every corpse)


The devs for this game are some sick bastards because you're also able to shake money out of hanging corpses by hitting them.


On beaches, if you poke the sand with a stick, you'll be able to dig up small stones and coins.


The stealth system isn't exactly obscure, but I feel it's under explained. Ways you can stay more hidden from cannibals are by:
- Crouching in bushes/plants (and crouching in general)
- Having no light/not lighting fires at night
- Using stealth armor
- Standing still

If cannibals are on to you, but you manage to hide from them before they see you again, they'll search the area for some time and attempt to find you. But eventually they'll leave.

NOTE: Flares are very useful because having one lit in your hand doesn't make you seen more easily, and cannibals are distracted by flares that you throw/shoot with the flare gun. AND flashlights taped to weapons do not alert cannibals.

This mechanic also may not be too obscure, however there's a good chunk of people I know who didn't know you can use the climbing axe on tons of rock cliffs across the Peninsula (with the exception of the icy cliffs in the mountains)

The old pot, which is found in various camps across the game, has many uses. One of those happens to be making stews, when placing a pot with water (polluted or not) on top of a lit fire, you can add mushrooms, meat and herbs in order to create various recipes which can boost stamina, healing and various other properties. (Some recipes can be made without water in the pot) This mechanic is genuinely one of the most strangely complicated in the game, so here's a video by Farket which does a great job at explaining stews.
You can collect clean water simply by holding out your pot during the rain. (It takes about 30 seconds) HOWEVER this feature is partially broken, it'll only give you drinkable clean water if you first have the pot filled with polluted water before "filling up" the pot with rain water.


- If you light a camp fire in a home, the fire will cause you to stay warm no matter where you are in the house.

- If you drink booze when you are a cold, you'll stop being cold... for around 5 seconds, try pissing your pants instead next time.

When holding a tennis ball, you can light it onfire by holding L, it'll immediately cause you to take burn damage but works as a makeshift molotov.

When a cannibal is about to swing at you, if you block their swing just as they attack, you shove them back and cause them to be stunned for about 2 seconds. This won't work on mutant cannibals though.


You do significantly more damage to a cannibal while they are stunned.

This mechanic isn't very obscure, but it's useful to know. If you hold left click while swinging an axe/sword/club, you will wind up a swing. It takes considerable energy to do this, and your character SCREAMS when swinging, making you easily spotted, but it'll often be able to knock down or stun most cannibals if you manage to hit them with a strong weapon.

Melee weapons have a block stat, this stat determines how much damage you'll take when you block an attack with that weapons. The Rusty Axe, Turtle Shell and Club all have perfect block, making you resilient to all melee attacks besides the Cowman's charge and stomp (and a lot of attacks by the final boss and the worm)

When using an axe (or any similar weapon such as the katana, club, etc.) if you manage to jump at and swing directly down on an enemy below you, there's a chance you'll turn them into guts.

The machete is usually one of the last weapons you might find in The Forest, but it's disgusting, hideous and awful. It has the same stats as the katana but with significantly less range. The range on it makes it hard to justify compared to nearly any other melee weapon. But it has a secret hidden up its rusty sleeve, IT CAN CHOP TREES AT AN ABYSSMAL RATE!!!!!!

If you are holding your flashlight and do something to become bloody (kill enemies with melee weapons or chop up bodies), your flashlight will get covered in blood, causing the light to shine red. This looks sick af but more importantly it makes the flashlight a lot brighter. The blood on the flashlight goes away when washed.

- When a cannibal is downed, there is a chance another cannibal will drag them away from you to protect them
- Having red paint on will cause regular cannibals to become MOSTLY passive towards you, they may pray and hum to you, or be scared
- Cannibals in caves (and sometimes on the surface) can sleep if not aware of your presence, they can be one hit from behind by many weapons while they're asleep.


