Sons of the Forest has a large, living and breathing map which contains both, helpful resources and threatening enemies all over its landscapes. The possibilities are endless when it comes to surviving in this world, since you as the player are given ample amounts of freedom in choosing how you plan on keeping yourself alive.
And one of the main components of making sure you stay alive is knowing how to build a base. And yes, learning how to build one is fairly easy, but then comes the question of where you should be building one, which is less intuitive to answer.
Thankfully, you don’t need to be figuring out these answers on your own. Below, we have listed and talked about some of the best locations to build your base in Sons of the Forest to save you the dirty work.
The seven best locations to build a base in Sons of the Forest
North Beach area
If you haven’t figured it out yourself already, the beach that is situated towards the north proves to be an amazing spot to build a base.
You can admittedly use the nearly endless supply of deer and berries that you will find here. You will find that you’re never left hungry with a constant supply of food like this, especially with deer being one of the best sources of sustenance you can get in Sons of the Forest.
That being said, if deer prove to be too much of a hassle to handle, especially with the time it takes to catch them, you can instead opt for catching and eating turtles instead, which are much easier to capture.
The North Beach is also an ideal place to build your base in the winter, since this is the only place where you can collect a lot of rocks during this season.
You can find a very important tool called the Rebreather in a cave found near North Beach, which is an essential item to be able to explore all of the underwater areas in the game much more liberally, since it lets you breathe for longer underwater.
You can, additionally, get Virginia’s camouflage outfit from this very cave.
Water Island area
This spot has turned incredibly popular among the playerbase of the game, so we wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve already considered this area. There are only a couple of islands in the game, and the best one to build a base is found in the middle of the lake located directly northeast of where you start the game.
This island will give you the maximum amount of protection from cannibals since they aren’t huge fans of swimming. Furthermore, you should have access to a lot of food and water nearby. Yes, you will have to travel slightly to reach the resources, but the protection from cannibals make this a good trade-off.
The one disadvantage this island proves to have as a spot for your base is that you only have a tiny space of land to build on, along with the fact that bringing materials to build your base here will be more difficult; although you do have Kelvin for that job.
There is also the fact that during the winter, the water will get frozen solid which will allow the cannibals free reign to approach and attack you, but by that time, you should already be stable enough due to your excellent base to defend yourself adequately.
On Water Bodies
Yes, you can build your base directly on water bodies, without needing any sort of land to turn it into an island base, but there’s a catch: you will need to wait until winter.
When it turns winter, make your way to a large body of water which should, at this point, freeze solid. An amazing body of water to use for this is the large lake on the East side of the snowy mountains.
Once this lake has frozen solid in the winter, you can begin getting logs onto the ice and building your base. Using preconstructed bases on the ice is a no-go, however, which means you will need to build one from scratch.
When winter ends and the lake turns back into liquid, your base will automatically gain struts underneath it to make sure it stays afloat on the water. This proves to be an amazing location for a base since, similar to the island base, enemies will not be able to attack you when it isn’t winter.
This also means that outside winter, Kelvin won’t be able to bring items over to your base, so building a bridge might be useful to let him run over to the base with resources whenever he needs to. This also means that you are giving up your impenetrable defense against the cannibals, so make sure the bridge is narrow, giving you enough space to defend against cannibals that attempt to attack you.
Snowy Mountain area
This entry is a tricky one, since the snowy mountains aren’t usually considered to be an amazing spot to build a base, especially by beginners. This spot is considered to be a challenging area to survive in, and is mostly preferred by veteran players who want a challenge.
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That being said, there are tons of spots in the snowy mountains where you can find an adequate supply of fish, water, and cover. If you do end up building a base here, we do recommend that you first head down below to collect your essentials—especially crafting resources since you will have a lot of trouble finding them up in the mountains—and then return here to build a base.
After you have built zip lines, making trips below shouldn’t be a problem anymore, however.
Golf Course area
The northeast section of the game’s map has a large golf course that can make for a useful spot to build a base. You will have tons of flat land to work with along with a lot of trees and sticks to use as building resources.
If you’re struggling to find an exact spot, we recommend the area near the pond beside the dig site that leads to Maintenance C, since this spot is near a dependable water source and is a short distance away from the discoverable revolver. Apart from this, it is also an ideal spot to have a good scope of your surroundings to make sure you are free from approaching cannibals.
Secret Bunker area
Situated in the northeast corner of the Sons of the Forest world is a secret bunker within which the Sons of the Forest ending takes place. Next to this bunker is the top of a hill which has a large, flat stretch of land devoid of trees, but surrounded by them all around the area, making this spot a perfect place to build a base.
That being said, this area is only perfect for building a base if you’re making it as an endgame base. In Sons of the Forest, you will notice that lots of the important weapons and tools are found on the west side of the island, which means that if you build this base during the early stages of the game, you’ll be needing to make a lot of long back-and-forth trips.
So make sure you use this spot to build a base at the end of your journey, as apart from the solid availability of food and water, this place is very safe from cannibals, since the nearest camps are south of the nearby creek, which gives you a lot of time to see them trekking up the hill and begin defending yourself.
Three Graves area
The Three Graves area makes it to this list due to how amazing of a spot it is for defending yourself against cannibals. Not to mention, it is quite simple to find this area to build a base for yourself since it is close to one of the most common spawn points in the game.
Make sure to build your base at the clearing of this site since this is the only spot where you will be placed far away from the trees around you, keeping in mind the fact that cannibals can easily climb trees. Moreover, since the trees are not too far off, you can make tiny trips to gather logs and build your base easier, since the resource should be all around you.
Another important tip is to construct your base with its back facing the ocean currents, since this will ensure that you are completely safe from cannibals on that one side, leaving you with one less area to worry about when it comes to cannibals.
While you can mostly just find berries here, you won’t ever be dying from thirst since you can safely drink the water from the stream below.
The one problem of this area is that cannibals will continuously attack you, but the natural preventative measures of the area makes dealing with the cannibals an easy time.