The Forest - PS4

This is NOT a review. It's just a few thoughts based on my experience with the game so far.

The Forest was recently released for the PS4, so I asked my boyfriend to play with me. I thought it would be the perfect game for us, since it sounded like a mix between survival horror and Minecraft, which is how we've been playing it. There's a story in there somewhere, but I haven't seen it yet. From what I've read, it seems interesting and I'm excited to get around to it eventually.

I'll start by saying the game can be a bit boring at times, especially if you allow random people to join your session. Not all of them want to sleep at night, and I don't want to venture outside in the dark because I feel so unprepared. I followed someone who joined my game once and ended up stuck outside my base at night. I couldn't see anything and I was quickly surrounded, and killed, by mutants. If you're not able to sleep at night and despawn the mutants, and you're not ready to explore at night and fight them, you're stuck inside, waiting for daylight to come and trying not to starve to death. It's the one drawback of the game, for me, but it can be easily remedied by not allowing people to join without an invite.

That being said, this game is incredibly scary and if you're into that, here are some things that really got under my skin.

I went swimming in the ocean, trying to reach a small island. Full disclosure: I have a fear of the ocean. I had a panic attack watching Open Water during the scene at night where it was storming, because the ocean is so vast and it was so dark and you can't see anything. You're just there. Even though The Forest is just a video game, I still got anxious swimming in the water, it felt like I was never getting closer to the island. I was so focused on getting there that I was really surprised when, seemingly out of nowhere, I was "hit" by something and lost half my health. John jokingly said it was a shark attack, so I decided to look it up and see if there actually are sharks in the game. Sure enough, there are. That was the end of swimming in the ocean. It wasn't the end of that nightmare though.

John built a house boat for us so that we wouldn't have to worry about the sharks anymore. I couldn't stand in the open area of the raft, I had to go in the walled in section because I was getting sick watching him row along the water in the dark. At one point in the game, we got separated while exploring a "village" because mutants found us. John hid in the small shelter we built and I had to run to the beach and take the house boat out to the yacht so that when it was night, we could sleep and despawn the enemies, allowing us to reunite safely. I made it to the yacht and for some reason...I don't remember what was going through my mind, but I fell off the yacht and got stuck under the house boat. In the dark, shark infested water. I panicked. I was so immersed in the game, I forgot that that's ALL it was. It actually terrified me.

This game is great at making you feel alone and hopeless, even when other people are there with you. John and I would leave our base together to chop down trees every morning. There were times when I would see him walk by and my heart would stop because I thought he was part of a mutant patrol. He pointed out how clever it was for them to make you stand in front of the tree while you're hitting it, so you're unable to see anything else. It's true, it adds to the feeling of dread. You don't know what's lurking beyond the trees, or in them, because apparently these things can climb. That's another of my fears, the woods, for that exact reason. Anything can be hiding in there. On one of our outings, we were spotted by a patrol and I was so surprised, I screamed. I can't remember the last time a game got that reaction out of me.

So even though I'm only on Day 40 and I haven't progressed the story at all, I can still say a few things for certain about The Forest. Yes, it can get dull if you're just waiting the night out. It can be extremely difficult to survive if you're like me and you won't kill animals, because it limits what you're able to craft, and a lot of those items are extremely useful. It can be frustrating. However, it is so atmospheric and terrifying that it's made up for all the difficulties I've created for myself. And the amazing thing is, you don't even realize what the game is doing until after you've been playing for a while. You'll see things in the distance, mutants watching you, trailing you, stalking you. It builds this sense of paranoia unlike anything I've ever felt during a game, outside of Alien: Isolation. Any shortcomings The Forest has are overshadowed by the overall experience you'll have while playing it. For $19.99, it's completely worth it.