New Survival Game on Steam Takes the Best of The Forest and Valheim, and Throws In Some Firewatch for Good Measure

Few games have left a mark on the survival-crafting genre quite like The Forest. Rather than merely giving players the genre’s iconic ongoing loop of resource management and base building, it added atmospheric tension and environmental storytelling to the mix, and a real sense that danger was always watching from just beyond the tree line. Years later, its influence still shows up everywhere, especially in indie survival projects that prioritize atmosphere, mystery, and player-driven discovery over rigid progression. One of the most recent examples of that is an upcoming Steam game by Fairview Games called The Gold River Project—an open-world co-op survival crafting adventure where players are thrust into a camping trip gone wrong.