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Review as of Early Access.

There are games that just become great - and this is one that's on that path - and will hopefully stay there. Early Access is just the "thing" now, so you have to be patient with this reality and the constant updates/expansions. That being said, there's currently plenty to do and the multiplayer/co-op is executed very well. Minimal crashes or glitches and they've updated some of the quest progression dynamics. As a VERY long time gamer, I've seen many games come and go - I see this as up there with the likes of Satisfactory, Valheim, Grounded, Fallout, The Forest (first one), Subnautica (both), Green Hell, Conan Exiles and all the "top tier" games survival/co-op/base building. The world is fairly large now with several biomes/areas as well as dungeon areas (Hallow Halls) which can turn into 2, 3 or even 4 hour missions each. Just don't exit a Hallowed Hall before you've completed each Hallowed Hall or you'll lose your progress and have to start it all over again. We learned this after the second hour of progression and stopped to have dinner.

The graphics are beautiful, the game play and combat is satisfying (lots of skill customization, warrior, barbarian, ranger, wizard - many more) - they're still tweaking it - and the base building is nice but still a bit "wonky". The NPC enemies are predictive but change with levels so that adds a bit of challenge (they're tweaking it). Weapons have a great selection with different buffs and attributes. A point of note is that there are several pre-built structures in the game already that can serve as perfectly good "base" areas and I appreciate that since you have a limited amount of Flame Altars you can create for expansion or multi-base purposes. I as many people, set up my main base at the Blue Goblet tavern (you'll find it) since it was nicely laid-out and in good condition with lots of space on 4 levels - basement through attic. Just plop down a flame altar inside or next to it and bingo - instant base build in a fairly central location. It also has enough space for "necessary" farming of plants and food items, but if you want to build a "farm" layout, there's a few flatter areas in the world - just need to build your own structures.

You won't go wrong with this game if you enjoy multiplayer/survival/co-op/base building in the Fantasy Genre with friends. Just note you'll want more and more content as you finish-up the existing quests. A bit more character customization would be welcome - but again, they have a good road map and I'm hopeful they'll keep to it. I especially like the upgrade-able glider feature of the game which makes travel around the world easier and a lot of fun.

All in all depending on what you think of the price I highly recommend playing this game. It's one of the games you think about when you're not playing it - and that says a lot.

Interesting premise for an older RTS game, but good to burn a few hours here and there for only a few bucks. Goal is to survive 48 days in the cold and make it through end-game final "storm". Had to restart it a few times because I failed and got lovely "Your Time Has Come" message from my population. You have to manage heat, resources, food, health and also Discontent & Hope which are governed by actions or decisions you take as leader. Also send scouts out to explore and gather other survivors and "steam cores" which can't be crafted/made. Game doesn't last very long once you know how to play it and what is important to focus on (coal). I think I had less than 18 hours with it. Each replay makes you go back through scripted sequences and initial challenges so that gets a bit old, but they've added new features and challenges which I have not played yet. Graphics are good with the animations and artwork. Voice acting and voice prompts are good. Building is limited to circular/radial patterns around the central generator. Not a huge issue and you can decide what to put where. Upgrade trees are present for different technologies and then a set of "laws" you can enact that effect Discontent and Hope. Enact a law regarding health and some hope may rise, but discontent may also rise. Tell them to let a kid die in the cold and hope will fall, but discontent may fall. Lots of variables. The only thing I didn't like is that there's a time-scale button to increase game timing half or double speed (something like that). If you click double speed - which you'll have to do or just sit there waiting for hours - sometimes your Hope or Discontent will spike and you'll lose before you can address the issue. There were a few times when all was well (good Hope and low Discontent) and when I clicked the speed-up time, it suddenly notified me "Your Time Has Come" which is the game's message that you've failed. Units can also only "work" or "upgrade" during daylight hours although they will build and hunt during the night. All in all an interesting premise presented pretty well and for the price it's a good way to spend a day or so when you don't want to work! I'd like to see a Frostpunk sequel with some expanded game play/options.

