In today’s gaming world, many video games desire to be titles that you can play for hours and hours on end without issue. That’s why so many titles are open-world games that you can wander through and have serious fun in. The problem, as it were, is that those long games often don’t have the meaningful content that warrants such effort. However, there is the reverse of this: gamers out there will go into certain titles that are meant to be played for hours, then beat them in minutes. This is the art of speedrunning, and Sons Of The Forest is its latest “target.”
The game was released on February 23rd and was an immediate hit despite being from a smaller developer. The sales of the titles on PC was quite large, and the game has been popular on Twitch too. Part of the reason for that popularity is that people have been trying to get lower and lower runs through the game in terms of completion time. People can get through the game in under eight minutes on the standard difficulty. However, even with the greater difficulties, gamers can blast through in a little over eight minutes.
No matter how you look at it, that’s fast. But it also raises some serious questions, right? Mainly “how did they get through the game so fast?” The answer is rather simple; they use glitches. Speed runners are infamous for using certain glitches to exploit the maps, the travel system, and the bosses so that they can race through the game in no time flat. As such, the development team may make a patch eventually that will limit how these glitches are used and thus hinder speed runners. Then again, they might see this as a challenge and try again.
If you’re unfamiliar with Sons Of The Forest, here’s the breakdown. The game is a horror-themed survival title where you are sent to an island to retrieve a missing wealthy person. However, you soon learn that there is more than your “client” on the island. You must do what you can to work through the island, get supplies to survive, and fight off the cannibals that could lurk around every corner. You can even play with a friend in co-op!
You can watch the under-8-minute speed run below but be warned that there are spoilers within the video. So if you would rather experience the game yourself, don’t watch.