History VideoGame / TheForest

** What happens to [[spoiler:Megan Cross]] and later [[spoiler:Timmy]]. Being the games' FinalBoss, the former [[spoiler: twists into a monster that resembles tree limbs]].

** What happens to [[spoiler:Megan Cross]] and later [[spoiler:Timmy]]. Being the games's FinalBoss, the former [[spoiler: twists into a monster that resembles tree limbs]].

* BoringButPractical: An easy way to survive early on is to simply set your walls up to where the only way a Cannibal can enter is through a campfire or firepit, then watch them light on fire as they charge at you. [[spoiler: This works well until they start attacking your walls.]] Also by making your camp small and out of the way, like on the cliff overlooking the abandoned yacht. Its away from native patrols, and if you make your camp small, its pretty much completely ignored.

* HumanResources: Assuming the cannibals are human, this is what using their body parts for effigies is for. It keeps them away, showing that you can take them on. Or do the opposite and attract more.

* HumanoidAbomination: [[MultiArmedAndDangerous The Octopus (Armsy)]] and [[SpiderLimbs The Spider (Virginia)]] are weird... human-things. The game's wiki describes them as two or more people put together with a good dosage of extra limbs... There's a reason the wiki refers to them, and the cannibals, as mutants.

On your way back from a trip in New York, your plane crashes, leaving you as the possibly sole survivor of the wreck. Your son, Timmy, is gone and taken by a mysterious man in red paint, and it's now your job to survive on your own, with any means necessary.

* LoveMakesYouEvil: In the canon ending, [[spoiler:Erik shoots down a second airliner and kills hundreds of people in order to find a child he can feed to the ArtifactOfDoom to resurrect Timmy]].

** UpToEleven with [[spoiler:the second plane, assuming Erik makes the choice to sacrifice another child to save Timmy. It crashes so close to you, its starboard wing gets sheared off on the mountainface directly under the observatory!]]

* TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon: The sinkhole. Nothing says "end game goal" like a gigantic pit of ominous doom.

* UnexpectedGameplayChange: [[spoiler: Once you enter the Sahara research labs, the game turns from SandboxSurvival to something more akin to Half-Life, with you exploring a ruined research facility, climbing through vents, etc.]]

* PreciousPhoto: Eric has a partly-burned photo of Timmy, which motivates them throughout the game. [[spoiler:After finding Timmy dead at the end, if you choose not to resurrect him, Eric burns it]].

* BorderPatrol: The Peninsula in which the game takes place is bordered on 3 sides by shark-infested ocean, and on the North by impassible, snow-covered mountains.

* CelebritySurvivor: You learn from background details and collectibles that your character is a celebrity survivalist. The ending reveals his name as[[spoiler: Eric Leblanc]].

* AbusivePrecursors: [[spoiler:The Ancient Ones who built the obelisks. Whoever they were, they had the power to resurrect the dead as {{Humanoid Abomination}}s and seemed to have a thing for blood sacrifice]].

* BittersweetEnding:
** It's downplayed, [[spoiler: heavily implied that Eric kidnapped and sacrificed someone else's child to save Timmy, but Eric's endeavour to resurrect Timmy wasn't entirely a waste, considering that he had a full, final year with him before the darker effects of the Obelisk took hold and turned him into a monster. Compared to Megan, who only had a few weeks at most before mutating, returned AxCrazy and killed her father, that's downright ''generous'' of the ArtifactOfDoom.]][[spoiler: Averted as Eric is able to calm his son down, either preventing or atleast making the mutation lay dormant once again.]]
** In the alternate ending, [[spoiler:Eric can accept Timmy's death and shut down the second obelisk rather than use it. Timmy may be dead for good, but at least Eric can live without having the act of bringing down another plane and sacrificing another child on his conscience.]]

* CameBackWrong: [[spoiler: Megan. She still looks like a corpse, what with her blue skin, the nasty back wound that killed her still there, she murders her father by sticking crayons in his eyes in an AxCrazy moment, and then she sprouts loads of tentacles and twisted legs out of her mouth and goes on a killing rampage. It's likely the same fate will befall Timmy.]]

