Key Highlights:
- The Can Opener unlocks canned food into edible cat food, restoring huge hunger.
- Three locations exist: snowy cave, northern beach rocks, and a western camp.
- Combine it with canned food in inventory to craft meals and survive lean days.
The Can Opener in Sons of the Forest is one of those items you don’t realise you need until your bag is stuffed with canned food you can’t eat. On paper it looks trivial, but when hunting fails or you’re caught in caves with no meat to cook, it can be a lifesaver. Cat food might not sound appealing, but it restores a surprising amount of hunger in one go. I’ve seen it top my bar from half empty to full.
Use this map below to identify the 3 locations of the can opener in SOTF:
The first and most common Can Opener spawn is up in the snowy mountain region. On your GPS, track toward a frozen pond near two red tents and broken sleds. Look beside the tent with green sacks and yellow buckets and you’ll spot it on the ground. There’s usually a bit of rope, tarp, meds, and even an extra canned food tin here too, plus a cave nearby with crates that sometimes roll more tins. If you start on the snowy spawn, you can get this one in the opening minutes.
The second sits on the northern coastline, not far from the Rebreather cave. It’s perched on rocks beside the water, alongside rope, duct tape, oysters, and a few drinks. The third is further west at an abandoned campsite near a small waterfall. It’s a grisly scene with red tents, pikes, and a corpse clutching a note. Look near the frying pan in the camp centre to grab it.
Once you’ve got it, using the Can Opener is simple. Open your inventory, place the opener and a can into the crafting mat, then hit the gear. The can opens in a short animation, cat food sloshes out, and the edible portion drops into your inventory. Eat it whenever hunger creeps too far down. Unlike meat, it doesn’t burn or spoil, so it’s one of the most reliable long-term food sources you’ll find.
A few practical tips make it even better. Always stack cans when you find them – they’re common in crates, crash sites, and camps. Don’t waste them when fresh meat is available, save them for caves, boss runs, or winter when food is scarce. And if you’re struggling to pinpoint Can Opener locations, zoom your GPS in and out to match map landmarks, it makes navigation far easier.
Some players dismiss the Can Opener as a luxury because fish, berries, and cooked meat are more common. But from experience, canned food is a guaranteed safety net. If you keep a few cans in reserve and know where to grab the opener early, you’ll never hit a starvation spiral again.