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Cooperative survival game as well as survival horror Sons of the Forest (opens in a new tab) was a historic launch 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 went to Twitter (opens in a new tab) to celebrate, thanking “those who have joined us on our Early Access journey” and saying that the Endnight team was “very excited about what we have in store for players in the coming weeks.”
Hi everyone, thank you to those who have joined us on our Sons Of The Forest early access journey. 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. band nightFebruary 24, 2023
Despite what I imagine as a comically small part of the marketing budget, Sons of the Forest has even more Steam players than the behemoth Hogwarts Legacy (opens in a new tab). According to SteamDB, Hoglegs peaked at 306,615 players today, while SotF peaked at 411,999. It’s not about comparing the two games, as there really isn’t much point in comparing them based on Steam stats alone, but to underscore the magnitude of the Steam homegrown hit. .
The team here at PC Gamer certainly had a lot of fun with it, from writing various guides to speaking out about the state of gaming itself. For example, Lauren Morton declares (opens in a new tab) Kelvin as “the new best video game boy”. Meanwhile, Sarah James has been crippled for life by Big Head Mode (opens in a new tab).
If you want to embark on a hell of an island journey, alone or with friends, we’ve got a nice set of tips to get you started with Sons of the Forest (opens in a new tab). These are useful tips like “the inventory screen is bigger than you think” and “press E to eat” and “don’t kill Kelvin”.
The first The Forest was an unexpected hit for many, a game not only made by a small team of four but standing out from the many, many survival and crafting games of the mid-2010s. “It’s an exciting time for the PC gamer when only four people can create such an impressive game,” PC Gamer’s Andy Kelly said at the time. (opens in a new tab).
For my part, The Forest will always be the first game I remember that forced you to carry whole logs if you wanted to make something out of wood. It’s a little touch that highlighted how much work it takes to build things by hand, unlike the magic pouf of most crafting games.
Sons of the Forest can be found on Steam (opens in a new tab) in Early Access for $30.
