Understanding the Sons Of The Forest UI & HUD
Sons Of The Forest is similar to Endnight Games’ first title in many ways, but it also has some significant differences in gameplay, HUD, and UI layout. For players of the first game, it may be confusing to see drastic changes to the overall appearance of the game. It can be difficult to understand the layout of the game’s various displays and stats for completely new players since Sons Of The Forest does not have a new player tutorial.
Don’t worry; we are here to break it down for you and explain how each element of the game’s interface functions.
- How do I stop being cold?
- What are the blinking dots on my map?
- What on earth does “strength” do?
These questions and many more will all be answered for you here. Let’s dive into it!
Basic HUD
The basic Heads Up Display (or hud for short) is allocated mostly to the bottom right corner of the player’s vision. The widget in this corner contains all of the character’s status information.
The display in the center of the circle displays your minimap, functioning as a smaller version of the player’s GPS map, with the yellow arrow at the center representing your current location. This minimap will rotate with the player, but the arrow will always point in their facing direction.
Health
The red bar on the left side of the minimap displays the player’s health. Every time the player takes damage, their health will decrease. Getting hit by enemies, falling long distances, or eating inedible food can all cause damage to the player.
Missing health is denoted by a dark red portion of the health bar, while remaining health is represented in bright red. Missing health can be restored by eating certain foods or consuming medicine.
If the player’s health drops too low, the screen will take on a grayish hue, and a notification will display in the lower left corner urging the player to find medicine. With enough time, the player’s health will recover up to the point before this message appears.
Stamina and Vitality
The blue bar on the right side of the minimap displays the player’s current vitality and remaining stamina. Vitality is a measure of the player’s well-being and is a combination of their Hunger, Thirst, and Rest meters and is denoted by the outline size of the blue bar. The higher a player’s vitality, the more Stamina they have available.
Stamina is represented by the bright blue segment of the vitality bar within the outline. Sprinting, climbing, jumping, and swinging melee weapons all consume stamina and will cause the blue section of the bar to shrink. If the player’s stamina runs out, their attacks will become slower and weaker, and they will be unable to run or jump.
The stamina gauge will automatically refill up to the player’s current vitality whenever it isn’t being used.
Hunger, Thirst, and Rest
The circles above the stamina gauge marked by a droplet, chicken leg, and moon represent the player’s current Thirst, Hunger, and Rest, respectively. The more complete the green ring around each of these circles is, the better your character is doing, and the higher your vitality will be.
The thirst meter can be refilled by drinking water or energy drinks. The hunger meter can be filled by eating any food. The rest meter can be filled by sleeping in a bed or shelter, sitting on a bench or chair, or consuming energy supplements.
A purple section of the rest meter indicates fortified rest and can be added by eating energy bars, energy mixes, or drinking energy drinks. Fortified rest will drain more slowly and provides more vitality than standard rest.
Armor
The armor bar is the segmented bar around the outer edge of the health gauge. Each bar segment indicates a piece of armor that the player can wear. Different kinds of armor sets will fill the meter with different colors, so the player can always keep track of how much of each armor they are wearing.
Armor acts as a buffer to the player’s health, absorbing damage and preventing health loss. Worn armor will break when it absorbs too much damage, so be sure to replace it often. The only exception to this rule is Golden Armor.
Strength
The circle above the health gauge marked with a muscular arm is the player’s strength level. As players fight, chop trees, and build structures, a red ring will slowly fill around the circle. When the ring is complete, the player will gain a strength level, and the cycle will start again. With each strength level, the player will gain a small amount of maximum health and deal slightly more damage with melee weapons.
Cold
During the winter and when the player enters a frigid area like the snowy mountains, they may become cold. Being cold negatively affects a player’s vitality, reducing their available stamina and increasing the rate at which their hunger and thirst meters drain.
When affected by cold, a message will appear in the screen’s bottom left corner alongside a snowflake, telling the player if they are cold or cold and wet.
Being cold and wet will more negatively affect stamina than just being cold. Additionally, a section of the stamina gauge will turn pale, indicating the amount of stamina unavailable to the player until they warm up.
The effects of cold and wetness can be alleviated by standing near a fire, carrying a Torch, wearing warm clothes, or leaving the cold area.
Environmental UI
Some pop-ups and interaction prompts will not appear until the player approaches an item they can pick up or interact with. An interaction marked with a filled-in white interact button indicates you only need to press the button to complete the interaction. However, a semi-transparent prompt indicates you may need to hold down the interact key.
