Sons of the Forest: How to Craft

Sons of the Forest tasks you with surviving on an island of cannibals while searching for missing people, and to do that, you’ll need to be resourceful and craft items. From shelter to producing food and making weapons, crafting is a vital skill for you to know.

Sons of the Forest Crafting Explained

Not including 3D printing, which is its own guide, there are three ways to craft items in Sons of the Forest. One involves your inventory, where you’ll craft tools, weapons, ammo, and herbal health mixes, among other items. The second and third involve your Guide Book and include small and large structures like campfires and houses. 

How to Craft Items in Your Inventory

Screenshot by Gameskinny

The first crafting method lets you make tools, ammo, and other essential survival items, and it’s also present in The Forest.

In Sons of the Forest, most of your smaller crafts will be done in your inventory. Instead of using or equipping certain items, hover over items and choose combine. The gear in the top right of the middle section of your inventory will partially light up, and hovering over the gear will show you the recipes you know for the chosen item.

Screenshot by Gameskinny

From there, you choose the rest of the items for the recipe from your inventory by hovering over them and choosing combine. When the gear is fully lit (white), select it with LMB or “A” to craft your item.

It’s important to note that some crafting recipes create more than one of an item. For example, the recipe for Stone Arrow actually creates x4 Stones Arrows, not just one. It’s potentially something that will be changed in future updates and hotfixes. 

How to Craft Small Structures

Screenshot by Gameskinny

The second way to craft is by opening your Guide Book. It will initially open on the right side of the screen, and you’ll find recipes for crafting many recipes from the beginning, adding more as you play. However, there are no options to place them in the world.

Screenshot by Gameskinny

Instead, you’ll choose the first item from the listed recipe, equip it, and place it on the ground. This is the way that you make Tents and Fires.

In the case of the Tent, for example, you’d find the recipe in the Guide Book, then equip a Tarp from your inventory and place it on the ground. You’d then equip a Stick from your Backpack or inventory, look at the ground, and be given a prompt to raise the corner of a Tarp, as shown below.

Screenshot by Gameskinny

This pattern of crafting goes for all small structures found in the Guide Book when it’s on the right side of the screen. Most blueprints have slightly different mechanics associated with them, as well as different areas to add crafting resources.

Be sure to look for any white guidelines on the ground or on the items themselves to see where to add subsequent resources to complete the blueprint. For example, the Reinforced Fire is simply a regular Fire with Rocks around it, but you have to place 7 Rocks around the Fire manually to complete it. 

How to Build Furniture and Large Structures

The last crafting method is the same system from The Forest, too. It’s used for constructing large items like buildings, where you select the blueprint you want and place guides on the ground to construct it.

Open your Guide Book and Switch Modes (X by default on keyboard and controller). This will shift the Book to your left hand, where you can flip through pages of blueprints. Choose a blueprint, then a location. Then bring the materials to the outline and fill it in.

Screenshot by Gameskinny

The items you need are tracked in the bottom left of your screen so you can see what you have left to gather before the structure is completed.

Knowing how to craft is essential in Sons of the Forest, and you’ll learn blueprints and recipes as you gather new materials throughout the game. For help on other topics, check out our other guides for Endnight’s latest game and learn how to make a fire and how to drop and add items to your inventory. And if you’re so inclined, how to dupe items. 

Featured image by Gameskinny.