The Forest: Building A Defendable Base

To survive The Forest, it’s crucial to build a defensible base through strategic location selection, resource gathering, and understanding enemy behaviour.

The Forestis an intense survival horror game that plunges players into a terrifying environment of danger and unpredictability. As the lone survivor of a catastrophic plane crash, you awaken in a stunning yet unforgiving forest, surrounded by hostile conditions and menacing enemies, including ferocious cannibals.

One of the best ways to survive throughout this game is to build a defendable base. This guide will walk you through the steps to build a stronghold that protects you against the game’s escalating dangers while allowing you to thrive long enough to discover what happened to the other passengers. 

Choose the Right Location

Align your location with your strategy. When scouting for a site, prioritize access to resources like trees, water, and food. At the same time, think defensively. Water offers a natural barrier, as mutants and cannibals cannot swim, making lakesides or small islands excellent locations. Forested areas have many usable resources to make building easier but are typically closer to villages and patrol routes. 

Camping in an area for a few days will help determine if you’re along a patrol route. The patrols tend to repeat similar movement patterns. So, you can use this to your advantage to increase your chances of avoiding or attacking them. If you want conflict and mayhem, place your base right in the smack-dab middle of the patrol routes, but be aware that you will get exactly what you ask for. 

Gather Essential Supplies

Gather logs, sticks, stones, boulders, and ropes. These are the main components for creating anything in the game. Logs are especially useful when building structures. The log cabin itself requires more than eighty-two logs. If you think you have enough logs, add six more. 

Do yourself a favour and utilize the stick bag, rock bag, and dog sleds. These items will help you harvest these materials more efficiently and spend less time in the open and less time going back and forth. The log sled is one of the greatest ways to move logs to your base after you have completed some slight deforestation. 

Building your base

The Forest allows you to create a base that suits your strategy, your chosen location, and the number of players you have. While surviving as a nomad is possible, this guide focuses on creating a permanent stronghold. 

When building your base, remember there is more than one way to do it. The survival guide the player is given makes it simple to assess what they have, what they need, and what they can build. 

Remember that a defendable base is useless if you die from dehydration or famine. Make equipment like water collectors, animal traps, rabbit cages, gardens, and storage to make your base sustainable for continued survival. 

Layered Defenses

layer your defences by placing traps (deadfall traps, noose traps) in high-traffic areas or in one entrance area to strengthen your base’s defences. 

Traps such as deadfall traps are extremely efficient against cannibals and can significantly damage mutants. After each use, reset the traps with a single stick. Fire pits and standing fires may kill enemies who fall into them while providing light and warmth. If you do not mind playing with fire, you can construct a maze to encourage enemies to run into fire pits. If they enter the fire pit, they will catch fire and suffer fire damage while attempting to attack the player.

Be cautious, though—fire is as dangerous to you as it is to them!

Know Thy Enemy

As you build your base, it will attract greater attention from the locals. Large structures and fires can attract attention, so avoid excessive visibility. Cannibals may observe you before attacking, especially the more intelligent Regular Mutants. They typically scout locations containing structures, traps, flames, and effigies. Although they are not always aggressive, some may spy on the player and wait for the player to strike first, like the Regular Mutants. Starving Mutants, for example, will attack on sight out of pure hunger. Mutants and cannibals follow typical patterns, frequently pausing to pray, sleep, or investigate sounds. Cannibals are most active at night and are drawn to visible fires, though they fear direct light. Use this to your advantage, but remain vigilant.

Final Thoughts

Building a defendable base in The Forest requires strategic planning, resource management, and adaptability. Within the walls of your base, you’ll be able to safely explore the world and the storyline without worrying about being mutilated while you sleep. With these tips, you will be well-equipped to face the horrors that lurk in the shadows.