NOTE - THIS REVIEW ACKNOWLEDGES THE EARLY-ACCESS STATE OF THE GAME

It's just simply not there yet. I of course played the original The Forest and found it to be an innovative, original and engaging experience all through the development and final release/ending. So, I was also highly anticipating the release of Sons of The Forest (SOTF).

That being said - at current state of development, two words - "Total Disappointment".

PROS -

Gorgeous graphics, great audio and environmental effects. Multiplayer is fairly smooth with only 1 or 2 kick-outs during the 20 hours of play.

Great "hiking simulator" as I've seen it described elsewhere.

Menus function well, good range of weapons and equipment. Much improved mechanics/graphics/physics for cannibals and mutants.

Large, detailed island with a really cool seasonal transition feature.

CONS -

You're literally holding a GPS device and a walkie-talkie with other high-tech tools and devices the entire game. WHERE'S THE F*&#)%@ COMPASS???

There is ABSOLUTELY NO NEED to build a single thing or structure. Saving/sleeping etc. can be done easily with tarps found throughout the world and cannibals and mutants won't attack the tarp. Buildings do not improve your experience, they don't provide any advantage - no additional crafting, no additional foods, no additional regen or buffs. The ONLY purpose they serve is to IMMEDIATELY attract hordes of cannibals and mutants to attack. Otherwise, we played the entire story without finishing a single structure. Also, the large size of the island and the fact that you will have to traverse it several times means that a "central" base is useless. At best you'll wind up with several smaller bases near caves or other points of interest which is wasted effort as none of the activities require any lingering effort. It will take you longer to build a small log cabin or lean-to than to get the items from a cave. All the time you'll be wasting ammunition resources and health fighting the cannibals who will constantly attack while you're building. Forget it. Just plop down a tarp outside (or inside) the cave, go find the item, leave the area.

Virginia - great butt in her leotard even with three legs. Otherwise, she's a useless feature unless you give her a gun and then once in awhile she'll shoot a cannibal or bring you some blueberries.

Kelvin - can be helpful in gathering some resources for you. Never really used him.

Hang Gliders - Useless. They can't be packed up and taken. You use them once and unless you want to run around holding the GD thing to go back up the mountain again, they pretty much stay where you land. There's no need for them on any mission, no advantage and they give you a one-shot benefit from getting down the mountain. Unless of course you want to carry the GD thing all the way back up the mountain (all the while unable to fight cannibals because you have to hold the hang glider since it doesn't pack).

There's simply not enough "content" for the size of the map. You will spend untold minutes traversing between areas with no value or activity save wasting ammo on roaming cannibals. Their villages contribute nothing to skills, resources or the story line. Hunting animals gives you some meat and hide for food/armor. Didn't really use it as there's plenty of food/drinks in the crates and areas. Also, any armor you equip (bone, hide or leaves) will immediately be destroyed with first cannibal swipe so we didn't really craft or need armor since it takes a lot of resources for almost no protection.

All crafting takes place on your laid-out backpack. No need for a base or workbench. Crafting is similar to original game where you're really not "crafting" - just combining things you found in limited combinations.

Spawn points are back in cannibal camps or stuck to cave ceilings. Once you respawn you grab your backpack right away which is nice instead of having to trek all the way back to where you dropped it. However, that added some challenge to the original game so dying was more "expensive" in terms of effort.

Never saw an Orca the entire game. There's only one reason to be on the water to get a pistol on the raft (which can also be found in a bunker). Otherwise, the beach areas are useless. Two sharks; one in a cave and one by the raft.

The entire story is WTF, confused and makes no sense. The notes on the island reveal the people were focused apparently on missing golf balls and golf clubs and some aside references to Virginia, ballet, and other non-relevant stuff. You'll find a letter with some coded symbols matching numerical values thinking it will be needed later - nope. Never comes up again. Vague references to "artifacts" - "stay in the box" just weird, nonsense until the very end scene where some of the references that come up are like "Really"???