You can moderately control your relation with cannibals throughout the game based on how you interact with them:

Aggression
Cannibals become more aggressive when:
- Attacking/Killing Cannibals
- Destroying Effigies
- Entering their camps
- Dismembering corpses
- Finishing the alternate ending (cannibal aggression becomes set to the max)

Cannibal aggression determines how likely they are to:
- Attack on sight
- Attempt to raid/assault a base location (and the frequency of attacks)
- Travel in huge numbers

Intimidation
Cannibals can be intimidated by:
- Burning corpses
- Creating and lighting up effigies
- Aiming a gun / bow at them
- One shotting cannibals with a projectile weapon
- Killing the leader of a group
^You can tell who is the "leader" of a cannibal group as they tend to have higher health, stay further away than other cannibals when attacking, and look dripped out.
This causes them to flee the area or be more hesitant to attack you.

Provoking Cannibals
Cannibals can be provoked by:
- Chopping down trees in an area
- Burning fires at night
^Especially Bonfires
These cause cannibals to show up to an area.

Passiveness
You can make cannibals be more passive by:
- Not engaging with them (running, hiding, or just not being near them)
- Blocking their attacks (if there is a small group of 1-3 cannibals they may lose interest and leave you alone if you simply block all their attacks)
- Wearing red paint
- Building in areas away from their presence.
Staying passive with the cannibals reduces their presence along with their likelihood of attacking in large groups. (Reduces spawns in general)
*Keep in mind Mutants are always hostile unless undisturbed

Every cave you can explore in the ocean has crossbow bolts in it and for awhile I thought that was the only way you could get them, however it turns out that there are a handful more bolts in well hidden spots.


Crossbow bolts on a tower at the lake village not far from yacht


Crossbow bolts on top of tower in Geese Lake


Crossbow bolts stuck into the wrecked ship on the southern island


Crossbow bolts on a small sunken boat in the big river

Crossbow bolts in the water between two western islands.

There are a bunch of cans of red paint around the game left by the Red Man/Matthew which you can use to scare the cannibals, unless the paint gets washed off.

Can of paint in the storage area in the Hanging Cave

Located at the "shrine" to the Red Man in the Sinkhole Cave

Located at the bottom of the Waterfall Cave near a note written by Matthew

Located at the main cannibal village in a hut with a picture drawn by Timmy

Located at a really obscure location in the east, you can locate Matthew on the ledge here sometimes

Located in one of the giant huts along the northwest beach

Located in one of the small huts at the north central cannibal village (along with an upgraded spear)

Located not far from the entrance to the Chasm Cave

There are many cans of paint in Sahara Labs too but they don't work because all cannibals in the area are hostile no matter what.

You're able to sleep in the intact camping tent.

This camp has tons of useful items and is always worth going to. This area also may have a role in the mystery of the yacht's origin. You can sleep in one of the tents here.

Raccoons are rare in the forest, you'll need to skin just 1 for the warm suit, you can find them in certain areas such as the mountain region and film crew camp mostly at night. However one good location for raccoons even during the day is this high up area on the far east portion of the map.

At the northern-central most point of the map, ontop of the highest cliff, you can find a tent with 3 frozen bodies and some resources scattered around.

Along the Northeastern coast of the Peninsula, you can find a boar skull on a pike, along with washed up packages on the sand. This is in reference to the book "Lord of The Flies" which details a survival story of a bunch of children from a plane crash. (The pig head from the book being used as a peace offering, and ends up haunting one of the characters, foreshadowing the character's death)

In numerous caves you'll need some form of explosive to clear up small cave-ins. However, Armsies are also able to remove these boulders. Similar to getting an armsy to chop down trees, if you bait it or enrage it to swing at the rubble it'll burst through. In the sinkhole cave, you can lure an armsy on the other side of a cave-in to charge through.

There are a handful of hard to spot dead spelunkers you can find in different caves.


Caver tied to the bottom of the water in the Waterfall Cave (Who has a few snack bars on him)


Attached to the ceiling of the Ledge Cave not far from where you find the climbing axe


Hard to notice caver visible by climbing on the rope into the Baby Cave


In the Hanging Cave in a room with 3 different pathways there's a skull candle on some giant rocks

If you hop up above the area behind the skull candle you can reach a small crevice with some snack bars and skulls.


There are plenty of areas in the caves where you'll have to swim for long stretches, but in a handful of diving areas there will be trails of some sort of object that'll lead you out.

I.E, In the Submerged Cave with christian missionary tents and the rusty axe, when you dive into the water you'll find a trail of bibles leading to the exit.

