Sons Of The Forest: Easy Guide To Defeat Caterpillars

Caterpillars, John 2.0, CatDog, Slinky Joe, the Worm — known by a multitude of names almost as unpleasant as its appearance, this long, two-headed mutant is a terrifying menace, and one of the worst encounters to have in "Sons of the Forest." It's extremely aggressive and attacks the player on sight with wide, sweeping attacks that are hard to dodge and leave very few viable openings for counterattacks. Meleeing this bony pool noodle is hard even with a stun baton to help, and it soaks up so many arrows before coming even close to death — not to mention, it moves as fast as a sprinting player, making it nearly impossible to shake off and very difficult to kite over traps. To top it off, it's resistant to fire and can jump over most walls.

In short, it's a complete nightmare of a resource drain that can really wreck your playthrough if encountered in the early game. The only good news is that it's relatively rare, with a good number of players having never encountered it despite playing the game from start to finish. The bad news is that it's not impossible to have frequent encounters of more than one at a time — if you've been having a streak of bad luck in this game, it might be best to stay prepared for the worst. Here are all the easiest known methods of dealing with the "Sons of the Forest" Caterpillars.

The unfortunate truth is that the "Sons of the Forest" Caterpillar is terrible to deal with before unlocking the shotgun or having access to a steady supply of explosives. This free-flipping frankfurter can be very handily dispatched with a few shotgun slugs — and can even be killed in one hit with some buckshot — but will happily eat up dozens of arrows and smaller bullets before finally dropping dead. Shooting it in one of its heads reportedly does a bit more damage, but not enough to make much of a difference if you're already short on ammo. Shooting it from the sides can help, and it is susceptible to the Stun Gun and Stun Baton, giving you the option to run or counterattack while it's stunned. 

However, a rinse-and-repeat of stunning and gunning is still a slow battle that isn't really effort-free — other than feeding it some shotgun shells or well-aimed explosives, there really is no "easy" way of dealing with Mr. Slinky. Your only early-game options are to combat it via slow attrition, either with tons and tons of ammo or a pre-made field of spikes to kite it through. In a pinch, you can also try to kill it with Molotov cocktails while dodging its flips, as it is resistant — but not entirely immune — to fire damage.

If you're not too picky about playing the game as the developers intended, there is a physics glitch you can exploit to kill CatDog quickly and painlessly — one of the several glitches players can take advantage of. All it requires is one log, one stick, and a bit of fast maneuvering, making it a viable option for those who haven't unlocked the shotgun. However, it does require you to be in singleplayer or the host of your multiplayer server, as client players cannot properly trigger the mechanisms involved.

The setup is simple: Place down a mid-sized log horizontally across the ground, prop up one end with a stick, then kite the Worm into the log to instantly kill it in what seems to be the same principle behind the deadfall traps from the previous game, "The Forest." A notable side effect of this exploit is that it seems to duplicate the log used, which is bizarre but ultimately beneficial — though you won't get much mileage out of actually trying to farm logs with this method. It's probably best to use it as a quick solution until you can start properly dealing with this slinky mutant — which, considering you need both the shovel and the rope gun to unlock the shotgun, might be a little ways off.