Once you start progressing in the game, players will naturally begin to uncover plenty of new weapons. One of the weapons you’re guaranteed to find in the game is the Crossbow, a high-powered weapon with a long reload time. For those who want to go hunting, whether it is for food or picking off enemies, we’ll teach you how to get the Crossbow in Sons of the Forest.

View Full-size

Here is a look at how to get the Crossbow in the Sons of the Forest.

How to get the Sons of the Forest Crossbow¶

Players must enter the Food Bunker to get the Crossbow in Sons of the Forest. The Food Bunker is towards the northeast of the island, in the fields between the Beach Cave, and the Leisure Bunnker. Once there, head into the mouth of the cave in front of the golf caddies, then enter the shaft. From there, you can enter the food bunker’s mess hall. If you have the Maintenance Key, then you can enter the main bunker area via the double door on the right side of the mess hall as you enter it.

When inside, you will find a laboratory which grows food. Follow the area down till you come to a shelf storage area. From there, you can find a dead bandit-looking character, with the Crossbow by his side.

Throughout this area, you can find plots of Crossbow Bolt ammunition along the walls, in other dead bodies, and more. The ammunition respawns whenever you restart the game server after saving. Therefore, you can get lots of ammo for your ranged activities if you return to this location when necessary.

If you’re struggling to get into the Food Bunker, then you will need to do the following:

1. Get the Rope Gun from the !Rope Gun Cave. You can find this in the central southeast direction, near where the several streams descend from the mountain.
2. Get the Rebreather from the Beach Cave in the north. This is close to the Food Bunker anyway.
3. Enter the !Shovel Cave, and acquire the Shovel in the central-eastern area near the 3D printer Cave and the hanging rope tracker objective.
4. Now head to the Green POI north of the !Shovel Cave.
5. Dig the ground up, enter the Maintenance A Shaft, and grab the Maintenance Keycard from the bedroom. This allows you to enter the Food Bunker’s door, among other doors.

How to use the Crossbow in Sons of the Forest¶

The Crossbow primarily operates as a high-powered, accurate and lengthy-range weapon. However, the drawbacks of this weapon is that its crank speed to reload could be faster. It makes it an ideal situation when you can easily pick enemies off at a distance.

If you want something more robust, the Compound Bow is a better choice, has its draw speed is much faster. However, it does slightly less damage and armor pen, but, due to the weapon’s speed, it likely does better DPS in more hectic moments than the Crossbow. Therefore, if you intend to pick off armored or sturdy targets stealthy, then the Crossbow is the weapon to use.

The other factor you need to consider is stealth. The reason why is that stealth is a great counter against the mutants with no functioning face, such as the Faceless, and the Finger. You often find the Fingers and Faceless mutants in caves and Bunkers. You can hit these enemies without making much noise, resulting in clean stealth kills after planting multiple arrows or bolts into their bodies.

This summarizes just about everything you need to know about the Sons of the Forest Crossbow. Good luck out there, survivor.