The Forest: Survival Guide

Covers the first days after the crash, base building, how to deal with cannibals and mutants, the key items you need, the cave route to finish the story, and tips for co-op.

Researched September 2026 — current as of v1.12 (the final major update; Endnight's active development moved to Sons Of The Forest). Live games change; check the linked sources if something differs.

Quick Start

• Grab the Plane Axe before you leave the crash. It sits in the plane cabin. Also loot the suitcases around the wreck for cloth, snacks and booze.
• Press B for the survival book. Every buildable blueprint lives there. Place a ghost blueprint, then fill it with logs, sticks, rocks or rope.
• Build a shelter on day one. Only sleeping or saving at a shelter keeps your progress. The Lean-To or Shelter works; don't play a whole day without one.
• Drink clean water. Saltwater makes thirst worse, and some natural water is dirty and costs health (the game warns you when water is polluted). Boil water in a pot, or build a water collector, so you have a guaranteed safe supply at base.
• Cannibals watch before they attack. Early on they scout you, stalk you and sometimes back off. Their aggression rises the longer you play and the more you kill.
• Block with right mouse. Blocking with a weapon cuts damage a lot. Swing, block, back up. Don't mash attack into a group.
• Carry a lighter and a light source into caves. Caves are pitch black and full of mutants. Take a torch, the flashlight, or your lighter at minimum, plus heals.
• Don't eat humans unless you have to. Eating cannibal meat lowers Sanity. Stick to animals, berries you know are safe, and dried meat.
• Save before every cave. Build a Lean-To at the entrance.

Survival Stats

Stat | What drains it | How to restore it

Health | Damage, starvation, dehydration, dirty water, poison | Eat, drink, sleep, and craft Health Mix or Health Mix+ from herbs

Stamina (short bar) | Sprinting, swinging, jumping | Rest for a moment

Energy (long-term cap on stamina) | Activity over the day | Sleep, eat, and energy drinks or Energy Mix

Fullness | Time | Cooked meat, fish, berries, snacks, dried meat

Thirst | Time, heat, saltwater | Clean water, sodas, coconuts

Sanity | Eating human flesh, dismembering bodies, killing | Sleeping, sitting on a bench, playing music and other calming activities

Low Sanity doesn't kill you. It unlocks darker crafting options (such as effigies) and affects your character's behaviour and some dialogue. Most players try to keep it high.

Controls (PC defaults)

Action | Key

Move / Sprint / Jump / Crouch | WASD / Shift / Space / C

Interact, pick up | E

Inventory (crafting mat) | I

Survival book (blueprints) | B

Lighter | L

Attack / Block | Left mouse / Right mouse

Crafting works by laying items on the inventory mat and combining them. The book lists recipes, and a gear icon appears when a combination is valid. Rebind anything in Options.

Day One to Day Three

Day 1

• Loot the plane and the suitcases around it: Plane Axe, snacks, sodas, booze and cloth.
• Chop small trees for sticks, gather leaves, rocks and logs. Carry logs two at a time.
• Build a Lean-To or Shelter near fresh water, save, and start a Fire with a pit so you can cook.
• Pick up everything you can carry. Medicine, cloth, booze and rope all end up in recipes.

Day 2

• Build a Drying Rack and hunt rabbits, lizards and deer. Lizard and rabbit skins make armour, and deer skins go toward the bigger bag and warmth.
• Craft a Crafted Bow (or upgrade a spear) so you can kill things from range. Arrows need feathers from birds.
• Start a Log Holder and Stick Holder at your base spot. Hauling resources is the main time sink in the game.

Day 3

• Build real storage (Rock Holder, Water Collector) and at least a small defensive layer. Wall off your approach with Defensive Walls, or go up with a Tree House so cannibals can't swarm you.
• Explore the coast and nearby cabins for rope, cloth, booze and pots.

Base Building

• Location: Near fresh water, with trees for logs and away from the main cannibal villages. Hills and cliffs cut down the number of angles you can be attacked from.
• Defense: Defensive Walls and Walls with gates, Spike Walls, and traps such as the Deadfall Trap, Spike Trap and Swinging Rock Trap thin out raids. Put traps in the funnels cannibals actually walk through.
• Deterrents: Effigies (built from body parts) scare cannibals away for a while. They're effective but cost sanity to gather.
• Log Cabin gives a secure sleeping spot, a storage hub and lots of room for shelves and racks.
• Fire safety: Wooden structures burn, so keep campfires and fire-based traps away from walls and storage.

Combat and Threats

Cannibals

• Regular cannibals travel in small groups, circle and flank. Back up to a wall or tree and fight one at a time.
• Painted and masked cannibals show up later and hit harder. Masked variants are tougher and more aggressive.
• Groups often retreat when their leader dies, so focus the one directing them.

Mutants

Enemy | Threat | Counter

Virginia | Three-legged, many-armed. Fast and relentless | Keep blocking and use fire. Molotovs and fire arrows help a lot

Armsy | Huge. Big melee swipes and grabs | Fight from range and in the open, and never let it corner you in a tunnel

Cowman | Charging tank | Sidestep the charge, then hit its back

Mutant babies | Swarms in caves | Fire and wide swings. Don't let them surround you

Fire is your best friend all game. Molotovs (booze + cloth), fire arrows, burning a weapon with the lighter, and the Flare Gun all deal big damage and cause panic.

