The wildly successful and riveting game The Forest was one of the best horror survival titles of 2014, selling over 5.3 million copies. Will the much-anticipated sequel Sons of the Forest be as successful?

The Forest had many mechanics and game aspects that worked really well and were very innovative in comparison to a lot of the other survival games of its time. For example, the A.I. of the enemies progressively learns and plots against you after studying your attack patterns, movement patterns, and buildings.

Sons of the Forest, being a close remake of the original, will have these same features and many more. This open-world survival game will feature aspects that we have yet to see in A.I. development.

Some of the returning features consist of similar A.I. for the enemies. They will also have an overhaul of new features, including tree chopping mechanics and the ability to craft items. 

What is most exciting is the new features being added. Developers Endnight Games showed off many new mechanics and features in the game trailer. Some of these are new weather mechanics like the ground freezing and snow covering all the land. There were also glimpses of a GPS of some kind, new weapons, masks, new ways of building, and much more. 

A questionable part of the trailer showed a mutant being friendly and even helping the main character (who was shown to be Timmy from the previous installment) in some tasks and in general, being nice to the character. This is a first for this franchise; the idea of a mutant not trying to hurt you, that is.

The mutants have also had a total revamp on their A.I. engine, being confirmed by Endnights developer Ben Falcone and Rod Green. They stated that this new engine will allow the enemies to have “complex behavior,” letting them show emotions such as becoming afraid, tired, hungry, thirsty, angry, etc. These emotions will influence the decisions of these characters.

It is also stated that the A.I. will analyze your fighting moves, patterns, and emotions and use them to their advantage to have “more coordinated attacks”. This is very exciting and effective because it will be more difficult for the player, which is always a welcomed feature.