How to use GPS Locators & Trackers in Sons of the Forest

When you want to find your place

Chances are the first thing you do in Sons of the Forest after dying a whole bunch and starting over is gravitate toward the various points on your GPS map. If you choose to check out one of the purple ones, you’ll find, among other things, a dead body and a GPS locator.

The GPS locators aren’t just for collecting, however. They do have a quite useful function. It’s just not very clear since you can’t easily drop them or set them somewhere, but we’re here to help you with that.

As I said above, to find the GPS locators, you’ll need to travel to one of the purple points on the map. Note that one of them requires you to have the shovel to reach, but the other two will reward you handsomely with some needed gear. Be careful with the one located on the life raft, as it’s constantly circled by sharks. For the one that points to the hanging corpse, you’ll need to either shoot the rope or cut it from atop the cliff to release the guy.

Once you’ve gotten your hands on one of them, there are a few uses. First, you can change the icon that appears on the map by pressing the alternate fire button. The symbols should give you some ideas of what to use them for. You can use them to mark the locations of any caches you make, landmarks you find, or good areas to hunt or find supplies. These will always appear on your GPS screen, even when the area they’re placed is cropped off.

To set them, you’re going to need a stick. Look at the ground and press the alternate fire; this will change the cursor into a circle. Tap the fire button, and you will plant the stick in the ground. You can then place the marker atop it. If you want to be more secure, you can plant three rocks around the stake.

Another use for marker is to give one to the three-legged lady who roams around the island. After you befriend her, she’ll let you give her certain items. One of these items is a GPS marker, which will track her on the map, as you already do with Kelvin.

Lastly, two of the GPS markers respawn, allowing you to grab more of these. This could be due to a bug, or it might just be a way for you grab more markers than are currently implemented in the game. Either way, it means you don’t have to carefully ration the ones you have, as there’s always a supply.

The island can be a confusing place to navigate, but through proper use of the GPS locators, it should be a bit easier.