Crafting a bow & arrows
The bow and arrows are essential for your survival in The Forest, and knowing how to craft them is vital, especially in a game that encourages your demise at every waking turn. Crafting both of these items is relatively easy, but you need to have certain crafting materials in your inventory before you can begin.
The Crafted Bow is made by combining these materials in the crafting menu:
- 1 Stick
- 1 Cloth
- 1 Rope
Regular wooden arrows are made by combining the following materials in the crafting menu:
- 1 Stick
- 5 Feathers
These regular arrows are most appropriate for hunting animals, whose meat can be cooked for food, but you can still defend yourself against most threats regardless. However, if you want to kill cannibals and mutants effectively, there are recommended different types of arrows, and we’ll cover those later on. Your backpack can hold up to 30 arrows at a given time, but this number can be increased to 50 by crafting a quiver.
Quivers will permanently increase your arrow carrying capacity. They are made by combining the following materials in the crafting menu:
- 3 Rabbit Fur
- 1 Rope
Gathering materials for a bow
The peninsula our player crashes on is vast and wide. Not to mention how a savage tribe of cannibalistic mutants accompanies us.
All of this also allows us to scavenge materials from various points of interest, and there’s a good chance that you have already stumbled upon most of the items required to craft a bow and arrows. If you didn’t, there’s a literal forest full of resources around you ripe for the taking.
Sticks
Given the fact that sticks are a natural resource, you can find them all over the Forest. Harvesting sticks can be done by hitting smaller trees and saplings with your melee tool of choice, which will in turn drop sticks. Alternatively, sticks can also be found naturally on the ground around mature trees.
Your backpack alone can only carry up to 10 sticks at a time. However, it is possible to craft a stick bag and hold up to 20 sticks. Crafting a stick bag will cost you the following:
- 1 Rabbit Fur
- 2 Ropes
- 3 Cloth.
Cloth
As opposed to sticks, cloth can not be found in the wild. It’s located all over the map, but there are specific locations that you might want to keep an eye out for. Cloth is most commonly found in suitcases and cloth crates that can spawn in caves.
With that being said, it isn’t exclusive to the aforementioned sources. It can also be found in mutant villages or scattered around notable locations on the peninsula. Lastly, tribal effigies also contain cloth, which can be harvested with a melee tool.
Rope
This crafting material might seem a bit harder to obtain at first, and you can only carry 4 pieces of it at a time. It’s generally found in caves or mutant villages. But, a fast way to find rope at the beginning of the game would be to visit the stranded Yacht, which is located near the southern shore of the peninsula.
One thing to note is that it is possible to craft rope via the crafting menu in your backpack, which will set you back about 7 pieces of cloth per 1 rope. Cloth is an essential early-game resource used in many basic crafting recipes, so you need to consider how best to spend it early.
It’s always important to be efficient with the way you’re gathering and collecting essential resources. And now, you’ll be able to craft a bow in no time.
Gathering materials for arrows
There are various types of arrows that you can craft in the Forest, but we’ll focus on normal arrows for the time being. Gathering the stick is fairly straightforward. However, collecting feathers is a process that some might consider tedious.
As you might’ve guessed, feathers can be obtained from birds. They occasionally drop feathers as they fly by, or you can go ahead and kill one for about 3 to 5 feathers. The amount of feathers you get also depends on the type of bird you kill. These are the different types of birds and how many feathers they drop:
- Blue, Red, and Brown birds drop 3 or 4 feathers.
- Blackbirds drop 4 or 5 feathers.
- Seagulls and Geese also drop around 4 or 5 feathers.
The process of collecting the feathers can sometimes be annoying due to the swift nature of the birds. They can lose you quickly, and it’s pretty hard chasing down something that can fly. Regardless, birds do sometimes choose to rest on large stones, which is the perfect time for you to kill them. When you acquire a bow and arrows, killing birds will become substantially easier.
Once the bird is dead, you have a small window to actually pick up the feathers, as they’ll start to float and scatter upward. If you’re not fast enough, some of the remaining feathers can float out of your reach.
Types of arrows
Now that you know how to craft and gather materials for normal arrows, we want to introduce you to a completely different side of them that you may not have known about.
Conventional arrows are just the start, for there are many different types of arrows that you can craft and choose from in the Forest. Each type of arrow has a separate purpose or use. Excluding the normal arrows, there are currently 4 types of arrows within the game. These are:
- Modern
- Bone
- Poison
- Fire
We’ll be covering each type in order to show you what they specifically excel at and if they are even worth crafting at the end of the day.
Modern Arrows
As the name suggests, this arrow type came from the outside world. They are hands down the best arrows when it comes to lethality. They dish out the highest amount of damage on impact out of any arrow type. Firing a modern arrow into the skull of a cannibal will put them down instantaneously, even if you’re using a simple crafted bow.
