Sons of the Forest Weapons Guide: All 21 Confirmed

Sons of the forest weapons guides online tend to round the total up or down without saying where the number comes from. This one doesn't: every weapon below is pulled directly from the game's own wiki weapons page, split into the same melee and ranged categories the wiki itself uses.

TL;DR: Sons of the Forest has 21 confirmed weapons: 11 melee and 10 ranged, per the official wiki. This excludes explosives and attachments, which the wiki tracks separately. A commonly mentioned "nail gun" could not be confirmed as a real item; it doesn't appear on the wiki's Tools page.

How many weapons are in Sons of the Forest? (quick answer)

21, split into 11 melee and 10 ranged weapons, confirmed directly from the game's own wiki weapons page. This total doesn't include explosives (Molotovs, grenades) or weapon attachments, both of which the wiki catalogs as their own separate categories rather than folding them into the core weapon count.

Key takeaways

• 21 total confirmed weapons: 11 melee, 10 ranged
• Melee: Crafted Club, Crafted Spear, Guitar, Katana, Machete, Putter, Stun Baton, Firefighter Axe, Modern Axe, Tactical Axe, Utility Knife
• Ranged: Cross, Crossbow, Compound Bow, Crafted Bow, Pistol, Revolver, Rifle, Shotgun, Slingshot, Stun Gun
• Explosives and attachments are separate wiki categories, not counted in the 21
• A "nail gun" could not be confirmed as a real item on the wiki's Tools page

All 11 melee weapons

Crafted Club and Crafted Spear are the two weapons a player can make from scratch early on, before finding anything better, and both remain worth keeping in inventory even after better weapons show up, since crafting materials for them are almost never scarce the way ammunition for firearms can be. Guitar and Putter are unconventional found melee weapons, closer to novelty picks than efficient ones, but both are real, confirmed items rather than jokes. Katana and Machete are found blade weapons with a cleaner swing profile than the improvised early options. Stun Baton is a non-lethal option that incapacitates rather than kills outright.

The three axes, Firefighter Axe, Modern Axe, and Tactical Axe, are worth separating from each other since they're not interchangeable despite the shared category. The Modern Axe in particular is primarily a wood-gathering efficiency tool, confirmed to cut trees significantly faster than the Tactical Axe, even though it also functions as a usable melee weapon. Rounding out the list, Utility Knife is a small, fast, low-damage option better suited to skinning and crafting than sustained combat.

That dual-purpose design, tool first, weapon second, runs through more of this melee list than players expect on a first playthrough. Treating the Modern Axe purely as a combat upgrade over the Tactical Axe misses its actual advantage, which shows up in wood-gathering speed rather than damage output. The same logic applies loosely to the Utility Knife: its low damage output makes far more sense once you know its primary job is skinning and crafting, not fighting off a Puffton-tier encounter.

All 10 ranged weapons

The bow family covers three distinct options: Crafted Bow (the earliest, weakest version a player can make), Compound Bow (a stronger found upgrade), and Cross (also referred to distinctly from the Crossbow on the wiki's own weapon list, a separate bow-family item rather than a duplicate entry). Crossbow itself is a separate found weapon from both. Slingshot is the lowest-damage ranged option, useful early for conserving better ammunition.

Keeping these four apart matters more than it might seem, since "bow" and "crossbow" get used interchangeably in casual conversation even though the wiki treats Cross and Crossbow as genuinely separate confirmed entries. If a build recommendation mentions upgrading from a Crafted Bow, it's worth checking specifically whether it means the Compound Bow or one of the crossbow-family items, since this guide's own source didn't confirm they behave identically and treating them as interchangeable isn't something to assume without checking further.

A Stun Gun held in-hand near the aftermath of a shoreline encounter, one of the confirmed non-lethal ranged options.

Firearms make up the rest of the ranged list: Pistol, Revolver, Rifle, and Shotgun cover the standard lethal firearm tiers, while Stun Gun rounds out the non-lethal ranged options alongside the melee Stun Baton. None of these firearms are available from the very start of a run; all are found items rather than early craftables, which is part of why the crafted spear and bow remain relevant well past the opening hour.

