# The Forest makes survival a shared job

Search for a missing child, build a base, and explore mutant-filled caves with up to seven friends in The Forest’s online co-op.

[PLAYNEXT](https://playnext.party/) · Published: 10/2/2026

![A player holds an axe at a cave entrance as a companion moves through the passage.](https://playnext.party/steam-images/c3d431f2-e31e-416b-a05f-053a9a354f8f/ss-8ccb821c4df3fafdf4161d77f38635441a8157f2?width=1200)

A plane crashes on a wooded peninsula. Your son is taken, the other passengers are gone, and the island’s cannibal clans are already watching. In The Forest, you and as many as seven friends can search for him together while trying to stay fed, warm, and out of reach. You build, craft, and explore in the same first-person world, with caves that turn a supply run into something much less routine.

## One island, up to eight survivors

The Forest supports online and LAN co-op for up to eight players. One of you hosts a world and friends join it; the host’s computer keeps the shared world available in a regular peer-to-peer session. A dedicated server is another option for a group that wants the world to run independently, though setting one up takes more work than inviting friends to a hosted game.

The distinction matters when a session ends. The host saves the world itself: the base, built structures, and changes to the island. Each guest saves their own character separately, including their carried items and location. A guest joining next time needs that same world, and the host needs to load it again. The Forest does not treat every player’s story as a separate campaign; you’re exploring one shared island, while your character’s gear and position remain tied to your own save.

There are no fixed character classes or assigned jobs. Everyone can gather logs, carry supplies, place building plans, hunt, craft, fight, or head into a cave. That makes the group’s cooperation practical rather than menu-driven: the world is full of materials to collect, structures to finish, food to find, and threats that don’t wait for your inventory screen to close. The game leaves every player free to change between those activities rather than locking anyone into a role.

## From crash site to working camp

The first hours give you a rough list of needs rather than a string of missions. You arrive with limited supplies, search the wreck and nearby luggage for food and tools, and start finding sticks, stones, leaves, and logs. The survival guide notebook shows buildable objects as transparent outlines in the world. A shelter or campfire is a small plan at first; it becomes real when someone brings the required materials to it.

Food, water, energy, health, and warmth turn the island into more than a construction sandbox. Berries and animals can help keep the group fed. Rain and nearby water matter when thirst sets in; a wet, cold survivor needs shelter or heat. Weapons and tools come from combining found materials, and a growing collection of recipes makes the shared inventory feel like a traveling workbench. You can make basic tools from sticks and stones, then branch into bows, armor, bombs, and upgrades using things found across the island.

Building has a satisfying physical rhythm. You place a plan, see what it needs, and then return with logs or other materials. Several friends can contribute to a cabin, walls, traps, fires, drying racks, gardens, and other structures that turn an exposed clearing into a base. Trees fall where you cut them, and carrying their logs back is a visible job rather than a resource counter ticking up. Your base can grow from a simple shelter to a larger fortification, but a long wall is not a guarantee of safety: hostile visits can become more intense as the days pass and as you alter the environment.

A day-night cycle gives all of that work a pulse. Daylight helps you move through the woods, gather supplies, and decide which patch of the island will become home. After dark, visibility shrinks and screams carry through the trees. The cannibals don’t behave like a constant wave that charges the nearest player; they can watch from a distance, circle a camp, or approach in a group. The game supports stealth as well as direct fighting, so a noisy fight is one possible outcome of an encounter, not the only one.

## The caves connect survival to the story

The surface is a large wooded island with beaches, lakes, mountains, and scattered camps. The underground network is where its most distinctive exploration happens. Caves link dark passages, underground lakes, narrow climbs, and pockets containing tools or clues. A lighter can reveal only a small area around you. Other light sources help, but darkness and unfamiliar routes are part of the challenge, especially when an enemy or a steep drop breaks up your progress.

The missing-son story unfolds through exploration rather than a mission board that constantly tells you where to go. You can find photographs, recordings, documents, and other environmental clues among the island’s remains. New tools open routes that were previously hard to reach, while cave discoveries fill in pieces of the wider mystery. You and your friends can make a supply trip for a climbing tool or diving gear and come back with something that changes where the group can explore next. The rescue thread gives the survival loop a destination, even when a session spends most of its time on a cabin, a hunt, or a detour into the dark.

