The 1.0 update in Sons of the Forest added a new sickness system that adds another layer of survivability to the game. Now, you can become sick and, if not treated, die as a result. To stop yourself from dying of sickness, learn how it works and how to cure it in Sons of the Forest in the guide below.

How sickness works in Sons of the Forest

Essentially, the new sickness system prohibits your ability to drink murky water and eat spoiled food in Sons of the Forest. Prior to the 1.0 update, you could eat or drink whatever you could get your hands on to keep your Thirst and Hunger bars full. Now, you have to pick and choose what you consume if you don't want to get sick and start losing health.

If you do happen to get sick in Sons of the Forest, a new debuff icon will appear on your screen and your character's max HP will be reduced substantially. Obviously, that's something you want to avoid in Sons of the Forest, as you'd be extremely susceptible to enemy attacks and likely perish if you got into a combat situation with a monster.

How to cure sickness

To avoid having your HP basically cut in half in Sons of the Forest, you'll need to recover from being sick. There are a couple of primary ways to cure sickness, and they are to:

• Drink clean water
• Consume Medicine

Medicine is the best option to cure sickness, as you might expect. It's fairly simple to obtain in Sons of the Forest, as you can choose to craft it and find it randomly in caches all over the map. If you want to craft your own Medicine and not rely on RNG, you can combine Aloe Vera and Yarrow to make a single item of it.

If you'd rather search out caches in Sons of the Forest, I suggest checking near the crash site on the island or searching campsites, as those are the two most likely places to find random containers. You can search just about anything you can open to find Medicine, so don't overlook containers like suitcases or random boxes.

The other route to go aside from Medicine is to drink clean water. Clean water is mainly obtained through crafting a Rain Catcher, which is made by combining 12 Sticks and one Turtle Shell. The Rain Catcher allows you to passively collect rain water, which is clean by default, so you don't need to boil it or anything. You can collect the clean water directly from the Rain Catcher, but remember, it needs to rain for the device to produce water. Alternatively, if you find random water in a flask, you have to boil that to make it clean.

Got a news tip or want to contact us directly? Email news@gamespot.com