End story culminates with a long trek through a cave with "demons" who are stupidly easy to kill with a cross you found. You just show them the cross and they burst into flames. Three or four clicks and they're dead. No other ammo or resources needed. Stupid. Useless. End scene puts you in a gold "box" with Virginia and Kelvin looking out the wall to an alien "world" - WHY? WHAT? WHERE? HUH? What was the cross, demons, "fight demons" tattoo about? Now we're looking at alien world? Did I miss something? Lord, but mostly "That's it!?" comes to mind. End cut scenes show you boarding a helicopter and escaping.

No boss fights, no "achievements", no character development in skills, stamina, crafting.

Never used compound bow. Never used crossbow. Shot revolver until empty - no additional ammo to be found. Never used spear. Never used slingshot. Never used skull club. Never used knife (unless skinning an animal - see above). Never used Virginia or Kelvin. Very limited shotgun and pistol ammo. Only used zipline gun once in a single cave. No need anywhere in the game for it otherwise. You COULD use it in the mountains but why? Fall damage is very limited. Never built a single structure (started, but then realized it was futile).

Cannibal screaming at you will get old quick. OK devs...once or twice to scare I get it, but that constant screeching while you're building is annoying. As mentioned, if you DO decide to build - which is useless to the game, you'll find it EXTREMELY tedious because you'll be under constant cannibal attack as you try to carry logs, etc. While we ultimately didn't build anything as mentioned above our initial attempts at building revealed this issue and we said, "It's just not worth it". Pick up a log, cannibal attacks and kills you. Respawn, grab backpack, grab log, place it. Pickup second log, cannibal attacks and kills you. Repeat until you have similar revelation.

GPS markers have limited iconography to mark areas. How about a feature to label them "Bow Cave" or something like that?

There's just not much "there" as far as story and content for the size of the map and the base-building is simply needless, wasted effort. As a long-time player of games like Green Hell, The Forest, Valheim, you understand how a developer can put meaningful and relevant requirements on base building. Sadly, this game has none.

There's no "puzzles", no mysteries and only a rudimentary key-card hunt to follow. Go across map, get Maintenance key card. Trek back across map, get VIP key card. Trek back across map, get Guest key card. C'mon guys....

Immediately un-installed game after the "whopping" 20 hours of play. I hope End-Night and the devs put some real content and expansion into the effort. Totally understand early access - the original The Forest was the same, but this review reflects the current state of the game and very disappointing story line. I see potential for an incredible story and visual experience - let's hope it goes that way. If you're wanting to play this to experience the original fun - WAIT until the game is done.

Boring, boring and did I say - boring? Simple reskin and do-over of an old, tired game from the "early days" of RTS gaming. The graphics are a bit better, and there's some new cultures to play with but the same game unfolds, Rush to harvest resources and then wear down the AI or your opponent through attrition and tower building until you've knocked down their buildings and win - or hold a temple, or build a "Wonder"...really? Same ships with same fishing boats. Same battering rams. Same Trebuchets and bombards. Lord they've beaten this game horse until way after it's dead - I mean, they're trying to beat it after it's been buried!

Units will walk right by enemies to their destination (and get killed) without attacking them. The artillery units will not automatically fire at enemies very close to them - they'll just sit there and get killed until you order them to fire. Oh...did I mention you're limited to 200 units? Again, really? With developments in computing power alone, you're capping at 200 units?

There's some interesting tech trees based on the various cultures, but overall it's "meh"....you'll rush to gather gold and then rely on your trade center to sell wood or food for gold to keep building towers to get closer and closer to enemy and then the AI just "crashes" and you win. I have not really played this with other humans because it's too close to the original versions to really waste time when there's other good co-op or multiplayer games available and we've already played this franchise to death. I really wish the developers of Empire Earth had redone their game instead. Upgrading WWI bombers to Nuclear B-52's was MUCH more enjoyable.

Save your money. Buy (at the latest) Age of Empires II and be done with it.

ZZZZZZZZZZ.......

