Horror-survival hybrid The Forest leaves Early Access after nearly four years

Endnight Games’ horror survival hybrid The Forest has left Steam Early Access after nearly four years of development.

The Forest was first released via Early Access in May 2014, before hitting its landmark 1.0 version yesterday.

One of the best games to come out of the survival-sim boom, The Forest eschewed the generic zombie trend of the time by creating a more cohesive theme around a “society of cannibalistic mutants”.

During the day players partake in more traditional survival fare, collecting resources like wood to craft bases, fortifications and items. But at night, the game becomes a tooth-and-nail scrap as the mutants become more aggressive.

“It’s been a crazy ride, made possible only by the players who have supported us for the last four years,” Anna Terekhova, Endnight Games co-founder and VFX artist, said on The Forest’s Steam community page.

“To the team here it feels like a game we all made together, us and the community. Your input suggestions and feedback has been invaluable to us.This version of the game adds a bunch of new stuff, from a craftable warmsuit, significant re-work of the endgame and a new alternate ending. Along with this there is a ton of cave re-work and polish and many many improvements and fixes.

“There is a lot we still want to do, and plan on heavily supporting the game moving forward. Some other big items we hope to implement soon are proper cheat controls in multiplayer and fixes to the issues that will likely come up in this release.”

Endnight Games also announced that The Forest will be coming to VR on May 22, featuring the full game, as well as a 3D inventory and motion controls for cutting down trees.

Some players have reported issues with crashing in the last couple of days, but Endnight have acknowledged the problem and are working to put a fix as soon as possible.