Popular new game breaks Steam store

A wildly popular new video game has crashed the Steam store, with players reporting they’re unable to purchase the game on PC.

A sequel to The Forest has finally launched on Steam, but the massively popular game has caused issues for the storefront, making many fans unable to buy the game at all.

The highly anticipated game Sons of the Forest, the sequel to the cult classic horror game, was recently released on Steam through early access. However, the launch has not been going smoothly, as Valve’s Steam storefront servers have struggled to handle the high demand for the game.

The site is generally functioning normally for most purchases, but gamers trying to buy Sons of the Forest have been met with various errors and crashes, such as the game not being added to the cart or disappearing from the cart during checkout. This issue has prompted fans to create memes and videos on social media, although most of them have maintained a good-natured, if slightly annoyed, tone.

Despite the problems, some Reddit users believed that this would ultimately benefit the developers.

“They did it,” one user said, “Most wishlisted game on Steam, top 5 game on Twitch, and Steam page crashing because of the number of people, that’s a successful launch”.

Sons of the Forest has a heavy focus on scavenging and crafting equipment. Picture: Newnight

Others weren’t quite so happy about it, with some saying they were locked out of purchases for some time because their attempts at purchasing the game kept failing.

“I can’t believe how bad this experience has been, based on how Steam makes billions,” another said.

While a generally rare occurrence, Steam does sometimes have issues with purchases for major game releases. Other platforms, like Nintendo’s eShop and the PlayStation store can often buckle under the pressure of big game launches too, both having a long history of downtime after the release of a major game.

Steam recently revealed its sale dates for 2023, unveiling over a dozen sales planned for throughout the year. The PC gaming giant will hold four big seasonal sales, and ten separate, smaller sales, each one focusing on a specific genre of game.

Sons of the Forest is a survival horror game that’s a sequel to a popular PC game. Picture: Newnight

Despite some PlayStation games coming to Steam, not all of them have been successful. Returnal tanked on PC, despite good reviews, attracting just 6000 concurrent players following its launch. That’s fairly tame compared to God of War, which saw 74,000 concurrent players at its peak.

Written by Oliver Brandt on behalf of GLHF.