If you go through Sahara Labs and then shutdown the EMP device, if you decide to try and go back through the sinkhole into the labs, the entrance will now be caved in with rocks blocking it off.


When the cave map is all filled out, it looks like there's one circular path you could take to get into every cave. In-game you can't sadly, but there are a handful of areas in certain caves that look like you could squeeze through the rocks to get into another cave.



This DEAD end in the DEAD cave looks like it would connect right through to the Hanging Cave or the deeper section of the Dead cave


This rocky crevice in the Sinkhole cave looks like it would be directly below the Waterfall cave

The developers have stated in various discussions that the caves are indeed all meant to connect, which explains how the red man and timmy have left so much evidence of themselves as they slip through the cracks of the caves.

When you escape Sahara Labs in the alternate ending, you blow open a way out of the cave system into the mountains. Before Alternate Ending After Alternate Ending

In the ocean around the map, there are a handful of submerged things to be found.
In the water not far from the islands on the northwest side of the map, there's a stray Sahara marked container (but nothing in it)

South from the main cargo container area of the map, another container can be found underwater (Nothing in it though once again)

In the ocean between the southwest island and yacht, there is a second giant anchor and ship debris, assumedly both part of the big ship wreck

In the bay where the yacht is, you can find and pick up oysters on the ocean floor. They don't have to be cooked and can be eaten from your inventory, but they don't stay fresh very long.

Plane Axe MFR Code

The Axe that you get from the plane at the start of the game has a manufacturing (MFR) code you can see when you block with it, it reads 1807GEB on the side. After many searches, this isn't a real serial code and there's no company that can be traced back to it. For reference, the MFR code "56D6221" is a real one, and if you search it up this exact code into google you'll find this manufacturing code is associated with crash axes produced by various companies that look like this.

When you pick up rocks, there is a small chance a spider will appear and start crawling around (and you can squash it)


When it rains, if you look straight up there is a "star-shaped" pattern in the clouds above.

Idk why tf this happens.

There are a few things worth noting about the passenger manifest:

First, is the airport code for the departure. "YYZ" is the code for Toronto International, but there's also evidence that shows the flight may have departed at NYC. For example, in some suitcases you can find magazines related to New York.
The magazine has a picture of the empire state building and "New York" on the top

It'd be strange for people departing from Toronto to have things related to NY if they weren't going there, if the plane crashed in upstate NY in a flight from Toronto to NYC, the geography of the peninsula would make no sense due to the ocean. it'd make a lot more sense if the plane crashed somewhere in Northeast Canada. Another thing that points to the location of the game taking place in Canada is canadian dollars being shown as the currency in two different items you can find. On the magazine "Beneath the Limestone" found in two caves.
In small text it says the price in canadian dollar, but to be fair most magazines/books I buy here in NJ also have the same thing. I think the article that is more compelling is a chainsaw advertisement you can find in the Ledge Cave. This clearly indicates Canadian Dollar and not USD so it's fair to assume that the game takes place in Canada. The magazines for NY could mean that there could've been a connecting flight to NYC after first going to an airport in Northeast Canada. But what's more likely is that this is a lot of speculative crap and the devs changed the story behind the flight multiple times in development, for instance the tail end of the plane early in development had the lufthansa logo on it, but due to legal reasons it was removed.


The second thing about the manifest is that the flight number is 111. On september 2nd, 1998 swissair flight 111 departed from JFK airport in NYC set to arrive at Geneva, but early in the flight faulty ventilation caused a fire in the cabin making it crash in the Atlantic not far from Nova Scotia. It'd be strange to reference an actual airline tragedy in this game but the incident is definitely similar to the plane crash in The Forest (May have originated in NYC, and crashed around Northeast Canada)

After you grab the survival book and the plane is shot down by the EMP device, you can see out the left window the direction the plane falling. Based on the location of the mountains, we can figure out that the plane was flying east over the peninsula. This is the opposite direction from where the plane you shoot down enters in the ending of the game.

In the center of the main cannibal village, the huge dead tree is wrapped and decorated with all sorts of body parts. This tree also resembles various huge trees around the peninsula (more on this later in the guide)

A few books in the game credit the author "Sam Sounde" such as "SKS", "The Dark Haired Man" and even is the co-author for the main character's survival guide.

