Sons of the Forest Getting Early Access Release to Avoid Delay

Sons of the Forest from Endnight Games will still be releasing on time on February 23rd, but its release plans have changed. Instead of that date marking the full release of the game, it'll instead be the day that it launches into early access. The developer announced the decision this week and said it's taking this route to get the game in players' hands when people were expecting to get it and to avoid having to delay the game again.

News of the game's revised launch plans was shared on the Steam page for Sons of the Forest and was highlighted on the developer's socials, too. Endnight Games looked back on the development of Sons of the Forest – the first game from the studio since the surprise hit The Forest released in 2018 – and said there's more to do but that the creators wanted to maintain the February 23rd release date.

"It's been a long journey since we first started 'Sons of The Forest' development and it's grown into the biggest most complex game we have ever made," Endnight said. "There is still so much more we want to add; items, new mechanics, gameplay balance and more. We didn't want to delay again so have instead decided to involve the community in the continued development of this project and keep our February 23rd release date but instead release in Early Access."

Endnight continued to look back on the success of The Forest while hyping up its sequel to be the "ultimate survivor horror experience."

"'The Forest' turned out to be a massive success, due mostly to the awesome community and the suggestions, feedback, and bug reports the players shared with us," Endnight continued. "We are really excited and hope that players want to come on this new journey with us to make this the ultimate survival horror simulator."

Endnight has offered players only the occasional update on the game throughout its development process with gameplay clips and less impactful news posts like this one shared periodically. The game was originally supposed to be out on May 20, 2022, and was later delayed to October 2022. It missed that timeframe, too, and was delayed last August to February 23rd.