Steam reviews
652,420 of 682,988 Steam user reviews are positive (95.5%) and Steam's own label is “Overwhelmingly Positive”, according to Steam's review summary for The Forest at the last data refresh.
Games like The Forest
- Sons of the Forest
- Green Hell
- The Long Dark
Drafted by Claude; not individually verified.
Good for
- Co-op groups who want survival horror with building mechanics
- Players interested in emergent enemy faction behavior
- VR users who want a survival experience with motion controller support
- Fans of open-world survival games with a clear narrative endpoint
Avoid if
- You want polished survival systems — resource management is shallow compared to dedicated survival games
- You are highly sensitive to horror and body horror content
- You expect consistent enemy AI behavior — pathing can be erratic
Is The Forest an indie game?
Yes. Steam lists The Forest under the "Indie" genre, and its publisher is not on this site's major-publisher list.
- Steam genre tags on record: Action, Adventure, Indie, Simulation — includes "Indie".
- Developer: Endnight Games Ltd.
- Publisher: Endnight Games Ltd — same as the developer, i.e. self-published; not on this site's major-publisher list.
The rubric, its limits and the publisher list: methodology.