Items
Items found in the environment that the player can pick up will often shine periodically. These pickups range from building and crafting materials to consumables, weapons, and equipment. Each item added to the inventory will briefly display a message in the screen’s bottom left corner to inform the player of what has been added.
When approaching an item that can be picked up, a prompt displaying the interaction button (default E key) will appear. Pressing this key will add the item to the player’s inventory, while holding down the button will equip it directly if possible. Attempting to pick up more of one kind of item than the player can hold will cause the object to be thrown back into the environment.
Some objects are too large to fit in the inventory and must be carried. Primarily, this refers to logs and corpses. Logs can be picked up and carried by the player by pressing the interact key when facing one.
Interactions
Certain objects, such as doors or radios, can be interacted with. When approaching an interactable object, hold down or press the interact button as prompted to interact with it.
Shelters
Shelters such as beds, tents, and other sleeping locations can be interacted with in one of two ways and will display two key prompts to match.
- The displayed disc drive (or floppy disk if you know what that is) will allow you to save your game by holding down the associated interact button (default
Ekey). - The prompt marked with the moon will allow you to sleep if you hold down the rest key (default
Zkey.)
Inventory
Sons Of The Forest’s unique inventory screen is displayed as the player’s backpack, and all their items are spread out on the ground around them. You can even turn on your inventory’s lights or change their color with the two buttons at the bottom right of the crafting mat.
Panning the mouse around the screen can move the camera to allow players to see more items to the left or right of them. To equip or use an item from the inventory, hover the mouse over it and press the left mouse button.
Crafting
The crafting mat is the empty rectangle at the center of the inventory screen. Adding certain combinations of items to this mat will allow them to be crafted into new and useful resources such as armor, weapons, medicine, and more. To add an item to the crafting mat, simply hover the mouse over it and press the right mouse button.
The gear icon in the top right corner of the mat will begin to fill in as items are added. Hovering the mouse over the gear icon while it is partially filled will display a list of recipes that can be crafted using the items currently on the mat, assuming you have picked up at least one of each item necessary for that recipe.
Items in recipes that are grayed out indicated components that still need to be added while items highlighted in white are already present. Items marked in red indicate that the player does not have that item in their inventory. Once all the necessary items to complete a recipe have been added to the mat, the gear icon will fill in and rotate when hovered over. Clicking on this gear will then craft the recipe.
Weapon Stats
When hovering the mouse over a melee weapon inside the inventory, three stat bars will become visible underneath its name.
- The first green bar marked with an arrow represents the weapon’s attack speed. The more complete the bar is, the faster a weapon will swing when attacking with it.
- The second red bar marked with an impact icon displays a weapon’s damage value. The higher a weapon’s damage, the fewer hits it will take to kill an enemy.
- The third yellow bar marked with a shield represents the weapon’s block value. The higher this stat, the more damage protection the weapon will offer when blocking.
Clothing Stats
When hovering the mouse over a clothing item in the inventory, three stat bars will appear underneath its name.
- The first orange bar marked with a flame represents an outfit’s warmth. The higher this bar is, the more protection the outfit offers from cold environments.
- The second violet-colored bar marked with a very relaxed stick figure represents an outfit’s comfort. The more comfortable an outfit is, the faster the player rests when sitting or sleeping.
- The third blue bar marked with an umbrella represents how waterproof an outfit is. The higher this stat, the more protection from rain and snow an outfit will provide.
Quick-Select and Hotkeys
There are two ways to access an item without having to open up your inventory screen.
Items can be added to the quick-select bag by combining them with the backpack in the inventory. Each item will take up one of the bag’s slots, of which there are four kinds.
The bag hosts 1 Small Weapon Slot and 1 Long Weapon Slot, both of which are on the left side of the bag. It also has 2 Auxiliary Slots, one on top of the bag and one on the front, and 4 Consumable Slots on the bottom row of the bag. Items can only be added to their corresponding slot on the bag.
To pull out the quick select bag, briefly hold down the inventory key (default I). Clicking on one of the items on the bag while holding it will equip or use it.
Items can also be assigned a Hotkey from inside the inventory. To do this, hover the mouse over an item and press one of the ten available hotkeys (1-0) to assign the item that key. The item will automatically be equipped or used when that hotkey is pressed. When hovering over it in the inventory, you can see which hotkey an item is assigned by looking at the small white square present.
