After an extremely successful Early Access launch for Endnight Game’s Sons of the Forest, the community got together to ask the Devs some questions! This article will cover the Post-Launch Sons of the Forest Developer Q&A.
Sons of the Forest Developer Q&A
Kelvin and Virginia scale poorly into the late game, will Endnight allow the player to give them more commands or other things to do and will we see more companions in the future that add more variety?
We have big plans to keep adding tasks Kelvin can complete. Some ideas in progress are having him help construct a wall around your base, or fortify/repair the base when needed. For Virginia, we plan to add more to her A.I. particularly giving her more bravery if she has a weapon which may depend on how many mutants/cannibals she has killed.
Who is the character we play as? Will we get more background / lore on them and other characters in the game? (Kelvin, Eric, Timmy etc)
There will be lots more lore and story pick ups as well as extra cutscenes and new areas that will work to expand and flesh out the story.
Will we see improved gore/dismemberment mechanics?
It’s not currently on our list of things to add but we’re always looking on ways to improve the effects.
This Developer Q&A was from Reddit and Discord Community Questions.
What happened to the various scrapped ideas of the game? Such as Kelvin’s original name of “Robby” and the Night Vision goggles, solar panels, climbing axe, battery charger etc?
Lots of features are partially in and will be coming in future patches. Kelvin actually had a few different names over the course of his development, we originally called him “Zombie Boy” then Robby which was what we refer to him as internally and finally settled on Kelvin.
Does Endnight plan to add faster form(s) of transportation?
We do have what we think is a really cool idea for this but we don’t want to go into details in case it isn’t as fun as we think it might be, or doesn’t work well with the environment.
How does Endnight plan to tackle cheating and griefing? We’ve seen forms of griefing such as killing companions and other players?
This is always really tricky, our hope as developers is that people just be nice to each other but unfortunately that isn’t what happens. We added the trusted system as a base tool to handle playing in public open servers. We will also be looking at some new ways to limit griefing risks and expand tools for hosts.
This Developer Q&A was from Reddit and Discord Community Questions.
Is Anything planned for “The Forest” after full release such as updates to VR and bug fixes?
Currently we are focused on making Sons of the Forest a really good early access experience for players and will decide on future plans once the early access process is close to complete.
Is a Console port planned?
We would be really excited to bring the game to Playstation and possibly Xbox after the Early Access period but we do not currently have any firm plans. Right now we want to just make this the best PC game we are able to.
We will see a Roadmap for Sons of the Forest?
We don’t want to promise features that might not make it, but also like surprising players with cool stuff they might not be expecting. We do read all the comments and features requests and try to implement the best-fitting ideas.
Will there be an expansion on the crafting system? Currently what you can actually craft is very limited.
There will likely be new items you can craft as we see what items players want and what would improve the game.
How does Endnight plan to improve the pacing of the game?
We have a bunch of ideas we are currently discussing internally but don’t have a perfect solution. We do all agree its an issue and some players are just running all the way to the ending instead of living / existing in the world.
Will there be more building options? Currently the freeform building while very unique is also very limited in what you can actually do, such as the ghost blueprints.
There will be new ghosts added as well as improvements and extensions to the free form system.
Does Endnight plan to add more enemies and mutants or change the ones currently with-in the game? Some players have expressed how little they see them or how little variety they seem to have.
We have at least one character that wasn’t ready for first launch and there maybe others we add over time including variations of some of the current enemies.
Cannibal camps are currently very small and other than fighting the player, the cannibals don’t actually do a lot when it comes to their own communities, will we see an expansion of their camps added over time?
We do have plans for this, adding more ambient actions for the cannibals to do around their villages and also visual improvements such as more types of structures they can live in to give the different camps more variety.
When will support for dedicated servers be implemented?
This is something we are working on in the background but we don’t have an exact date yet.
This Developer Q&A was from Reddit and Discord Community Questions.
Does the team plan to add additional building materials and a robust crafting/cooking system?
We do have a prototype of a more advanced cooking system and it will likely come into the game in a future patch once it’s further developed.
Why was Early Access announced so late? What are the plans after Early Access?
We really struggled with deciding if we would delay a further 6 to 8 months or release in Early Access and have the community help us get the game to the finish line. We had such a good experience with our first title in Early Access that we eventually decided that it would be the best idea.
Will we see more Wildlife? Such a bears and wolves?
We don’t currently plan on adding bears or wolves, but possibly other animals.
What will the bi-weekly updates look like, will it be QOL or will we see the additional of new things and improvements?
We will likely alternate between 2-4 week patches depending on what we are trying to get in. Each patch will include different things, from further story/cutscene addition, to new features and items along with lots of bug fixes and other improvements.
Has the success of SOTF made the team evaluate how far they want to take the game and maybe push back the 1.0 release?
We have a rough estimate of 6-8 months but will be constantly re-evaluating as the development progresses. We really just want to make the coolest game possible.
This Developer Q&A was from Reddit and Discord Community Questions.
The Developers said before they wanted to do a DLC and workshop, is the workshop still a priority and is DLC still planned post launch?
We should be able to talk about this more further into the Early Access period.
How does the team plan to expand on the hunting / survival aspects of the game?
We do have some ideas but nothing concreate we can share yet.
We will see more prefab buildings and stuff from the first game or will everything be new?
We’re trying to add mostly new stuff but if something that was in the first game makes sense and is fun, we are not apposed to adding it.
Will the Island / Environment be expanded upon to make it more challenging?
There will be updates to the environment throughout the Early Access period.
Will the Log Sled make a return?
This is one of the really cool things about early access, internally we didn’t realise how much people really liked the log sled, and due to the amount of bugs it had in the first game we were not sure if it was worth putting it back in or not, but in the last week since release its becoming clear that its something players miss.
We hope you enjoyed this This Developer Q&A. We can’t wait for you to share your creations with us on our Official Community Discord. Please see the Sons of the Forest Interactive Map here!
