Open-world survival hit Sons of the Forest leaves Early Access in under 3 months with new story updates featuring a beloved Alan Wake 2 actor

Sons of the Forest screenshot — (Image credit: Endnight Games)

The developer of hit open-world survival game Sons of the Forest has announced the game will be leaving early access early next year and getting additional content.

Endnight, who released Sons of the Forest in February of this year, has shared the news on both Twitter and the game's Steam page. In the announcement, the developer writes: "Today we are announcing that Sons Of The Forest v1.0 will release February 22, 2024 after 1 year in Early Access."

The rest of the post reveals that X-Men, The Boys, and Alan Wake 2 actor Shawn Ashmore has joined the cast, voicing side character Timmy LeBlanc. As well as expanding Timmy's role in Sons of the Forest, the developer has also promised story updates, new features, and polish.

The game is also expecting a patch today, but after that, the team has said it "will continue to release hotfixes as needed" but "will be focused on the bigger content release for v1.0" - which makes it sound worth the wait.

"Thank you to everyone who has joined us so far in this Early Access journey, we are really excited for what we have in store for the v1.0 release and beyond," the announcement ends.

Hey Everyone, Sons Of The Forest v1.0 will release Feb 22, 2024 with Shawn Ashmore voicing Timmy as we expand his role in the game and story. We thank everyone who has joined us in Early Access and are super excited for what we have in store for v1.0 and beyond.November 29, 2023

Sons of the Forest may only be in early access right now, but as our Sons of the Forest review reveals, the survival game is "already a deeply satisfying game." In our review, we described it as an "enjoyable survival craft em up," with strong horror roots and a fantastic focus on exploration. With this in mind, it's exciting to think how much better the game could become once it leaves early access in February.

It really didn't take long for Sons of the Forest fans to get into the game, and more specifically, warm up to NPC Kelvin. So much so, when it was revealed that Endnight was making some adjustments to the character, as well as other elements in the game, fans were very quick to begin mourning Kelvin - or rather the person he used to be.

Already enjoying Sons of the Forest? Find out what else you might like with our best survival games list.

After studying Film Studies and Creative Writing at university, I was lucky enough to land a job as an intern at Player Two PR where I helped to release a number of indie titles. I then got even luckier when I became a Trainee News Writer at GamesRadar+ before being promoted to a fully-fledged News Writer after a year and a half of training. My expertise lies in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, cozy indies, and The Last of Us, but especially in the Kingdom Hearts series. I'm also known to write about the odd Korean drama for the Entertainment team every now and then.