In specific locations around the peninsula you can find Matthew Cross/the red man navigating around the map (up until you enter Sahara Labs) He'll watch you from a distance but when you get close or he sees you for long enough he'll run away. It's hard to predict whether or not he'll appear in a certain location but it seems depending on how you approach certain locations may determine if he will appear.
Red Man on the yacht


Red Man on top of cliff where the main cannibal village is

In singleplayer, when you "die" your first time (or 3 days after your previous death) you are shown a cutscene of you being captured and dragged to the Hanging Cave. In this cutscene, where you are being dragged depends on where you die. You can be captured if you sleep when cannibals are alerted to you/attacking you. (This happens even in multiplayer, which might be a bug since you're not supposed to be able to get captured in multiplayer)

At any given time during the day, there is a chance you can see a plane flying over the peninsula. If you create a SOS signal planes seem to appear slightly more afterwards. There is absolutely no way to interact with the plane though, even if you shoot off a flare.

Plane way up in the sky below some clouds

The yacht on the southern end of the Peninsula has a lot of mystery to it. From what I've discovered about the game, I feel the story behind who owned the yacht changed over development and around V1.0, the devs erased a lot of the previous story to fit the narrative that the Red Man/Sahara Labs may have a connection to the yacht.

Pre-V1.0 Story
You used to be able to find various dead bodies around the peninsula that may have been related to the yacht crew. In the Hanging Cave, there's a small boarded up space where you could find a dead body surrounded by polaroids of the yacht. However, at a certain point in development, the corpse ended up being removed. The grave on the coast across the yacht remains in the game and clearly is some member of the yacht crew as indicated by once again yacht polaroids on the grave. Speaking of the yacht picture, another removed detail is the writing from the polaroid.The date inscribed on the photo was removed some time from V0.18 to now. This may have to do with the conflicting dates on the magazine on the yacht and the possibility that the film crew is also the yacht crew (Magazine is dated 1984 and a script by the film crew is dated 1984) You can find a polaroid of the teddy bear on the yacht in front of an entrance to the Hanging Cave. This connects with the idea that some of the yacht crew went into the Hanging Cave (it has 3 cassette tapes in it, which would imply that these people brought cassette players, as the only other place you can find tapes are around the yacht) You can find some things in the Hanging Cave which seem to point that the yacht crew/film crew might be the same people. (There are many folding chairs in a pocket of the Hanging Cave, which are similar to the ones found at the film crew camp) Another removed detail was a grave near the lake in the snow region. Finally, if you were to do the alternate ending and go into the locked cabin in the yacht, you use to be able to find a body laying on the bed inside, however once again this was removed.

Post-V1.0 Story
Since various yacht crew bodies were removed leading up to 1.0, it's assumed the story may have changed to fit the idea that the yacht crew didn't die across the island, and the Red Man or Sahara have more ties to it. After 1.0 the private room of the yacht is barred by a sahara key card, which really throws a wrench into most theories about who the yacht crew was or is. The remaining grave on the bay where the yacht is could mean the original crew died in the area still, but that Sahara or the Red Man hijacked the boat for safety reasons afterwards (as shown by the Red Man's rare appearances on the yacht, and many items that show he is frequently on it)

Additional Facts: The Yacht is named Betsy

According to the map, the underground "vault" entrance to Sahara Labs is directly under the area of the yacht, this could just be coincidence but I thought it was interesting.

In the captain's quarters of the yacht, there are some papers which seem to have legible text on them, and over the hundreds of hours I've played this game, I have NEVER seen these papers anywhere else. You can't get close enough to the papers to read them however if anyone reading this is knowledgeable of how to find or extract the textures for this I would love to be able to see if anything of interest is on here.

Matthew Cross AKA "The Red Man" is a mostly unseen character in the game that shoots down the plane you were on, steals Timmy, and is eventually found dead at the end of the game. It's made clear that he used Timmy in order to revive his deceased daughter Megan, however there are plenty of less certain things the red man may have done when employed for Sahara and living on the Peninsula.

