Serving as the sequel to the 2018 video game The Forest, the story centers on a protagonist sent to a mysterious island to search for a missing CEO and his family, while facing cannibalistic monsters and uncovering an ancient secret buried deep underground.

Players can give Kelvin written commands on a piece of paper to help with simple tasks such as collecting crafting resources or setting up fires.

Jack survives the crash but is knocked out by a man in a silver coat named Jianyu Zhang, a former PuffCorp employee now working for Sahara Therapeutics: the corporation responsible for the events on Site 1.

Working together, Jack and Kelvin set up camp and obtain resources to survive the island, and to defend themselves from cannibal tribes and underground mutants.

As Jack explores the island, he finds sprawling cave systems, underground bunkers, luxury facilities, and ancient structures showing evidence of an advanced civilization.

From documents he finds along the way, Jack learns that PuffCorp acquired the island under the guise of turning it into a resort, but was actually competing secretly with Sahara Therapeutics over control of an artifact known as the "Cube".

This includes a rare and previously undiscovered golden ore named "Solafite", which the Cube and the island's other relics are composed of, and is found to have medicinal properties.

[24] IGN said that "Sons of the Forest takes everything its predecessor did well and does it a little bit better," including the improved AI, larger map, and graphics, but noted poor performance optimization and an unfinished story.