After playing this game for some additional time, I'm changing my review to negative.

In current state, the game is woefully unbalanced. I understand early access - but at this point, you can only advance so far before events simply overtake your abilities to manage them. The AI is idiotic. I have roads awaiting upgrade to cobblestone since almost the beginning even when I have enough resources, have selected the prioritization option and plenty of builders (at one point employing over 60 builders). Even then they could not keep up with building maintenance at the basic level and everything started to become abandoned or go into ruins. 6 gold mines and they can't produce enough gold. YES....I have heavy tools. YES the foundries (6 of them) and mines are FULL of workers. YES - they all have food. YES...there's wells nearby....YES...there's houses nearby....YES...I have laborers and wagons available...YES they have gold and coal in storage. They simply don't produce the gold. Iron? TONS of it. Once you manage to repair maybe 20 or 30 buildings, and once your lumber goes below a certain amount, 20 or 30 more buildings will immediately pop up needing repair. When you have NO gold (see previous comments despite every resource focused on gold) the Traders who show up will only want to buy things you have not been able to produce. You'll get messages about needing shoes or clothes when the happiness gauge for them are over 90 - 95% full. It's just very, very unbalanced and wonky. The messages about raids appear very briefly and then disappear without having time to read them.

There's no mini-map. Again, in an RTS game...there's no mini map. WTF?? How do you "jump" to certain views/areas. Also no way I can tell to select or jump to a type of building quickly. When raiders come - you can't easily find your barracks and direct them to attack. You have to scroll to each one, pick it, select a rally point, etc. etc. By this time, the raiders have destroyed much of the area and stolen what they can. It's idiotic you can't quickly select all barracks and assign an attack command. They won't even come out to defend when the raiders walk right by the barracks.

The game needs EXTENSIVE balancing work and rationalization. GIVE US A FUNCTIONAL MINI-MAP!!!!!!!!



INITIAL REVIEW BELOW


So...the first thing to realize is this game is an almost identical (albeit Middle Ages) version of Dawn of Man. The mechanics, raids, trading, crop management, requirements, goals, features are virtually identical to Dawn of Man. It's like the Dawn of Man developer's brother just took the frame and re-skinned it after a family argument! Farthest Frontier adds a more modern touch with some minor graphical improvements but overall if you've played Dawn of Man, you've played Farthest Frontier; they are completely interchangeable. That being said, I didn't even look to see if they are from the same developer - could be. However, the largest issue I see facing this game, is the same as with Dawn of Man. What is the end game - if any? If you just like listening to relaxing music while doing some city-building and resource management, this is a great game (like Dawn of Man). Again, the two games, time periods aside are identical. Try either. Great game?...eh. Good to burn an hour or two here and there, yes. For this purpose however, it's a bit pricey.

I would have given it a thumbs down based on the similarity to Dawn of Man, but it's a different time period and there are a few minor changes to the strategy, features, etc. So, I gave it a thumbs up because Dawn of Man was fun to play and so is Farthest Frontier. Just pick one to get both experiences. Also wish developers would stop copying each other's works and strive for some originality, but that's what these reviews are for.

Played both since early access and both Subnautica and Below Zero are great games with an innovative spin and environment. Plus, they're visually excellent. Highly recommend them both - would LOVE to see cooperative modes in the future. Many reviewers identify the first of the series to be the better and to a degree I agree with that assessment. The Prawn Suit in the second installment is a bit superfluous and useless. In Below Zero, the Sea Monkeys are not cute, they're not funny, they're just annoying, but I guess serve a place as a "holder" for things you have to find (in their nests). In both games, I would have liked to have seen some type of weapon to actually KILL the larger monsters - not just stun or relocate them. You can kill Rock Crushers by hitting them with Prawn Suit arms so what's the point of avoiding the use of a kill torpedo, sonic pulse or something similar? That would be a nice addition.