There are a handful of bodies across the game that are either decapitated, or have been intentionally been tampered with. It's possible the red man is responsible for some of these. In the Dead Cave, the small cave you find the Katana in seems to have been attacked and killed but far away from any cannibal activity. It's possible Matthew killed these passengers, as there are 2 decapitated corpses with bibles around them and some items left behind by Timmy aren't far away

In the final hallways of Sahara Labs, you can find 2 more decapitated heads with crosses on them, crosses generally seem to indicate where Matthew has been or done.

The inclusion of books about growing up to be a Lawyer around this head with a drill in it is also good evidence Matthew did this

The Red Man harbors hatred for lawyers as is depicted in the Lawyer's Cave: There are 2 decapitated corpses of business people in a portion of the cave, with both of their heads being put before a RED drawing of a legal scale

Matthew Cross most likely killed these lawyers due to previous incidents in courts such as losing custody of Megan, the restraining order from his wife, and possibly many lawsuits involving Sahara Therapeutics.

Later in the game there are many books that are targeted at kids to become lawyers (This has to do with Sahara Labs, since it's implied the company would need a strong legal department to keep afloat with all of their very illegal experiments)

As pointed out with the decapitated heads in the Lawyer's Cave, there is a general association with red drawings and the red man: This is most certainly a note from the red man, this note proves the red man is quite religious, it's even written on a page from the bible. The red man knows he is a sinner for killing his wife and most likely his research at Sahara, and in line with the bible, has doomed his child, Megan, to suffer the consequences.

This polaroid with red writing MAY have been taken by the red man, which would point to a handful of possible conclusions.
1. The Red Man left notes for himself about how to access certain safe places or Sahara employee corpses.

2. The Red Man intentionally left these for your character to help guide him to find Sahara Labs/Timmy by indicating the cave where the access keycard + camera can be found. This could be an act of mercy by the red man who does not seem to harbor resentment towards your character, or as a way of trying to explain the reason for what's happening.

(Keep in mind the camcorder tapes are seemingly from the perspective of Matthew most of the time, and all of them explain/show Megan and experiments at Sahara Labs)

As soon as you enter Sahara Labs, it's made clear that the red paint found throughout the game originates from the paint used across the research facility. It's likely that the red man aka Matthew Cross took and placed the paint around the peninsula to travel in safety. This also leads rise to a cryptic theory that Sahara Labs conditioned cannibals to be fearful of red paint. (More on that in a later section)

The gas tanks found across the lab explode if you hit them

Not far from the resurrection obelisk you can find a Sahara worker who commit suicide while barricaded in an office. This implies the overrun and collapse of the labs was very recent, and didn't happen long before the red man shot down the plane you were on

This may quite possibly be a reference to Penumbra: Black Plague, a 2008 game by the same developers as the Amnesia series and SOMA. The Penumbra series has quite a few parallels to The Forest:
- Both have hidden research facilities in remote locations
- Both involve a company/organization trying to study mysterious, otherworldly artifacts
In Penumbra: Black Plague, the main character ends up finding his father dead after commiting suicide within the research facility, and the appearance between both of these people is strikingly similar, from the attire to the facial hair.

On various boards in the lab you can find a grainy picture taken of the site of the Resurrection Obelisk before Sahara Labs built the facility around it. There are christian missionary tents around it like those seen in many other places in the game. It's likely this photo which may be decades old was used as proof to the existence of the strange artifacts on the Peninsula.

This entire slideshow reveals many key points about the story, among other things:- Matthew Cross AKA The Red Man was behind this project, cementing his important role at Sahara
- The name "Jarius" is most definitely in reference to Jairus, from the book of Mark. 5:21 to 5:43 in the book tells the story of Jesus healing Jairus' 12 year old daughter after she was believed to be dead. In this allegory, the red man would be Jairus, Megan would Jairus' daughter, and Jesus being the Resurrection Obelisk. In the NIV translation of the bible, both of these notes by the red man are nearly direct quotes from this story. Here's a non-invasive website with the story if you want to read it yourself Mark 5:21-43 NIV[biblia.com]