* CheckpointStarvation: The "finale" of the game, starting from the cave that leads to the sinkhole all the way through to "what lies beyond the sinkhole", takes a good hour and a half to two hours to complete, with no save points in between. It is possible to create a save point inside the sinkhole, but doing so requires at least 2 rather long trips to the sinkhole as you cannot bring enough sticks to the sinkhole to build a temporary shelter in one go.
** There are a handful of sticks hidden in a small pool just before the point of no return. If you have a full inventory of sticks, this is just enough sticks to craft a tent to make a save game. However, this means you won't have any sticks to craft more arrows for the final dungeon.
** One of the final patches before the full release added a save point just before the entrance to the endgame area, as well as a couple save points inside the penultimate cave that leads into the sinkhole. A craft-able item that doubles the number of sticks you can carry was also added, allowing you to carry enough sticks to craft a temporary shelter to save the game whenever you want.

* CrueltyIsTheOnlyOption: at the end of the game, in order to [[spoiler: bring your dead son back to life with the ancient artifact]], you are forced to [[spoiler: shoot down another airplane using the same weapon your own plane was shot down by, in order to grab some other unfortunate schmuck whose life you can exchange for your son's.]]

* TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon: the sinkhole. Nothing says "end game goal" like a gigantic pit of ominous doom.

* DownerEnding: [[spoiler: You sacrifice another plane full of innocents in order to save your son, but at least the two of you managed to escape the island and get back to civilization. Then a year passes, and the game abruptly ends as you realize your son is about to "pop" just like the FinalBoss did...[[AvertedTrope but he doesn't.]]]]
* DualBoss[=/=]BossRush: Just before entering the sinkhole, you have to fight a pair of Virginias and a pair of Armsys in back-to-back encounters. Immediately afterwards you fight a pair of Cow Men in the Sinkhole itself before proceeding to the endgame area.
* EliteMooks: Pale cannibals are significantly tougher than the regular versions; they tend to show up more often the more you piss off the cannibals, and also have a significant presence in the endgame areas.

* FinalBoss: [[spoiler: Megan Cross, a little girl turned mutant.]]

* HumanoidAbomination: [[MultiArmedAndDangerous The Octopus (Armsy)]] and [[SpiderLimbs The Spider (Virginia)]] are weird... human-things. The game's wiki describes them as two or more people put together with a good dosage of extra limbs... [[spoiler:There's a reason the wiki refers to them, and the cannibals, as mutants.]]
** Then there are [[spoiler: the dead creatures in the secret lab, as well as the FinalBoss]], which are straight-out Lovecraftian horrors.

* IChooseToStay: In the v1.00 full release of the game, if you follow the alternate ending path and [[spoiler: shut down the weapon instead of using it to shoot down another passenger plane, your character will mourn Timmy and opt to remain on the island; all your mission objectives are crossed out and the game becomes an EndlessGame.]]

* LastSecondEndingChoice: The v1.0 full release of the game adds a second ending in which [[spoiler: instead of shooting down the plane, you can instead shut off the weapon artifact and descend to the core to remove its power source, thus assuring that no more planes will fall victim to it. Your character then mourns Timmy and opts to remain on the island.]]

* NotSoDifferent: Dr. Mathew Cross and the protagonist are both working to save a loved one, and doing terrible things in the process. [[spoiler: UpToEleven in the end, when Eric basically does the exact same thing that Dr. Cross did to them at the start of the game. Namely, shoot down a passing jet, kidnap a child from the survivors, and sacrifice them to bring their own child back from the dead.]]

* OffscreenStartBonus: After you've recovered from the crash, you'll be guided into taking the Plane Axe from the dead stewardess, and run on your merry way. If you take your time to search what's left of the plane, you could rack up some useful things. [[PressStartToGameOver Of course you better hurry...]]

* PowerOfLove: [[spoiler: Hinted that this maybe why Timmy's mutation was prevented, as his father genuinely loved him. Unlike Megan, whose father may have only saw her as a test subject for his experiments, or at the very least was going through a messy divorce and probably had other underlying psychological issues.]]

* TakeYourTime: You may have crash landed on a mysterious island and had your son spirited away right in front of you, but nothing will actually happen to him until the endgame. You can spend months establishing yourself as the apex predator and forgetting yourself as a father. In fact, the [=PS4=] version has two Trophies that offer subtle ContinueYourMissionDammit digs: one for spending 100 days without finding your kid called "Bad Father", and one for building a gazebo called "You should be looking for Timmy"

* WhereTheHellIsSpringfield: At no point is it ever made clear where exactly the game takes place, but the flora and fauna as well as the fact the various magazines and documents you can find laying around are in American English would strongly suggest a North American location.

