To stay alive in Sons of the Forest, you’ll need a constant supply of food and water. Water is a plentiful resource — you can find fresh water from any stream or running water, but food can be trickier. While the abandoned camps, caves and underground areas of the island have plentiful dry food for you to collect, you’ll still run out if you don’t explore often. The more you explore, the more you put yourself in danger. If you’re looking to help alleviate some of your food concerns, you can unlock additional food sources through traps, hunting, cooking — or just getting a can opener. You can’t open all those metal cans without one. Learn all about early game food sources that can last an entire playthrough below.
More Sons of the Forest guides:
How To Escape The Island | Ending Guide | How To Get The Shovel & Unlock Hidden Underground Locations | How To Unlock The Mysterious Door | How To Find A 3D Printer | How To Get The Pistol | Where To Find The Best Weapon | All Keycard Locations | Silencer Location | How To Make Bone Armor & Farm Bones | Flashlight Locations | How To Craft Healing Mix
How To Catch Animals, Open Cans & Carry Water | Survival Basics
Getting food and water is critical to your survival. While you can survive off scavenged food for days, you’ll eventually need to catch and cook your own food. One scavenger item that will really help quickly is the Can Opener, but it is only found in one location early in the game.
Can Opener: Commonly, while exploring underground areas, camps or cannibal villages, you’ll find food in metal cans. To open cans, you need to get the Can Opener key item. There are multiple on the map, but there’s one you can find relatively easily early in your game.
- Where To Find: On the mountain, up the hill from the cave containing the Shovel Key Item. There’s a cave marker on the snowy mountain next to a small pond where a regular human camp site is located. Outside the cave, look on the ground next to the red tent.
Water Flask: The Flask is a vessel that can store water for long journeys. Find a fresh water source like a running river and use the Flask to collect water. Water is the easiest resource, but to carry it with you, you’ll need to craft a Flask.
- Where To Find: Go to the bunker in the center of the island marked with a green GPS dot. At the start of the game, there are two GPS dots that lead into underground complex areas. These are the only two GPS dots you can access without other key items.
- Inside the bunker, you can access a 3D Printer. The printer should have plenty of Printer Resin already in the reservoir, enough to print out a full Flask. Use the computer next to the printer to select the Flask, then order the device to begin printing.
Animal Trap: There are two types of traps — Animal Traps and Fish Traps. Both can be found in your Field Guide. After opening the guide, switch mode to access the Traps tab. Here, you’ll learn how to make both types of traps.
- Small Animal Trap: x14 Sticks. Place in a wooded area where small animals travel. You won’t see them in beaches and less often in open fields. Place traps in areas where you actually see small animals roaming.
- Fish Trap: x25 Sticks. Even more effective. Place on a stream or in the ocean for a constant supply of fish. Make sure to only play the trap in areas where fish are actually visible.
You can also craft a Bow. The bow is an easy weapon to make — check your recipes (the “!” gear in the inventory) to build one. This is basically required for hunting deer. After finding animals, you’ll get raw meat. Raw meat needs to be kicked or it will go rotten fast. Luckily, cooking is easy.
How To Cook Meat: Build a Fire first — this is available on the Field Guide Build Menu, or you can ask Kendall to do it. After building a fire, look at the fire and interact. You can stoke the flames with leaves or throw in raw meat to cook it.
While cooking, Raw Meat is a pink color. Once it flips from pink to dark brown, immediately remove the cooked meat. It will still go rotten after more than a day, so you’ll want to cook and eat meat quickly.