Map
The player’s starting survival kit comes with, among other useful items, a GPS Tracker. This device functions as a map and will help the player find points of interest and keep track of their base. To pull out the map, press the map key (default M key) The map can then be zoomed out by pressing the middle mouse button.
Map Icons
The map on the GPS displays a few different kinds of icons, each denoting different important features.
- The yellow arrow at the center of the map always represents the player’s Current Location and points in the direction they are facing.
- Green circles on the map mark Points of Interest and typically inform the player of the entrances to bunkers that will be important to their mission.
- Purple exclamation marks point players towards the missing members of Beta Squad and can lead to useful equipment as well.
- White archways mark the locations of Cave Entrances, leading to networks of caves that can be dangerous but lucrative to explore.
- White house icons mark the player’s standing Shelters, which can help you keep track of your base and locations to rest or save.
- The blue K on the map tracks Kelvin, the non-player companion who crash-landed alongside you.
Campfires and Storage
Campfires
After a campfire has been built, holding down the interact button will light the fire. From here, a new menu will appear when the player interacts with it.
When interacting with a lit fire, the player will hold a portion of their inventory out like a tray, allowing them to mouse over items and click on them to add them to the fire.
Adding leaves or cash to the fire will stoke the flames and allow the fire to burn longer and brighter. Edible items like raw meat, fish, and severed limbs can also be added to the fire to cook them. Just be sure to pull them off the flames before they burn. However, allowing limbs to burn will produce bones and skulls, which can be used to craft armor, furniture, or the Crafted Club.
Storage
The UI may differ depending on the kind of storage medium you are interacting with.
Most storage mediums will present two prompts when you approach them. One prompt will be marked with an upturned arrow and the other with a downturned arrow.
Pressing the key marked by the upward arrow will remove one item from storage and add it to your inventory, while pressing the key marked by the downward arrow will remove one item from your inventory and add it to storage.
Other storage mediums, such as shelves, will allow you to store many different kinds of items. Holding down the interact key when looking at a shelf will open a menu similar to the one used for campfires. Clicking on any items in your hand will add them to storage. If you don’t see what you are looking for, you can cycle through your various inventory pages by pressing the Q and E keys.
Eating, Drinking, and Wild Plants
When walking around the forest, you may sometimes notice a question mark prompt appearing over certain plants. This marks these plants as consumable but also indicates you are unsure if the plant is edible or not yet. Holding down the interact button when this prompt appears will cause your character to eat the plant while pressing it will add it to your inventory.
After a plant has been consumed once, the icon that appears when finding it in the wild will change. A green Pac-Man icon indicates that a plant is safe to eat. This icon will appear above all beneficial foods, such as cooked meat, berries, and herbs.
If the Pac-Man is red, however, it means the item is inedible and will cause a small amount of damage if eaten. Poisonous mushrooms, rotten food, and toxic flowers will also bear this icon.
In the case of water, you don’t need to worry about boiling it. Approaching a river or lake will cause a raindrop icon to appear. Holding down the interact button will prompt the character to drink from the water source, refilling the thirst meter.
Other Icons
There are a ton of individual icons for interaction in Sons Of The Forest, we’ve added a few of them here to help you get acquainted, but for many of them, you may have to try and see what happens.
- Holding down the interact key when the campfire icon appears will open up the campfire menu.
- Holding down the interact key when the circular arrow icon appears will reset whichever trap it appears over.
- Tapping the interact key when the open door icon appears will open or close gates and other doors.
- Holding down the interact key when the relaxing icon appears will cause the character to sit down and rest on whatever bench or chair it appears over.
- Holding down the interact key when the gripping rope icon appears will cause the player to grab onto a hanging rope and allow them to climb it.
- Holding the interact key when the two leaves icon appears will open the seed menu and allow the player to plant seeds in a garden bed.
- Holding the interact key when the lock icon appears will lock or unlock a door.
- Holding the interact key when the open lid icon appears will open whatever loot crate it appears above.
Other Item UIs
Certain ranged weapons and tools such as Molotovs, Crafted Spears, Firearms, and the Rope Gun each have unique UI elements, which we have explained in their individual guides.
Final Thoughts on Sons Of The Forest’s UI & HUD
Endnight Games added an interesting mix of immersive elements when crafting their UI and HUD. It can be a bit cumbersome at times, but the unique charm and style present in The Forest certainly found their way into the design choices for Sons Of The Forest.
