The Forest, developed and published by Endnight Games, has had a cult following for quite some time now. After a four year-long run with development, this macabre world has finally seen a full release, and as of today, it has left the Steam Early Access program and entered into Version 1.0.
“Today The Forest moves from early access into a full release,” says Dishmink, one of the developers of the title, in a forum post. “It’s been a crazy ride, made possible only by the players who have supported us for the last four years. To the team here it feels like a game we all made together, us and the community. Your input suggestions and feedback has been invaluable to us.” With such a massive amount of support from fans, it is no wonder that The Forest has shaped into the atmospheric joy it has become today.
V1.0 is not just a formality release, however, as the game now has quite a bit more content and reworks. There is now a craftable warmsuit, a significant rework of the endgame, and there is now even an alternate ending to the game. Additionally, the various caves across the game have had a ton of reworks, fixes, polish, and improvements. Although the game has had its full release, the development states that there “is a lot we still want to do, and plan on heavily supporting the game moving forward.” It seems that there will be many more years of horror and spookiness to come as future development will continue.
In addition, the game’s first major update was announced in this post. The Forest will be getting a VR version, and it will be completely free for all users that own the base game on May 22.
The Forest is now available on Steam for $19.99 in all of its spooky, atmospheric goodness. The full patch notes for the V1.0 release are available here.