How to find shovel

Difficulty: 8/10 | Time: 15-20 minutes.

Briefly:

1. Grab the rope gun and rebreather, find the cave entrance — "Cave C".
2. After entering, use the rope gun to descend down the rope.
3. Dive into the water and swim all the way.
4. After surfacing, neutralize 4-6 "Puffies" or run past them without fighting, grab the wetsuit by the rock, and keep running.
5. Slide down the steep slope to the bottom. Turn right and run to the open area.
6. Neutralize 4-6 "Puffies" or avoid the fight, then run forward into the narrow passage.
7. After entering the second open area, neutralize 2-3 "Legsies", 3-4 "Puffies", 2-3 "Fingers", or avoid them. Pick up the bunker marker from the laptop. Run further into the narrow passage.
8. Dive and swim to the next part of the cave.
9. Neutralize 2-4 "Puffies" and 1-2 "Fingers", then run forward to the scenic view and the shovel itself.
10. Run back. When rocks explode to your left in the narrow passage, blow up the "Blob" with explosives and enter the new passage.
11. Run to the end — the cave exit will be there.

📍 Path to the Cave

• The path to the cave is relatively simple. To complete the cave, you'll need a rebreather and a rope gun.
• Run to the starting beach, near which there's a boat with a pistol in the ocean. Turn your back to the water and run to the right river (img. 1).
• Once you reach the river, run upstream almost to the end. You can use the paths for easier movement.
• You need to run up the river until you spot cliffs on your right, to the east. They are quite large and hard to mistake: they have no trees or vegetation. Run past these cliffs, then turn right as soon as they end.
• After the turn, run forward until you find a small fork of streams and the cave entrance itself — "Cave C (Shovel Cave)" (img. 2).

💡 IMPORTANT: At the cave entrance, there are 3 operatives on stakes — one of them is holding a slingshot. I recommend taking it for your collection.

⚔️ Actions Inside the Cave

• After entering the cave, you'll see a natural barrier and a small waterfall. Go down the small waterfall, pick up one air tank for the rebreather, then climb back up to your starting position.
• Now you'll need the rope gun — use it to descend the rope (img. 3). After descending, you'll find yourself in a large zone — it's completely safe. To your right, near the flashlights, there are some supplies. To your left is the water path — here you'll need the rebreather. Dive into the water and swim into the hole at the very bottom, all the way.
• After surfacing, enemies will be waiting: 4-6 "Puffies". You can run past them — that's what I recommend, since they won't be able to catch you. After surfacing, walk about 5 meters and you'll see a wetsuit on the rocks to your right, along with some supplies (img. 4) — pick them up, then run to the end and jump onto the steep slope. Your character will slide down hundreds of meters without losing health and land in water.
• You need to turn right toward the flashlight (img. 5). There are several supplies by the flashlight — pick them up and run forward.
• Before entering the large open area, pick up some combat supplies from the suitcases on the left. IMPORTANTKeep at least one grenade — you'll need it to exit the cave (img. 6).
• After entering the large open area, 3-5 "Puffies" will already be waiting. Run past or neutralize them, then run forward toward the flashlight and the entrance to the narrow corridor. Keep running until you see the entrance to the second open area (img. 7).

• Run to the end after passing a small puddle. When you find a body of water — jump into it and swim to the end.
• After surfacing, things will be relatively calm: 1-3 "Puffies" and 1-2 "Fingers". You can also run past them. IMPORTANTYou can taunt the enemies and run into the water. Mutants are dumb — they'll try to reach you. They can't swim, so they'll stop flailing after a few seconds in the water. Stay a bit underwater but not too close — if you're too close, they might hit you. If you're too far, they might lose interest. Run forward to the medium-sized area — here you'll find a beautiful view and the shovel, with 4-6 "Babies" crawling around (img. 9). Pick up the shovel.

🚪 Cave Exit and Next Steps

• After picking up the shovel, run back to the water, and after surfacing, follow the same route you used to get here.
• Around the passage leading to the first large zone and area where you picked up the combat supplies, the wall will be broken by a "Blob" (img. 10).
• I don't recommend getting close — it can deal damage. Pull out a grenade or the explosives you saved for this moment and throw them at it — it will explode. After the new passage is opened by the explosion — run forward all the way.
• Along the way, you'll only encounter 4-8 "Babies" — you can run past them.
• At the end of the passage, you'll find the cave exit — go out. Now you have the shovel, a very useful tool. You can dig up story bunkers, simple graves with supplies, and find the shotgun.

🔪 Shovel: Full Overview

The Shovel is one of the key and most useful items in Sons of the Forest. With it, you can dig up entrances to many shelters and find various additional weapons and gear. It will always help you find rare and important items, but the main reason to get it is access to the shotgun and bunkers.

Primary Use

• The Shovel is used to remove small voxel sections of dirt. IMPORTANTin the current game version, it cannot fill holes back in, so be careful what you dig up. However, over time, holes you've dug will gradually fill back in with dirt on their own.

What the Shovel Unlocks

The Shovel is necessary to access Maintenance Bunkers A, B, and C, inside which you'll find many useful and story-related items (for example: the Maintenance Keycard).

Additionally, it's with the shovel that you can obtain the shotgun — one of the most powerful weapons in the game.

💎 Additional Tips

• The Shovel is an item you should get as early as possible. Without it, you won't be able to enter most underground bunkers and get top-tier weapons and gear. Priority sequence: rebreather → rope gun → shovel → shotgun | firefighter axe. After getting the shovel, carefully examine any suspicious patches of ground — especially near abandoned camps and at the base of cliffs. There are sometimes graves there that you can dig up to find supplies, like ropes.