What Happened at the End of The Forest?

Before Sons of the Forest, there was The Forest, Endnight’s original survival game. And like Sons, it saw you stranded on a remote, hostile island. But if you never played it, or never finished it, you might be wondering what happened at the end of The Forest. Here’s the answer.

The End of The Forest Offered Two Endings, Neither Particularly Happy

The Forest begins with your protagonist and his son Timmy surviving a massive plane crash. However, your son is dragged off, and you spend the rest of the game trying to find him. Well, you do if you follow the story — like Fallout 4, there’s no real sense of urgency. You can spend hours and hours building your own little anti-cannibal fortress if you so desire.

By the end of The Forest, you discover that the plane crash wasn’t an accident. Hidden on the island is an ancient machine that can, supposedly, bring people back to life. A scientist who was researching the device lost his daughter and decided to use the machine to resurrect her.

However, the machine drains the life of another person, so he caused the plane crash and used Timmy, who’s already dead, to fuel the machine.The machine, however, doesn’t work, and those who come back come back wrong. The scientist’s daughter ultimately turns into a mutant and kills him, before you end up killing her.

You, now, need a live victim to fuel the machine and bring your son, Timmy, back to life. That leads to one of two endings.

Long Ending: You cause another plane crash, using the same ancient EMP device the scientist did. You then use the machine to resurrect Timmy. One year later, you and Timmy later appear on a talk show, where he goes into some kind of seizure. You are able to calm him down, but it’s clear that he’s at risk of mutating, as Megan did.

There’s then another scene, with an older Timmy in a hotel room. He’s investigating the possibility of a second island, when the effects of the machine kick in. As the scene ends his flesh is rippling, and he’s left trying to fight off the mutations.

Alternate, shorter ending: You shut the EMP machine down and remain on the island without your son, whose photograph you burn. You can continue playing after this ending, though the prospect of rescue seems low.

Of the two endings, fans seem to accept the first, longer ending as canon, and Sons of the Forest strongly suggests that this is the case. How? Within that game you can find a book by Tim LeBlanc, the Timmy in question. However, the book is also about a parallel universe, so it’s possible that Sons of the Forest takes place in a different universe entirely from The Forest.

So, if you’re wondering what happened at the end of The Forest, those are your two endings to consider.