Weapons tier (rough)

Tier | Examples

Starter | Plane Axe, Crafted Club, Weak Spear, Crafted Bow

Mid | Upgraded Spear, Upgraded Stick/Club, Rusty Axe, Machete, Modern Bow

Late | Modern Axe, Katana, Chainsaw, upgraded Crafted Bow and Modern Bow with fire or poison arrows

Weapons can be upgraded at the crafting mat with materials such as feathers, teeth, booze, cloth and glue (made from tree sap). Teeth add damage, feathers add speed, and booze or cloth make a weapon burnable.

Key Items and the Story Route

Timmy was taken right after the crash, so finishing the story means working through the caves to reach the Sahara Therapeutics lab at the bottom of the Sinkhole. You need three items:

Item | Where (per the guides cited below) | Why

Rebreather | Cave 5 (Submerged Cave), on a corpse with air canisters. The usual approach is from the yacht, heading west to the anchor on the west coast | Needed for the long underwater swims in the lower caves and at the lab entrance

Keycard | Cave 6, in a room full of bodies guarded by an Armsy and mutant babies | Opens the lab doors in the final area

Climbing Axe | Cave 9, lit up on a wall | Lets you climb certain rock faces, including one you need before the lab

Other gear worth picking up in the caves: rope (used for climbing points and crafting), the flashlight and batteries, the Modern Axe, Katana and Chainsaw, the Flare Gun, and the Repair Tool. Cave numbering varies between community maps, so use an interactive map (see Sources) when you need exact spots.

Route outline

• Prep: heals (Health Mix), molotovs, a stack of arrows, a light source, lots of booze and cloth.
• Get the Rebreather first. It unlocks underwater shortcuts.
• Get the Keycard and the Climbing Axe.
• Go down into the Sinkhole (the usual descent via Cave 7 is a point of no return), so save before you drop. Bring spare air canisters for the Rebreather.
• Swim into the central pool to reach the lab entrance. Push through the final area (heavy mutant resistance) to find Timmy and trigger the story cutscenes and the final boss fight.
• The end of the lab gives you an ending choice. Roughly, one outcome brings Timmy back at a terrible cost, and the other lets you leave the island without him. Your choice feeds into the Sons Of The Forest story.

Missables and collectibles: Timmy's Drawings, magazine pages, Cassettes (for the Walkman) and Sahara documents fill in the lore. The game is sandbox-style, so nothing is locked out before the ending. Just keep the save you made before the Sinkhole if you want to try the other choice.

Game Modes and Difficulty

Mode | What changes

Peaceful | Enemies are far less of a threat; focus on survival and exploration

Normal | The standard experience

Hard | Tougher enemies and more pressure

Hard Survival | Hard's enemies plus much harsher survival pressure

Creative | Unlimited building materials

Vegan / Vegetarian | Extra options: Vegan removes enemies, Vegetarian limits them to nighttime

Exact rules per mode have shifted across updates; check the in-game description on the new-game screen before committing to a save.

Co-op supports up to 8 players, either through hosted lobbies or dedicated servers. Downed friends can be revived.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Skipping the shelter. Dying without a recent save wipes hours of work.
• Drinking the wrong water. Saltwater and dirty water hurt you. Make a clean source at base.
• Starting fights on day one. Killing early scouts escalates cannibal aggression. Build defenses first.
• Entering caves underprepared. No light, no heals and no fire weapons adds up to a wipe.
• Building a flammable base in one clump. A single fire can take everything.
• Burning Sanity for nothing. Eating and dismembering bodies when you don't need to makes the game harder to read.
• Forgetting the Sinkhole is a commitment. Save before any one-way drop.

Advanced Tips

• Tree house bases keep you out of reach of most cannibal raids.
• Fire is damage. Light up weapons, arrows and molotovs before cave boss rooms. Armsy and Virginia melt much faster when burning.
• Farm cannibal villages for loot (skulls, bones, teeth) once you can handle groups. Bone Armor, and later Creepy Armor from mutant skins, give much stronger protection than lizard skin.
• Stealth Armor (crafted from leaves) and covering yourself in mud make it easier to slip past enemies.
• Build infrastructure along your routes: zipline rope bridges, shelters at cave mouths, and log sleds for hauling logs.
• In co-op, split jobs: one hauler, one builder, one hunter. Revive quickly, since a downed player is a free kill.
• Map it: The game gives you very little map help, so a community interactive map (see Sources) saves hours of wandering, especially in the caves.

FAQ

Is The Forest still getting updates? Not really. v1.12 was the last big update, and Endnight's attention moved to Sons Of The Forest. The game is complete and stable.

Do I need to beat The Forest before Sons Of The Forest? No, but the ending sets up the sequel's story, and it's much more satisfying if you know what happened to Timmy.

How do I save? Sleep or save at a shelter such as the Lean-To, Shelter or Log Cabin. Autosaves are limited, so build one before anything risky.

Why are cannibals not attacking me? Early cannibals scout and test you. They become more aggressive as days pass and as you kill more of them.

How do I get the rope? Rope turns up in the caves and at abandoned campsites. You need it for several recipes and for rope climbing points.

Can I play solo? Yes. The game is fully playable alone. Co-op mainly makes hauling and cave fights easier.

Sources

• The Forest on Steam: News Hub
• Official The Forest Wiki: Updates
• Official The Forest Wiki: Items
• Corrosion Hour: How to Advance the Story
• Game Voyagers: How to Beat The Forest
• The Forest: Interactive Map
• Endnight Games: The Forest updates