Sons Of The Forest Survival Guide: Tips for Sourcing Food and Water

by Mike Alexander / Sons Of The Forest Guides, Articles, Trending / 07 Jun 2023

Welcome back, brave adventurers. I hope you’re successfully making your way through Sons of the Forest and keeping those crazy mutants & cannibals at bay. Especially at night, things get waaaay spookier at night. If you’re coming in from The Forest, you were probably able to hit the ground running, and know exactly what to do and where to go to keep your character alive and in fighting shape. However, if you’re new to The Forest franchise or survival/crafting games in general, you might be a little confused.

Maybe you’re a couple hours in, see you’re tired so you go to sleep, and wake up to see that your character is starving and dying of thirst. And, the biggest whoopsie of all, you didn’t take the time to make some food or have something to drink when you woke up. Uh oh!

Worry not! Because I’m here to give you some gentle guidance and unf*ck your situation. So steel your nerves and get ready to get down to business!

Quench Your Thirst

First, we’re going to go over water sources. Just like in real life, you’re going to need to drink a fair bit of water every day to keep yourself going in Sons of the Forest. When you first wake up on the island, you’ll find a few bottles of soda scattered around. The soda will be able to sustain you for a little while (and who doesn’t love downing a bottle of soda), but it’s not a permanent solution obviously.

Thankfully, you can quench your thirst at just about any fresh water source, and press E to fill up your thirst gauge. If you go too long and let your thirst meter deplete completely, and this is something I’ve heard, not something that’s happened to me personally, you’ll start to take ticking damage to your health and you CAN die from that.

What I did was, instead of flying by the seat of my pants I started building my first shelter next to a little stream.. Having a constant source of water right next to where you sleep is going to be very helpful in the early game before you get too nomadic. When you visit the point on the GPS that leads to an underground facility, you’ll gain access to a 3D printer. That 3D printer can produce a number of helpful items for you but it can also print a flask that will allow you to take some water around with you wherever you go!! It’s a pretty helpful upgrade, so make sure you take advantage of that when it presents itself.

Fill Your Belly

Next, you’re going to need a reliable supply of food. Again, you’ll be able to scrounge up some MREs and candy bars from the helicopter crash site, but that won’t last very long. It would also be a good idea to save that stuff for when you really need it since food is pretty easy to come by in Sons of the Forest.

If you did what I did and built a shelter next to a stream or river, you can ask your buddy Kelvin to get some fish for both of you and drop it at a specified location. You can really just leave Kelvin on autopilot for a while, and he’ll keep fishing and stacking up fish like a madman. You can give Kelvin orders using the notepad system as you’ve probably been doing already. I know I’ve been making great use of that system to avoid doing all the menial things I hate doing in survival/crafting games.

If you decide to shoulder some of that responsibility you can go hunting. Just craft a spear (two sticks, one tape, and a knife), head out into the woods, and wait for your moment. Hiding in the bushes, you can then take advantage of the island’s diverse wildlife. You’ll be able to hunt everything from rabbits to deer but keep in mind bigger animals put up more of a fight. As long as you have a sharp object, all of these creatures can be hunted and harvested for food. Just be sure to cook anything you hunt before you eat it by starting a fire and interacting with it.

There are also plenty of berries and other plants you can eat around the island, but they don’t fill as much of your hunger meter as meat does. It’s fine in a pinch, but it’s much better to have some cooked food on you to munch on when your stomach starts gurgling. If you don’t mind eating turtles, you can also build a home on the beach. Turtles are in high supply, and they’re easy targets as sad as that statement is.

Mike Alexander

Mike has been playing video games since he was able to hold a controller, having been fascinated by Sonic 2 on his mom’s Sega Genesis. That fascination and passion for the art form has grown exponentially nearly 30 years later, and he doesn’t see that fading away anytime soon.

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