As survival games with a focus on horror, Don’t Starve and Sons Of The Forest share a lot of similarities already. One particular feature from Don’t Starve would make for an interesting experience in Sons Of The Forest. Don’t Starve’s many different player characters offer unique twists to the game, and the developers at Endnight should strongly consider how this could affect Sons Of The Forest’s lifecycle.

Some of the main gameplay elements that set these 2 games apart are the difference in perspective, along with Don’t Starve’s sanity mechanic and different playable characters. Since Sons Of The Forest is in early access, there’s still plenty of room and time for new features to arrive before (or even after) the full release planned for fall 2023. Specifically, Sons Of The Forest should look at how Don't Starve could influence Sons Of The Forest's companions and even player characters.

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What Sons Of The Forest Could Explore in Future Updates

Screenshot from Sons of the Forest showing Kelvin staring blankly at the player.

Don’t Starve’s playable characters not only add unique benefits for solo players but also incentivize replay value for the game’s story and multiplayer experience. All of Don’t Starve's different characters offer unique skills, stat modifiers, access to certain tools, damage resistances, immunities, and in most cases penalties that balance out the benefits. There are more than 20 playable characters in Don’t Starve, so with or without multiplayer, there’s an impressive amount of variety and replayability.

Sons Of The Forest currently only has two companions, Kelvin and Virginia, but there's still plenty of untapped potential to explore. Kelvin may not be too helpful when any kind of fighting starts, but he can save players a lot of time and effort by helping out with gathering materials and building structures. Virginia steps in where Kelvin falls short since players can gift her weapons to allow her to participate in combat for the player’s aid. Sons Of The Forest’s companions are already plenty helpful in the game, but that doesn’t mean that the developers at Endnight should limit the game to just these 2 companions and their current uses.

One related feature that Sons Of The Forest doesn’t explore is the different player characters. Anyone who has played the game solo may not have noticed this, but Sons Of The Forest actually has different playable characters, with this feature being available ever since the game's initial release in early access. In the current state of the game, the player characters in Sons Of The Forest are only distinguishable by the physical appearance of their player models, which is a missed opportunity.

In the same vein as the companions, the playable characters in Sons Of The Forest could also benefit from learning from Don’t Starve’s different characters. Sons Of The Forest’s main character that solo players use has some unavoidable ties to the game’s story, including references to the original The Forest game’s story. However, this doesn’t mean that the main character and others should pass on the chance to explore unique buffs or modifiers.

Endnight hasn’t mentioned anything about expanding upon the companions or player characters so far, but that’s not abnormal for Sons Of The Forest updates. The achievements for Sons Of The Forest explicitly mention that Kelvin and Virginia are all of the NPCs in the game, although there could still be more companions that have no relation to the main story. The other option of distinguishing the separate player characters is still a possibility, although the main player character is just as tied to the story, if not more, than the NPC companions. Ultimately, it's a real possibility that Sons Of The Forest will at some point expand on the different characters similar to how Don’t Starve uses playable characters.

Sons of the Forest is available now in early access on PC.

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