The Forest, one of the earliest Steam Early Access games to reach prominence, is finally getting its full release this year. After four years in open development on Steam, the team behind The Forest will be launching version 1.0 in April.

In an announcement this week, studio Endlight Games announced that when The Forest leaves early access, the game's price will rise from $14.99 to $19.99. Aside from that, various game improvements will also be implemented, including official controller support, as well as “new reasons and resources” for killing ‘The Creepies', the in-game inhabitants of the island you crash land on.

Aside from that, the cold and warmth system will be changed, you'll be able to craft new items for building, and finally, some big performance optimizations will also be in place. A Virtual Reality game mode will be introduced and a few more surprises that we'll learn about closer to the time.

Right now, The Forest is in version 0.73, so there are still a few updates to go before we hit 1.0. Going forward, Endlight Games will be focusing on pushing out bigger updates, rather than smaller timed patches. Owners of the game will get access to ‘release candidate' builds in advance as we get closer to the launch date.

KitGuru Says: I've owned The Forest for a few years now, though I haven't hopped back in for a while. Have many of you been playing The Forest while its in Early Access? Is there anything you think should be added for the final game?

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