- This also points to the red man's insanity and fixation on his work to compare the resurrection obelisk to being akin to Jesus.
- This slide indicates that revived bodies have genetic mutations which reduce/prevent aging. Something that Sahara has been trying to isolate and extract from its various test subjects in the lab.
- It also shows an impossible chemical structure? If anything this proves that the mutations people receive after being revived by the Resurrection Obelisk are far beyond any typical understanding of science.
The final slide shows earnings from 3 different aspects of Sahara:
- The Jarius Project has been a huge source of money from investors, who most likely know little about the process of Sahara's experiments other than genetic mutations and possible age extension.
- Parents willing to give money has remained stagnant, this proves that Sahara cooperated with parents and coaxed them into using their children to continue Sahara's experiments. But also proves that there hasn't been a huge growth in parents willing to have their children go to Sahara to "help research".
- The purchase of the Peninsula has plummeted their earnings over time, this is definitely due to the many legal disputes and accidents that have occurred in the area involving security, cannibal attacks, and many deaths.

Matthew Cross, after all of his progress to bring Megan back to life, is found dead seemingly at the hands of his own daughter. This could have been for a number of reasons:
1. Megan figured out his father shot down a plane and sacrificed a child to save her (something she is keenly aware of, as Megan even recognizes your character as being part of the plane crash.) 2. Megan had always despised her father but couldn't do anything about it until after being resurrected and no longer bound to a wheelchair. (Matthew killed his wife, who had previously taken custody of Megan in a court decision, Matthew took Megan with him after killing Jessica Cross)

THESE THEORIES GET PROGRESSIVELY MORE UNHINGED IN THIS SECTION

Throughout the Peninsula there are a handful of big trees which cannibals patrol by often (these trees also shine at night)

There are various good theories as to why these trees are important to cannibals and such, however I think the reason why these trees seem to be important is because they have a lot of similarities with the way mutants like armsies and virginias look. The trees look fleshy and soft-textured, and have a lot of limbs like mutants.

The supernatural elements of The Forest come from the remains of an unknown society/presence formed within the caves and mountains of the Peninsula. By the end of the game it's made clear that the mutants and other hostile cannibals are a result of the Resurrection Obelisk as shown by Megan's transformation and research at Sahara Labs. There's a 2nd Obelisk found high up in a mountain appears to store energy that could be released like an EMP device. It's unknown what the intended uses of these objects were originally for but Sahara fails at exploiting either device as the results of using both devices lead to disaster.

There's evidence that supports the idea of other Obelisks or unnatural forces that act as prevention from people entering the deep caves. In certain caves there are very old decomposed corpses of mainly Christian Missionaries. Some of these corpses are positioned in ways that make them seem fearful or in shock, indicating some possible event which would kill them nearly instantly. On the way to the second obelisk after killing Megan, you come across what might be one of the biggest mysteries in this game which is this cave: The cave is blocked by a huge gate and glows red. There are old corpses lined up all around the hole. There's a triangular rock formation, and metallic supports along the bottom, yet nothing of note inside. There are so many interpretations that could be made, but personally I want to believe that it contained a device which could vaporize intruders such as the Christian Missionaries, like how the Second Obelisk is powerful enough to wipe out anything in the air around the Peninsula. At some point in time it may have been blown up, explaining the strange remaining rock formation.

Matthew Cross shoots down the plane your character and Timmy are on in order to revive his daughter Megan. But there are tons of peculiar decisions the red man makes which point to a greater plan behind his actions. The Red Man never directly attacks the player, and seems to have traveled with Timmy a lot across the Peninsula, taking good care of him as well. He was a very important member of Sahara Therapeutics and would understand the implications of reviving Megan more than anybody else, yet still decides to do so only hours after your character enters the lab. He was also fired for "unethical use of equipment", I want to believe that Matthew Cross was the one who designed the interface on the 2nd Obelisk which tracked children on nearby planes, as it seems like something that would be highly illegal and cause huge damage to the company, but would be a way to gather more children to experiment on.

As pointed out in a previous section of this guide, it's likely the red man purposefully left evidence around the Peninsula to explain what is going on to your character, Eric LeBlanc. And after rigorously going through all the evidence I could, I've come to the conclusion that the red man intentionally wanted Eric LeBlanc to spread word about the Peninsula, the artifacts and Sahara's practices. Although the red man is morally wrong, he's clearly devoted his life to everything at this lab in an attempt to understand the artifacts, and when Sahara Labs failed it'd make sense for him to pass the torch to somebody else. Him reviving Megan perfectly shows Eric how the Resurrection Obelisk works and its otherworldly properties. It could even be said that the red man knew he would eventually die, which is why he seemingly let Megan kill him.