Caves also change how friends experience the same space. Someone can lead with a light while another carries a weapon; a narrow path may force your whole group to move together. The game includes walkie-talkies, which let players talk through an in-world device rather than relying only on an external voice call. Their presence fits the setting, although the way you coordinate is up to the group. When a player is injured, another can reach them and help them back up, adding a short rescue moment to an encounter.

The tension shifts in co-op. With friends beside you, there are more weapons and hands available, and a cave is no longer a solitary trip. But the group also has more people to keep track of, and enemies are not always scaled to make a full party feel equally threatened. With friends in the cave, the dark feels less isolating and larger enemy groups can become easier because their numbers are not always scaled to match your party. The shared adventure can still be tense, even if it does not deliver the same isolated horror as a solo run.

## Defenses, discoveries, and an ending

Your base changes the way the group meets the island. Walls, traps, spikes, and defensive structures can slow or punish attacks, while the notebook’s broader set of building plans invites experimentation. Some structures are practical shelter; others make a settlement feel personal. The group can spend a session turning a spot by the water into a camp, then find that exploration pulls you farther from it than expected. Cut trees do not immediately return to their original state, so large building projects can reshape the surrounding patch of forest.

The game does reach a story ending, unlike survival sandboxes that leave the goal entirely open. Its main thread leads toward finding your son and uncovering what the island is hiding. Clues and important discoveries are spread across locations rather than handed to you in a fixed line of chapter missions, so the pace depends on exploration as well as survival. The story has several possible endings, and the finale presents a choice. That gives a long-running world a destination, even if the path between clues is not always obvious.

There is no experience bar that turns your character into a specialist. Your progress is easier to see in the gear you have found, the recipes you can craft, the tools that let you enter new areas, and the structures your group has finished. The island itself also holds the record of your work: a clearing changes as you cut trees, caves open as you find the right equipment, and a base gains new defenses as more materials arrive.

## The limits worth knowing

The Forest’s inventory is a broad backpack interface, and it can feel cluttered when you need to switch tools during a fight. Item combinations and crafting happen in that menu, so changing weapons takes a pause at an awkward moment.

The game also has rough edges: physics can behave oddly, enemy AI is uneven, and technical hiccups can interrupt a session. It is a rough-edged survival game with elaborate systems, not a perfectly polished horror ride. Base defenses can bring their own pressure, because a settlement does not make the surrounding world passive. And while the story and cave exploration give the group a clear thread to follow, friends who want a guided sequence of short co-op missions may find the open map slower to organize.

## Is it a fit for your group?

The Forest works best when your group is interested in building a shared place and letting exploration lead you toward the story. Up to eight players can join online, and a LAN session is available for players on the same network. A normal hosted world depends on its host returning to load it; each guest also saves their character independently, so the group’s world and personal inventories are handled separately.

You’ll spend your time gathering, crafting, building, and deciding which cave or island region to explore next, with mutant encounters breaking up the quieter work. The result is part survival project, part story hunt, and part horror excursion. It suits friends who want to leave marks on a common world and keep uncovering what happened on the peninsula. If your group is looking for a tidy mission list or equal scares for every player, the open structure and easier combat in a larger party are real tradeoffs; if shared camp-building and cave exploration sound like the main event, The Forest gives you a world to grow into together.

## On Steam

- **Play together:** Online co-op
- **Steam reviews:** Overwhelmingly Positive, 96% positive of 683,679 reviews
- **Playing now:** 11,633
- **Platforms:** Windows
- **Developer:** Endnight Games Ltd
- **Publisher:** Endnight Games Ltd

[View on Steam](https://store.steampowered.com/app/242760/)

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- [Whisper of the Swallows](https://playnext.party/en/games/whisper-of-the-swallows/)
- [KeepUp Survival](https://playnext.party/en/games/keepup-survival/)
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Source: https://playnext.party/en/games/the-forest/

Language: en