Sons of the Forest (Mac) 

Sons of the Forest on Mac

The newly-released survival-horror game Sons of the Forest is not on Mac, but there are workarounds like using Boosteroid Cloud Gaming, CrossOver, or Parallels. We will show you how to set up each of these methods and use them to play the game on this page. Note that gaming through such workarounds won’t be the same as playing the game natively, on a Windows PC, but they can still let you have some fun with Sons of the Forest.

Can you play Sons of the Forest on Mac?

There are several ways to play Sons of the Forest on Mac despite the game not being supported for Apple computers. You can use Parallels or CrossOver to emulate Windows, or stream the game via Boosteroid or GeForce Now, as shown in our guides.

Each method has its pros and cons and your choice between them will depend on factors, such as your Mac model and the strength of your Internet. For example, to play Sons of the Forest on Mac with CrossOver, and especially with Parallels, you’ll need a very powerful Mac, because the game is quite demanding. On the other hand, the specs of your Mac will be irrelevant with cloud gaming, but then your Internet will need to be fast and stable.

There’s also one other option to play Sons of the Forest on Mac, and that is to use Boot Camp Assistant, but this method’s limitation is that it’s not available for Apple Silicon Macs (M1/M2).

How to play Sons of the Forest on Mac

To play Sons of the Forest on Mac, you’ll need to stream the game with a cloud gaming service such as Boosteroid, to install Windows on your computer with Parallels, or use a compatibility layer like CrossOver. We’ve explained each of these methods in the next guides, as each of them requires different steps to set up and use for gaming on a Mac.

Note: Regardless of which methods you choose, you must first purchase the game if you don’t already own it.

Once you’ve bought the game, check out the following methods to play it on your Mac:

Play Sons of the Forest with Boosteroid

1. Click the following button and create a Boosteroid account or sign up for the service with Google.

2. Once you are logged in, select your account’s name in the top-right, and click Subscribe, pick a preferred subscription plan, and enter your payment details to begin your subscription.

3. Select the search button from the top, type Sons of the Forest, and click Play when the game appears.

4. Click OK, wait for the loading to complete, enter your Steam details, and wait for the game to begin.

Play Sons of the Forest with CrossOver

CrossOver is a compatibility layer that allows many Windows apps and games to run within macOS. Click the button below to go to a detailed and in-depth guide on how to play games on your Mac with its help.

Other methods

Here are the other methods that you can use to play this game on your Mac:

Note: We once again remind you that the Boot Camp method can only work on Intel-based Macs. The other three methods work on both Intel and M1/M2 machines.

Sons of the Forest Review

Sons of the Forest is the long-awaited sequel to The Forest – an indie survival-horror game about trying to survive on a mysterious forested peninsula, all the while looking for your lost son. Sons of the Forest has a very similar premise, bringing the player back to the titular Forest, but this time in search of a missing billionaire.

Despite still being in early access, Sons of the Forest already impresses with the quality of its gameplay, NPC AI, and dynamic world. The game improves upon pretty much every aspect of its predecessor, while retaining everything that made The Forest great. But of all the things we like about Sons of the Forest, here are the ones that impressed us the most.

Kelvin (and others)

Like the first game, Sons of the Forest is largely geared towards co-op play, where you and a friend or two work in tandem to survive on the dangerous peninsula, where the game is taking place. However, single-player is totally an option, and the only downside is that gathering resources to set up your base takes a lot more, and can therefore be tedious at times.

The way Sons of the Forest tackles this issue is by giving you a friendly NPC, named Kelvin , at the start of the game. Kelvin can’t hear or speak due to an injury sustained when the two of you crash-landed in the forest, but you can still communicate with him through a notepad. This way, you can give Kelvin tasks such as gathering firewood or hunting for food. This lets you delegate to him the menial resource-gathering labor, while you get to focus on the fun stuff. However, Kelvin is more than a mindless drone sent there to help you. Just like you, he, too, will need rest, water, food, and shelter to survive and his behavior and attitude towards you can change depending on how you treat him.

Kelvin is only the first of several companions you can get in the game, and they all have different personalities, traits, quirks, and attitudes towards you, which gives the both the single-player and co-op modes of the game a ton of variety.

Building your dream house

While it’s fun building your makeshift wooden fortress in the first game, Sons of the Forest has overhauled the base-building system, allowing for much more freedom when putting together a shelter. You can still use blueprints like in the first game, but now you also have the option to freely stack together wooden planks and stone blocks in any way you like, thanks to a more user-friendly system with contextual actions and easy-to-understand instructions.

This not only makes setting up a base more streamlined and fun, but it also allows for more personal expression, as you can construct your shelter exactly how you want it to be provided that you have the resources for it.

An inhabited forest

The third aspect that we want to focus on and also the one that impressed us the most is the game’s world and its inhabitants. You are indeed thrown into the wilderness at the start of the game, but that doesn’t mean that you and your companions are alone.

If you’ve played the first game, you’ll already be familiar with the cannibal tribes and the mutant monstrosities that inhabit the forest. Both types of enemies are back and, like in The Forest, they don’t simply patrol their areas and attack when you trespass. Instead, the enemies in this game, especially the tribe members, have a sophisticated AI with an intricate decision tree, which causes them to adapt to different situations and behave in all kinds of ways, both predictable and unpredictable. Sometimes they’ll attack you, sometimes they’ll run away from you, and sometimes they’ll simply stalk you from the shadows as if they are curious rather than hostile. In fact, you can totally disregard the game’s story and simply enjoy the many possible interactions you can have with the natives.

The special care given to the enemy AI in this game makes the entire world of Sons of the Forest feel alive and change dynamically based on the player’s actions, allowing you to have an actual impact on everything that’s happening on the forested peninsula.

Should you buy it?

If you are into survival-horror games and exploration games, it is hard not to recommend Sons of the Forest. It’s sold for only $29.99 on Steam, which is a total steal for a game so rich in content and with such care put into it. Yes, it is still in early access, so bugs and imperfections are to be expected and yes, it is a game from an indie studio, so it won’t have the premium graphics of an AAA title. However, it is also a game that outshines in almost every way most triple A games that get released nowadays, while being sold for less than half the price of such titles, so getting it if you have any remote interest in this gaming genre is a no-brainer to us.