The Forest

The Forest

Developers
	Endnight Games
Engines
	Unity 5
Release dates
Windows	April 30, 2018
Reception
Metacritic	83
OpenCritic	81
IGDB	86
Taxonomy
Monetization	One-time game purchase
Microtransactions	None
Modes	Singleplayer, Multiplayer
Pacing	Real-time
Perspectives	First-person
Controls	Direct control
Genres	Survival horror
Art styles	Realistic
Themes	Contemporary, Horror, Zombies
Series	The Forest

The Forest
The Forest	2018
Sons of the Forest	TBA

The Forest is a singleplayer and multiplayer first-person building sandbox and survival horror game in the Series:The_Forest. Its sequel, Sons of the Forest was launched the 23th Febuary 2023 but is still on early access.

General information

Official wiki

Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Humble Store
Steam

DRM-free when launched directly from its executable (Steam)

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Windows	HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\SKS\TheForest\
Steam Play (Linux)	<Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/242760/pfx/

Save game data location

System	Location
Windows	%USERPROFILE%\AppData\LocalLow\SKS\TheForest\
Steam Play (Linux)	<Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/242760/pfx/

Five manual save slots available.

Save game cloud syncing

System	Native	Notes
Steam Cloud

Video

Graphic settings.

Graphics feature	State	WSGF	Notes
Widescreen resolution
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)		60-95°. Default is 75°.
Windowed
Borderless fullscreen windowed		Enable windowed mode and use the -popupwindow parameter (or see the glossary page).
Anisotropic filtering (AF)		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anti-aliasing (AA)		FXAA or SMAA.
Vertical sync (Vsync)
60 FPS and 120+ FPS
High dynamic range display (HDR)		See the glossary page for potential alternatives.

The game engine may allow for manual configuration of the game via its variables. See the Unity page for more details.

Input

Input settings.

Keyboard and mouse	State	Notes
Remapping		Mouse buttons cannot be bound. ↵ Enter cannot be bound to commands. Ctrl and Alt can be bound only after holding either down for a couple seconds.
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support
Full controller support		Launcher requires mouse input.
Controller remapping
Controller sensitivity
Controller Y-axis inversion

Controller types

XInput-compatible controllers

DualShock 4 controllers

Tracked motion controllers
Button/gesture prompts

Generic/other controllers

Additional information
Controller hotplugging
Haptic feedback
Simultaneous controller+KB/M

Audio

Audio settings.

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls		Sound Effects and Music
Surround sound
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English
Simplified Chinese
Traditional Chinese
Czech
Finnish
French
German
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Occitan				Fan translation, download.
Polish
Brazilian Portuguese
Russian
Spanish
Swedish
Turkish

Network

Multiplayer types

Type	Native	Players	Notes
Local play		8	Co-op Use Nucleus Co-op.
LAN play
Online play		8	Co-op

Connection types

Type	Native	Notes
Matchmaking
Peer-to-peer
Dedicated
Self-hosting
Direct IP

VR support

3D modes	State	Notes
Native 3D
Nvidia 3D Vision		Use Helix Mod: The Forest.

Headsets
SteamVR
Oculus VR (LibOVR)
Windows Mixed Reality		This game might be playable with the Revive Compatibility Layer, or Windows Mixed Reality for SteamVR.

Devices
Tracked motion controllers		See Input for details.
Traditional controller		See Input for details.
Keyboard/Mouse
Tobii Eye Tracking		Use Tobii Game Hub. Supports head tracking.

Issues fixed

Key binding screen is unresponsive

The keybinding screen may be unresponsive at lower frame rates (~40-50 fps or lower).

Decrease graphical settings to increase frame rate
Temporarily lowering graphical settings to bring frame rate up should solve the issue.

Low performance (Linux/Proton)

The game uses a version of the Unity Engine which has a critical bug if run via Proton resulting in low performance on some system configurations.

Limit CPU cores available to the game
Add as a Launch option taskset -c 0,1,2,3 nice %command% if you CPU has more than 4 cores/threads.

Low performance (Windows)

This game uses a version of the Unity Engine which can perform poorly on hardware with more than 4 CPU cores.

Limit CPU cores available to the game

After launching the game, use alt-tab to return to the desktop. Open the task manager, then click the details tab and find "TheForest.exe". Right-click on this entry, and then click "set affinity". In this dialog, uncheck the "All Processors" box, and then check the first 4 even-numbered CPUs: e.g. 0, 2, 4, 6. Click OK, and return to the game. Performance can improve dramatically after applying these changes.

Other information

API

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
Direct3D	9, 11	Use the -force-d3d9 command line to force DX9.

Executable	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows

System requirements

Windows
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	7
Processor (CPU)	Intel Dual Core 2.4 GHz	Quad Core Processor
System memory (RAM)	4 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	5 GB
Video card (GPU)	Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT DirectX 9.0 compatible	Nvidia GeForce GTX 560