This is a theory that has been elaborated on by MANY discussions, video essays and posts regarding this game's story/meaning. To summarize, there are tens of elements that imply the cannibals and mutants of the Peninsula have become demonically possessed and or stripped of a soul as a result of the Resurrection Obelisk.Here's some points about this theory:

Christian Missionaries
As seen across the caves of the Peninsula, there are tens of human corpses which are about 100 to 300 years old. Many tents, old boats, weapons and story items originate from Christian Missionaries. It's likely many came to the Peninsula to attempt to convert the cannibals, along with possible myths regarding the existence of supernatural forces in the area. The Missionaries, although never able to convert the cannibals/mutants, have definitely left their impression on the cannibals who sometimes decorate themselves with crosses and have religious fixations of their own (Fear/Reverence towards the color red, frequent patrol of the sacred trees) Alongside this, many plot points and characters have ties to Christian beliefs:

- Matthew CROSS often leaves behind bibles and crosses where he's been
- The Jarius Project is in reference to a biblical story, and compares the power of the resurrection obelisk to Jesus
- A paper found in the Dead Cave details a group discovering and attempting to exorcise mutants they encountered (The text is in Latin)

Cannibals
The Cannibals throughout the Peninsula are almost certainly ALSO victims of the obelisk like the mutants. It's unclear what causes the mutants and cannibals to look so different but they share very similar skin complexions, and notably do not seem to AGE, something that Sahara strongly notes about genetic mutations from the resurrection obelisk. This would explain how the cannibals have been around for hundreds of years even before significant documentation of the obelisks existed. The label "Cannibal" is also very questionable, even though they are very hostile and have killed tons of people, they are very rarely seen eating people and instead put them on display in caves, on trees, in effigies, or untouched after being killed. Cannibals may not NEED to eat, and this is where I say it's possible that cannibals lack a soul. It's believed that the resurrection obelisk gives back life and removes aging at the cost of becoming a soulless being. It's the reason why the artifact found in the Alternate Ending will literally change the behavior of cannibals. It was likely created by the ancient civilization to control the soulless bodies created by the obelisk. The Red Man would have locked it away from the player as it was too powerful for anyone else to have, and also as it may be the final piece in the puzzle for someone figuring out the cannibals are work of the devil.

SovietWomble made a fantastic video breaking down a lot of this theory in his critique of the game's narrative

- http://survivetheforest.com/ This appears to be a dead website which used to be related to the game.

- End Night Game's youtube channel has very old trailers for The Forest along with an ipad game called "End Night" made in 2012. The developers used to be called SKS studios, which would explain the books around the game (written by Sam Sounde) of the same name.
End Night's Youtube

- The Forest's soundtrack is single-handedly composed by Gabe Castro, who has a YT channel. His channel has all the tracks from the game, along with various ones which were cut from the final release. It's good stuff.
Gabe Castro's Youtube

- There is a lot to explore through old versions of the game, you can either find youtube videos from a decade ago, community posts online or even install older builds of The Forest yourself. It's not too complicated but not something I'm interested in doing, however I'll leave a link to a good article on how to download older versions of games on steam:
How To Download Old Versions of Steam Games[techwiser.com]

There is hella information to unpack from this game, especially when it comes to story and theories, this guide could go on for ages but a lot of the excitement I got from this game and making this guide was figuring things out on my own. There are tons of other guides, discussions and posts on many facets of this game, but the purpose of this guide was to showcase as much interesting stuff as I, and just I, possibly could. There are many obvious holes and strange inconsistencies with this game that I acknowledge, but this game calls to me in the same way that I would come up with imaginative stories and explanations for things when I was a little kid. Thank you EndNight Games for your hardwork over the past decade, starting off with such a small team and eventually turning The Forest into a game I've thoroughly appreciated even with its flaws.

Thank you to the many sources used to make this guide (even the forest wiki) I have to especially shoutout SovietWomble, Farket and Gabe Castro who you should all check out if you haven't already.

I hope you learned something new or have been inspired to do your own deep dive into something that fascinates you like this game did for me :)