Ever since Dark Forest went on sale, players had had a love-hate relationship with the game.
They loved it because it was fun enough to max out their urge to explore and survive, adding excitement to their dull lives.
They hated it because it was too terrifying and oppressive, and even its side quests made players feel despair at every turn.
Chapter 1's map seemed to contain only three areas—Withered Grassland, Silent Forest, and Ancient Forest—making it look quite small. Yet it was packed with gameplay elements, and some items were hidden so deeply that players combed through the entire map just to avoid missing any concealed details.
Although Chapter 2's map had only one area, it was huge. There were swamps, new mutated creatures, a maze-like Ruined Village, and even more horrifying side quests. Players had none of the confidence that came with reaching the late game and ignoring everything. Instead, they became even more cautious.
However terrifying or difficult a game was, plenty of people would still clear it with enough players and enough time.
At that point, searching Danmu Network for the keyword "Dark Forest" brought up countless gameplay commentaries, first-playthrough scream-filled clear videos, and more.
As more and more people played the game, all kinds of bizarre playstyles began appearing online.
For example:
Learn this move, and you'll become a Night Wanderer at night!
The best defensive strategy for the first night—survive until dawn without losing a drop of blood!
Need lights at night? NO! Manage your stamina and learn to sprint, and ghosts and monsters can only stomp helplessly in place!
Three years of survival, five years of defense—the veterans will teach you step-by-step how to become the brightest guy at night!
Complete monster guide! A detailed breakdown of every defense method for random nighttime events!
It seemed that once players accepted the horror game for what it was, they could always come up with all sorts of tricks after getting through the initial scares and learning its mechanics.
Just as everyone was immersed in their first and second playthroughs, Dark Forest suddenly updated!
Players were stunned. What had been updated?
They hurried into the store page to check the latest announcement.
Then they froze.
Dark Forest's EA period had ended. The final chapter had been released, and the Official Version was now live!
The news came so suddenly that players had been completely unprepared.
The game was finished? It had become an Official Version?
It was not that players lacked experience.
There were plenty of EA games, but every early-access title usually spent several months being developed and polished before its Official Version launched.
Some foreign games did not even announce their Official Versions until one or two years after their EA releases.
But how long had it been since Dark Forest went on sale in EA and released its Official Version?
One month? Two months?
One year? Two years?
No!
Only around three weeks!
It had not even been a month, and the game was already releasing its Official Version?
Was the final chapter really finished?
Wouldn't it be full of bugs?
Many players began to feel uneasy.
With the Official Version coming out so quickly, it was hard to guarantee that the final chapter would not be a complete mess—or that it had even been finished at all.
Everyone worried that a game they loved would end badly and be abandoned, especially such a high-quality masterpiece as Dark Forest.
So the players who had cleared it loaded their first-playthrough saves and went to see what the final chapter was actually like, and whether its quality was as rich as that of Chapters 1 and 2.
Then, after spending several hours experiencing it, players discovered something.
The sheer impact of the game's ending had exceeded all their expectations.
At the end of Chapter 2, there were two choices. One of them was to burn down the Human Skin Great Tree and enter the final chapter.
The final chapter was about leaving the forest and setting out for home.
But players discovered that only a few steps after leaving the forest, they had arrived at their residential complex?
Wasn't that a little too fast?
Hadn't they said there was a military force outside the forest?
Why was there a Residential Area right outside?
And this Residential Area was bizarre as well. Not only was it sparsely populated and gloomy, but even their usual neighbors behaved strangely, clearly abnormal.
When players returned to their own Apartment Building, they discovered mushrooms from the forest inside, along with flowers growing from the tiled floor.
There was also a Radio in the Basement. After repeatedly operating it, they actually heard the same eerie static from the forest, repeating the suggestion, "Go to sleep, go to sleep."
Then came a massive blackout, plunging the Basement into Pitch Black darkness.
As players felt their way out, they vaguely saw something writhing behind an iron-barred door. It looked very much like the Head-splitting Monster they had encountered in the forest.
The signs immediately made them realize that Chapter 3 might not be as simple as merely going home!
And that was indeed the case. After the Official Version went live, many streamers immediately began broadcasting their Chapter 3 playthroughs.