The main downside of this arrow type is the fact that it can’t be crafted. Players can only find it within yellow crates throughout the wilderness and caves. There are currently 7 locations on the map where you can find modern arrows, and you would be able to gather precisely 135 of them.
The most notable location to find modern arrows would be the Film Crew Camp, which is located on the eastern side of the Forest, near Cave 5 and the Goose Lake. This location has about 6 yellow crates, providing exactly 60 modern arrows. As for the other places – you’ll stumble upon them eventually during your adventures.
Bone Arrows
Bone arrows might not be as strong as modern arrows, but they are still 40% more lethal than regular arrows in terms of damage output. They can also be crafted, which allows for a nearly infinite source of decent arrows.
The crafting recipe for bone arrows will have you combine the following materials:
- 1 Stick
- 5 Feathers
- 5 Bones
Combining these will craft 5 Bone Arrows meant to penetrate the skull of a cannibal successfully.
Gathering bones is quite easy. The best way to do it would be to put the carcasses of slaughtered cannibals on a campfire, which will eventually burn the bodies and leave only bones. You can also harvest bones from cannibal effigies or loot them around certain points of interest. Now that we think about it, it’s hilarious how cannibals directly aid you in your fight against them due to their hostile nature.
Poison Arrows
Poison arrows serve a pretty self-explanatory purpose, which is poisoning your target for a short amount of time. Depending on the type of mutant or cannibal, it may take more than one arrow to apply the poison effect. Once poisoned, the affected target will move at a slower pace and even deal less damage to the player.
If you want to craft poison arrows, you’ll need to forage some poisonous berries or mushrooms. These then need to be combined with 5 arrows of your choice. There are currently 4 types of berries and mushrooms that you can use to craft poison arrows:
- 4 Twin Berries
- 4 Snow Berries
- 1 Amanita Mushroom
- 1 Jack Mushroom
One thing to note is that it doesn’t matter which type of berry or mushroom you use, as long as it’s one of the types mentioned above. Using anything other than regular arrows in the crafting process of poison arrows is a waste, as it won’t change the potency or damage output.
Fire Arrows
Fire in this game is a very practical source of energy. Not only does it help sustain you, but you can also use it as a way to make your foes panic. Fire arrows allow you to light cannibals and mutants on fire, which then makes them ignore the player for several seconds. This will allow you to take a tiny break in the middle of a battle to recuperate or focus on other enemies.
Crafting fire arrows requires you to combine the following materials:
- 5 Arrows (Any type)
- 1 Cloth
- 1 Booze
Booze is the more problematic crafting material here, as you can’t really find it in nature. But, the best way to find an acceptable amount of booze is in suitcases all over the map. It’s also possible to find some in cave hideouts.
Once you draw a bow that’s equipped with fire arrows, you will have to use either a lighter or an alternate fire source to light it. Additionally, you’re required to light each arrow on fire individually.
The Modern Bow
If you already didn’t know, there’s a better alternative to the crafted bow. That would be the Modern Bow, which is superior mainly to its crafted counterpart. It becomes even more powerful when paired with the intended modern arrows. Even better is that you can add a flashlight upgrade to it, making it great for clearing caves full of mutants.
The modern bow is located in the Chasm Cave, commonly known as Cave 7. This cave is full of the toughest mutants, and going through it is nothing short of a challenge. Keep in mind that you’ll need a rebreather and climbing axe to even think about exploring this cave.
Although it’s the best bow in the game, some people prefer to stick to the crafted bow. The hassle of actually trying to fetch it isn’t worth it to some players.
What bow should you use?
All things considered, the crafted bow is good enough to last you for the majority of your playthrough. It’s not impossible to get the modern bow, but sometimes players don’t feel the need to, given how versatile the crafted bow is.
Statistically, the modern bow is better in the following aspects:
- More damage
- Easier headshot potential
- Faster arrow speed
- Easier aiming
- Longer arrow range
Nevertheless, the crafted bow does have some advantages:
- Faster rate of fire
- Fairly easy to craft
- Faster Draw Speed
Which arrows should you use?
The sentiment around regular arrows is that they should mainly be used against animals. Bone arrows are vital for general self-defense against wandering cannibals, and you should always have a good amount of those ready. On the other hand, modern arrows are extraordinarily lethal and can’t be crafted, so we suggest using those against boss mutants only.
The more days you survive, the more aggressive cannibals and mutants become. This is why you need poison and fire arrows because you can easily control a crowd utilizing those. They’re also great for weakening mutants enough to where you can switch to modern arrows for maximum damage output.
Final thoughts on bows and arrows in The Forest
To put it bluntly, the Forest contains a lot of stuff that’s constantly out to kill you. Whether you’re exploring a cave or simply minding your own business, self-defense is a significant part of your experience in this game.
We sincerely hope our guide on how to make bows and arrows in The Forest has taught you new ways to defend yourself against the wretched creatures of this strange peninsula.