This is also why weapon progression in Sons of the Forest doesn't follow a strict "always upgrade" curve the way some survival games do. A Crafted Bow found on day one stays genuinely useful for silent takedowns long after a player has found a Rifle, since noise and ammo conservation matter as much as raw damage once caves and bunkers introduce respawning enemies. Deciding which of the 10 ranged weapons to actually carry, rather than just which one hits hardest, is a real decision this list is meant to inform rather than flatten into a single "best weapon" answer.

GODEEPER: Several of these weapons only matter once you're deep enough to reach the game's boss encounters, where the wrong loadout can turn a fight into a much longer fight than it needs to be. Sons of the Forest Bosses: All 3 Explained →

Picking a starting loadout

New players tend to default to whatever weapon they find first rather than thinking about what a run's early hours actually demand. A crafted spear plus a crafted bow covers most early needs without burning through scarce ammunition, and both can be remade if lost. Firearms are worth prioritizing once found, but conserving their ammo for genuinely dangerous encounters, rather than routine hunting or clearing minor threats, tends to matter more than which specific firearm you happen to be carrying.

What's NOT on this list, and why

A few items that show up in secondhand weapon lists don't belong here, and it's worth explaining why rather than silently omitting them. Explosives, Molotov cocktails, tripwire traps, and similar throwables are real, confirmed items, but the wiki tracks them as a separate category from its core weapons page, so folding them into "21 weapons" would misrepresent the wiki's own structure. Weapon attachments (scopes, grips, and similar add-ons for firearms) are likewise a distinct category rather than standalone weapons.

Separately, a "nail gun" is sometimes mentioned in community discussion as a Sons of the Forest tool. A direct check of the wiki's Tools page found no such item listed, alongside the Modern Axe, Tactical Axe, Firefighter Axe, Repair Tool, Utility Knife, Shovel, Rope Gun, and 3D Printer that do appear there. Treat any reference to a nail gun as unconfirmed rather than repeating it as fact.

The distinction matters beyond just getting a number right. A player planning a loadout around "the game's weapons" who doesn't realize explosives and attachments sit in separate categories might assume a rifle scope counts as its own inventory slot the same way a weapon does, or might undercount how many actual combat tools they have on hand at a given moment because they're only mentally tracking the 21-item core list. Knowing where the wiki draws its own category lines isn't just trivia here, it changes how you'd realistically plan a loadout around what's actually available.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many weapons are in Sons of the Forest? 21 confirmed, per the game's own wiki: 11 melee and 10 ranged. That count excludes explosives and weapon attachments, which the wiki tracks as separate categories.

What are the melee weapons in Sons of the Forest? Crafted Club, Crafted Spear, Guitar, Katana, Machete, Putter, Stun Baton, Firefighter Axe, Modern Axe, Tactical Axe, and Utility Knife, per the official wiki's weapons page.

What are the ranged weapons in Sons of the Forest? Cross, Crossbow, Compound Bow, Crafted Bow, Pistol, Revolver, Rifle, Shotgun, Slingshot, and Stun Gun, per the official wiki's weapons page.

Is the Modern Axe just for building in Sons of the Forest? No. It's primarily a wood-gathering efficiency tool, cutting trees faster than the Tactical Axe, but it also functions as a melee weapon like the game's other axes.

Does Sons of the Forest have a nail gun? Not confirmed. A direct check of the official wiki's Tools page found no nail gun listed among craftable or found tools, so treat any reference to one as unverified rather than a real in-game item.

Are explosives counted in the 21 weapons total? No. The wiki's weapons page separates explosives and attachments from its main melee-and-ranged weapon tally, so the 21 figure covers only the core weapon list.

Related Reading

• Sons of the Forest Complete Guide: the hub for every Sons of the Forest guide on this site.
• Sons of the Forest Bosses: All 3 Explained: the confirmed boss roster and why Virginia isn't one of them.
• Sons of the Forest Building, Caves and Bunkers Guide: tools, the blueprint system, and what's actually inside the game's bunkers.

References

• Sons of the Forest on Steam: official store page and current review data.
• Sons of the Forest official wiki: Weapons: the full confirmed weapons list.
• Sons of the Forest official wiki: Tools: confirmed tool list, used to verify the nail gun claim.