Sons of the Forest is the much-hyped and acclaimed follow-up to The Forest, with both titles sure to keep you engaged from start to finish.
In Sons of the Forest, you must gather resources, build shelters, and craft weapons to survive in this hostile environment. The game features an open-world design that allows you and your friends to explore its various locations, including caves, abandoned campsites, hidden areas, labs, and more.
This article will cover one of the most fundamental topics of gameplay that every player needs to survive: shelter.
Stick with us, and learn everything you need to know to build a safe and resourceful shelter in Sons of the Forest and survive the game’s countless horrific nights.
Importance of a Shelter in Sons of the Forest
Crafting a shelter is essential for your survival in the Sons of the Forest and should be your top priority upon starting your playthrough.
Building a shelter is crucial for surviving in Sons of the Forest, as it provides protection from enemies and adverse weather conditions and allows one to save one’s progress.
Some Things to Consider about Your Shelter
Save Point – A shelter will serve as a save point and potential spawn point if you die more than twice.
Safe Sleep- If you have built your shelter correctly, this is a place where you can safely sleep without being disturbed by any enemies.
Resourceful – In theory, a shelter is a place where you can store and produce certain items, such as food and water.
Basic Shelters in Sons of the Forest
Before building a shelter in Sons of the Forest, you must consider several factors. A successful and proper shelter will have everything you need to survive and keep you safe from attacks.
Protection – Unexpected attacks from cannibals are imminent unless you play in peaceful mode, and there is no way to control this. Your only option is to build a proper fortification in order to protect yourself.
Before building a fortification, one of the first things to consider is having an escape route in case things go south. Moreover, building solid walls and defensive items will protect your shelter.
Production Quality – In Sons of the Forest, enemies will constantly stalk you and become more brutal in higher difficulties, so it is essential to make your shelter impenetrable.
Ensuring your shelter is siege-proof means having a way to produce food, such as fishing or growing blueberries. Additionally, it is essential to have a source of water.
You should pay attention to your capability to fight back, for which we recommend weapons that allow you to engage at a distance, such as spears and a bow, as well as traps around your walls.
Good Location – No location is entirely safe in Sons of the Forest, but some are definitely more dangerous than others. For example, we do not recommend building a shelter close to cannibal encampments.
Best Places to Build Your Shelter in Sons of the Forest
While there are many great locations in Sons of the Forest where we can pinpoint to build your shelter, we instead let you decide which place fits you best, following these recommendations.
Look For a Flat Surface
Flat surfaces will help you build more easily without having to struggle with extra resources to work around.
Natural Fortifications
While we highly recommend building on flat surfaces, finding one with natural walls to use as fortifications is excellent.
For example, you can build a shelter next to a boulder or a set of rocks that can serve as a natural wall.
Central Location
Try to build a shelter in a place on the map that you can easily reach whenever you want to return to your base. It is also essential to ensure you are next to the necessary resources or specific animal spawn locations.
Water Bodies
Building close to or next to a water body is a brilliant move, as you will have quick access to this vital resource, which also protects you. In Sons of the Forest, enemies can’t swim, so building close to or even above a water body is a great way to protect yourself.
Recommended Shelters for Sons of the Forest
While there are a lot of fortifications that you can build for yourself and others that the game provides blueprints for, here are what we consider the best.
1. Hunting Shelter
The Hunting Shelter is a great, quick, and reasonably safe option for building in an emergency.
Although this shelter won’t provide any protection in the Sons of the Forest, it is an excellent choice for saving space and having it within your fortifications.
How to Build a Hunting Shelter
- 5x Logs
- 6x Sticks
- 7x Rocks
These materials are straightforward, especially if you ask Kelvin to obtain them.
This Type of Shelter is Good For
- Emergency shelter
- Save space inside fortifications
- It doesn’t require a lot of materials
- Save time
2. Small Log Cabin
A small log cabin is a cozy place where you can build, offering decent protection and use for storage.
What is great about this cabin is that it only requires logs, and you can easily order Kelvin to finish constructing this structure quickly.
How to Build a Small Log Cabin Shelter in the Sons of the Forests
- 75x Logs
Good For
- An automated shelter that you can order Kelvin to finish
- Storage
- Decent protection
- Fairly easy to build
3. Personalized Fortification
Building your shelter from scratch without any blueprints is, hands down, the way to go in the Sons of the Forest. You can build whatever and however you want by adapting it to meet your needs.
Depending on what kind of shelter you want to build, the amount and type of materials you need will vary.
Good For
- Amazing for creative players
- Great for building an extensive and robust fortress
- Can build anywhere
Personalizing a fortification is better when playing with a group of friends, as one can delegate tasks to build it faster and more effectively. It’s also much more fun to show off your creativity and impressive building skills when playing the Sons of the Forest multiplayer.
Not Recommended – Threehouses
Treehouses may seem safe at first, as only basic cannibals roam around you. But, as nights pass, stronger monsters will start to stalk you and can quickly bring your whole group down.
Therefore, we don’t recommend treehouses as your primary base or shelter type in the Sons of the Forest. Treehouse bases and shelters are best for outposts or just for fun.
Kelvin is a Threehouse’s Worst Enemy
In the current state of the game, do not, we repeat, do not order Kelvin to finish your treehouse, as the first thing he will do is try to gather logs from the tree that you are using for the treehouse.
While this can be a little annoying, let’s be honest; nobody can be mad at Kelvin for long.
Last Thoughts on How and Where to Build Your Shelter in the Sons of the Forest
Building a shelter and surrounding fortifications is one of the first things you should do when playing Sons of the Forest. When placing your shelter, look for natural fortifications. Having at least part of your base be impenetrable is a real-time and energy saver. You can focus your improvements on one side of your base.
If all you are looking for is a quick place to rest, save, and shelter from the elements, there are simple recipes that can be used to get that shelter up in place quickly in the Sons of the Forest.
We hope this guide can help you in your next adventure of Sons of the Forest to survive the horrific monsters stalking you through the shadows.
We had a lot of fun (and scares!) playing Sons of the Forest, and we hope you can enjoy it in the same way. Let us know down below in the comments what topics you would like us to cover about this game or any others.
Stay alert for more upcoming posts about this and other great games that we know you will like. Also, stay tuned on all the news for the anticipated console release dates for the Sons of the Forest.
Good luck and have fun, fellow survivors!