Developed by the four man team at Endnight Games, ''The Forest'' was first announced back in May 2013, and opened to [[http://store.steampowered.com/app/242760/ Early Access]] on Steam a year later. As of 2019, the game continues to be actively developed, with regular updates adding new content, increasingly impressive levels of polish, and new reasons to [[BringMyBrownPants wear your brown pants]].

As of April 2018 it can be counted as one of the few Early Access games to reach full release.

A sequel, ''Sons of the Forest'', was announced at 2019's Game Awards. The reveal trailer can be found [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLAHB7VYnG4 here]].

On your way back from a trip in New York, your plane crashes, leaving you as the possibly sole survivor of the wreck. The child seated next to you is gone and taken by the island's local people, and it's now your job to survive on your own, with any means necessary.

Developed by the four man team at Endnight Games, ''The Forest'' was first announced back in May 2013, and opened to [[http://store.steampowered.com/app/242760/ Early Access]] on Steam a year later. As of 2017, the game continues to be actively developed, with regular updates adding new content, increasingly impressive levels of polish, and new reasons to [[BringMyBrownPants wear your brown pants]].

* PapaWolf: Basically this is PapaWolf THE GAME. You and your son's plane gets shot down, you awaken to see a stranger kidnap him. Your main objective: find your son, by any means necessary. [[spoiler: Bumped up to KnightTemplarParent in the end, as by the time Eric finds Timmy, he had been sacrificed to bring Megan back to life. Eric intends to use Megan as a sacrifice to bring Timmy back, but winds up killing her thus making her useless. Instead Eric does what Dr. Cross did: shoot down a a plane, hope there is a child aboard, and sacrifice them to bring Timmy back.]]

* LastSecondEndingChoice: The v1.0 full release of the game adds a second ending in which [[spoiler: instead of shooting down the plane, you can instead shut off the weapon artifact and descend to the core to remove its power source, thus assuring that no more planes will fall victim to it. You character then mourns Timmy and opts to remain on the island.]]

* BittersweetEnding: It's downplayed, [[spoiler: heavily implied that Eric kidnapped and sacrificed someone else's child to save Timmy, but Eric's endeavour to resurrect Timmy wasn't entirely a waste, considering that he had a full, final year with him before the darker effects of the Obelisk took hold and turned him into a monster. Compared to Megan, who only had a few weeks at most before mutating, returned AxCrazy and killed her father, that's downright ''generous'' of the ArtifactOfDoom.]][[spoiler: Averted as Eric is able to calm his son down, either preventing or atleast making the mutation lay dormant once again.]]

* CrueltyIsTheOnlyOption: at the end of the game, in order to [[spoiler: bring your dead son back to life with the ancient artifact]], you are forced to [[spoiler: shoot down another airplane using the same weapon your own plane was shot down by, in order to grab some other unfortunate schmuck whose life you can exchange for your son's. It's entirely pointless cruelty, anyway, as said son ends up living on borrowed time, so you've basically just killed an entire plane's worth of people in exchange for your son living just a bit longer before transforming into a horrific abomination and being put down.]]

* FissionMailed: If you get killed by the cannibals for the first time in a new game, you won't get a game over. [[spoiler:You'll wake up in a cave littered with dead passengers, with a good amount of loot. Sadly, dying at any point after this (even if you're still in the cave) and it's a game over.]]

** There's also an area fans have dubbed the Fertile Lands (which coincidenally you will always be able to find on your first day as following the direction of the sun on day 1 always years there) where the cannibals never show up unless you start hunting them, you can built a large base that they'll never notice because it's far outside of patrol routes, and is filled to the brim with trees, berries, and meat.

Developed by the four man team at Endnight Games, The Forest was first announced back in May 2013, and opened to [[http://store.steampowered.com/app/242760/ Early Access]] on Steam a year later. As of 2017, the game continues to be actively developed, with regular updates adding new content, increasingly impressive levels of polish, and new reasons to [[BringMyBrownPants wear your brown pants]].

!!Examples you'll encounter in The Forest:

* Crossdresser: The player can take the stewardess' outfit and wear it.

* SanityMeter: The game keeps track of your sanity level; sleeping, eating fresh food, listening to music, or sitting down and relaxing causes your sanity to go up. Killing enemies, chopping up dead bodies, eating human flesh, or spending time in the caves causes it to go down. However, even as of the full release it's not clear what effect, if any, having low sanity has on the gameplay.