Countless viewers followed the perspectives of major streamers and entered Chapter 3 alongside them.
Some entertainment-focused streamers were merely following the trend to cash in. Xin Xin, for example, was a virtual anime-style streamer. Scared senseless, she had no desire to study the game, so her ending was simple.
The protagonist returned home, ate a meal, then went to bed. The game was cleared, and that was the end.
But some streamers were different. Zai Zong, for instance, began carefully observing every detail after discovering all the abnormalities in the Residential Area.
The Radio told him to sleep, so he refused to sleep.
Eventually, by accident, he discovered that there were actually writhing tree roots beneath the floor of his home!
So he smashed apart all the flooring and discovered that the roots stretched from the living room all the way beneath the bed in the bedroom!
The very bed he slept in!
Sensing that something was wrong, he recalled how the game kept hinting that he should sleep and realized there had to be something beneath the bed.
So Zai Zong moved the bed aside, smashed through the floor again, and discovered a bottomless Tree Hole directly beneath the bed where he slept!
Only then did he finally realize that the game had another ending!
Urged on by his viewers, he resolutely jumped down.
Then he discovered the game's shocking true ending.
The game's protagonist, Hat Man, crawled naked from the ground and found himself inside a Giant Tree filled with rock walls and roots.
On the crisscrossing root-covered ground, he found his clothes, pants, and hat, but they had decayed as though an incredibly long time had passed and could no longer be worn.
Not only that, he found many naked men and women sleeping inside the Giant Tree.
They seemed trapped in some kind of dream, unable to wake up.
Some hummed in their sleep, some struggled in agony, and others wore blissful smiles.
But even more of them had already gone cold, died, and begun to rot.
Zai Zong also discovered that among the people lying on the ground and trapped in dreams were NPCs he had encountered in Chapters 1 and 2.
Even the doctor he had controlled in the Prologue was lying there, unable to wake up.
Zai Zong vaguely guessed what was happening. The deeper he went, the more naked sleeping people there were on the ground.
At last, he reached the center and discovered a huge, writhing Glowing Creature.
Within it, he could faintly see the distorted face of a woman hidden inside.
By touching it, he learned that the Glowing Creature could release something that put people into a comfortable, anesthetic-like state.
Zai Zong suddenly more or less understood what was going on.
It was highly likely that the protagonist he controlled had fallen asleep here before the game even began.
And whether it was the Prologue, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, or the final chapter, all of it had happened in the protagonist's dream.
These naked sleeping people were also having dreams of their own, and those who died in their dreams had truly become brain-dead in reality.
They were beyond saving!
Then Zai Zong found a fellow investigator on the way. The man was holding a Flamethrower, and it still worked.
Zai Zong snatched it and began burning everything.
After coming into contact with the flames, the Glowing Creature became unstable.
The people around it who had fallen into dreams all woke up, begging and cursing at the protagonist, asking why he was doing this.
But Zai Zong remained unmoved. He burned everyone he came across, and an uncontrollable blaze quickly spread.
In the end, even he was injured and collapsed when the Flamethrower exploded.
Amid choking smoke and endless wails, Zai Zong controlled the protagonist as he struggled and crawled across the ground, trying to escape the ever-growing flames.
But in the end, he was swallowed by crimson.
As the screen slowly faded away, the game reached its final ending.
He had cleared it!
But instead of feeling relieved after clearing the game, Zai Zong frowned and fell into deep thought over the ending.
The viewers in his livestream also said that the game's plot and ending were truly shocking. Without paying close attention, they would never discover the truth and would remain forever unable to wake from the dream.
Very soon, thanks to Dark Forest's outstanding ending and the impact of major streamers' broadcasts, the game reached an unprecedented average concurrent player count for a domestic single-player game on the day the Official Version updated.
490,000 people!
It became number one on Cyber Platform's Popularity Ranking!
I made slight changes to the game's ending. After all, the original game's ending was open-ended. Some said it was a dream, while others said it was not, and both sides had valid arguments. But setting that aside, the final boss was burned to death by the protagonist—that much was certain. Also, thanks to Xianyu Tuanzhang for the support of 2 monthly tickets, and thanks to Huagong Nagsa for the support of 2 monthly tickets.
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