Co-op survival and also survival horror game Sons of the Forest (opens in new tab) it was a historic release for developer Endnight, with the announcement that the game had sold over 2 million copies in the first 24 hours of its Early Access release. The developer took to twitter (opens in new tab) to celebrate, thanking “those who have joined us on our early access journey” and saying that the Endnight team was “so excited for what we have in store for players in the coming weeks”.
Hello everyone, thank you to everyone who joined us on our early access journey to ‘Sons Of The Forest’. We sold over 2 million copies in the first 24 hours and are very excited about what we have in store for players in the coming weeks.February 24, 2023
Despite having what I imagine is a comically minuscule fraction of the marketing budget, Sons of the Forest still has more Steam players than the giant Hogwarts Legacy. (opens in new tab). Hoglegs peaked at 306,615 players today, while SotF peaked at 411,999, according to SteamDB. This is not to compare the two, because there really is no point in comparing them based on Steam stats alone, but to emphasize the magnitude of a domestic hit on Steam.
The team here at PC Gamer has certainly had fun with it, from writing a variety of guides to pronouncements on the state of gaming itself. For example, Lauren Morton declares (opens in new tab) Kelvin to be the “new best kid in video games”. Sarah James, meanwhile, was scarred for life by Big Head Mode (opens in new tab).
If you’re looking to embark on a hell of a journey across the island, alone or with friends, we’ve got a nice set of starter tips for Sons of the Forest. (opens in new tab). These are helpful hints like “the inventory screen is bigger than you think” and “press E to eat” and “don’t kill Kelvin”.
The first The Forest was for many an unexpected success, a game that not only came from a small team of four, but managed to stand out among the many, many survival and creation games of the mid-2010s. exciting to be a PC gamer when a team of just four people can create such an impressive game,” said PC Gamer’s Andy Kelly at the time. (opens in new tab).
For my part, The Forest will always be the first game I can remember where you have to carry around whole logs if you want to make something out of wood. It’s a small touch that emphasized how much work it really is to build things by hand, as opposed to the magic poof of most crafting games.
You can find Sons of the Forest on Steam (opens in new tab) in Early Access, where it costs $30.