I played 40 hours of Sons of the Forest without the killer cannibals, and it was a blast

Sons of the Forest - Kelvin and Verginia are sitting around a campfire at the edge of a lake.

Personal Pick

(Image credit: Future)

In addition to our main Game of the Year Awards 2023, each member of the PC Gamer team is shining a spotlight on a game they loved this year. We'll post new personal picks, alongside our main awards, throughout the rest of the month.

As an enjoyer of survival games, I feel like one of the few people who didn't play The Forest. Perhaps that's a good thing as I didn't have any expectations going into its sequel: I figured that there would be a few cannibal-related scares to accompany what I assumed would soon be a renewed annoyance for certain aspects of survival games. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised—or at least, I was once I discovered Peaceful mode.