The biggest issue I have with Below Zero - and one which I think is a "Really?" moment that adds NOTHING to the game play, is the absolute blatant (virtue signaling) introduction of LGB (homosexual/lesbian) themes - literally "in your face" as you uncover the mission stories. It's nobody's business who's involved with who in the Arctic - and why they chose to highlight those aspects just says "developer wants woke points". Similarly, any mention of heterosexual relationships would also be a "what's the point" based on the story line. Ridiculous that this type of "programming" is jammed in when it makes zero sense to the game or mission requirements. It's really unnecessary and can polarize an audience. If I want social commentary, I'll watch fake news on CNN. Please stick to great gaming and leave people's sexual orientation a private matter.

May the Force be with you!

Like many Battlefield games, the game play is fast and furious. This version is graphically amazing with exceptional realism and great weapon options, upgrading, rewards, classes and game modes. Voice-overs and international themes are done very well and the game is quite atmospheric in really bringing you into the era and WWI experience. The weapon handling and dynamics are second to none as are the physics, explosions and other dynamic features of the game.

Now the bad.

TROLLS. TROLLS. TROLLS.
HACKERS. HACKERS. HACKERS.

There are good servers here and there with some good admins. Largely, the "community" is toxic with an abundant amount of immaturity, racist and political banter and just un-helpful, caustic and immature people. Ask a question about game play or game dynamics - Trolls fill the responses with idiotic commentary.

When you can find a good server, where someones' tank isn't indestructible, and no-one is getting 100% head-shots while you're lying behind stone walls or around a mountain, then it's a good time. The best are the times when you empty a full machine gun belt into a horse and rider only to have them turn and kill you with one shot (while the horse is running and jumping). You'll also see A LOT of 40:1, 50:1 and more kill ratios. Sorry...good is good, but that's ridiculous (virtually impossible) in this game if played fairly.

The game is excellent in the design and execution. The community and lack of cheat protection really kills the experience. I still play, because I'm a big fan of history and shooters, but it's sad first that Trolls and Hackers even need to cheat in a VIDEO GAME, but also because they really hurt an otherwise amazing franchise.

Looked good on first review - overall it's an "OK" game with a decent and interesting premise. It'll distract you for awhile, but definitely not the "latest word" in RTS. However, the game has some issues. Mostly related to AI balance and behavior. Some of your most powerful units will be decimated by AI infantry (even the strong mechs that should be almost impervious) and some of the weakest "scout" units with low armor will survive quite a beating. Hero units are pretty weak. Buildings can get destroyed by just a few week AI infantry. Your "veteran" units won't deal much damage against AI mechs so the damage balance is very off too. Voice acting is a bit hokey. Limited number of produced units (units can't be upgraded) and defensive options - the "headquarters" and "barracks" can produce some of same units so there's really no need for a "headquarters" - it can't be upgraded to heal or other function (but you can reinforce). Just annoying requirement to build one. There's only two resources in very limited quantities (oil and iron). VERY limited in the number of units produced. I don't think the campaign ever allowed more than 60 units on-screen. There are a few "stealth" missions (think Commandos with patrolling enemies) but there's no way to view enemy field-of-view, etc. Bottom line, it's a decent $20 game or first RTS experience. I played it through and uninstalled - but out of duty - not because I was really into it. It's no Company of Heroes or Command & Conquer.

DOUBLE YOUR MONEY WITH MULTIPLAYER COOPERATIVE. This game deserves that.

Having been a big fan of The Forest, I am trying this game. If you've played The Forest, you'll find lots of similarities. So far the potential looks amazing and the graphics look great - especially the movement of the natives, animals, etc. The crafting menu works well, but could be improved a bit as you have to use different tabs to add items to be crafted and it's just a bit "clunky". After the first opening tutorial with your girlfriend, you only have access to "Survival Mode" to play around/craft/explore. A HUGE WISH IS FOR MULTIPLAYER LIKE THE FOREST. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE INCLUDE MULTIPLAYER COOPERATIVE. Checkout The Forest for how it should be. PVE with friends only. That's one of the things that made The Forest so amazing and fun. Follow that formula with Green Hell and it will do very well indeed.