Finding food is a big part of the survival aspect of Metal Gear Survive. Especially early on as you’re having to hunt and forage, not having enough food is a genuine risk to your health, maybe even more so than the Wanderers. As time goes on you can move from hunting to growing your own food, but the risk of starvation only lessens instead of going away. Below we’ll show you how to hunt and find food, and how to build farms and grow your own crops in Metal Gear Survive.
How to Find Food in Metal Gear Survive
When you first get to base camp, Virgil AT-9 will guide you to a small area nearby containing some sheep and explain the hunger and thirst systems. There isn’t a ton for you to eat in Dite, so take it to heart when Virgil suggests you should mark plant and animal locations on your map.
Your initial haul of sheep is pretty filling, but it won’t last long. Virgil will tell you how to cook as well, and you should keep in mind that you always need to cook meat before you eat it or you’ll risk getting sick.
As you progress through the story, Virgil will highlight areas where animals can be found. Scouting these areas and bringing food back is something you want to do while on the way to mission objectives, that way you’re not burning resources on multiple trips. If you’re heading to activate a new wormhole transporter or another main story objective, it’s worth going a bit out of your way to find new sources of food.
You can also eat certain plants in Metal Gear Survive. In particular, the Black Carrot is relatively common and easy to find. Sometimes you’ll luck out and find multiple Black Carrot plants in the same area. Make sure to mark these on your map so you can come back for a later harvest.
How to Build a Farm and Grow Crops in Metal Gear Survive
In addition to hunting and foraging for food in Metal Gear Survive, you’ll gain the ability to grow your own crops on specialized farm plots you can construct in your base camp. You won’t get the ability to build your first farm until Chapter 5. When you rescue the nurse, Miranda, and bring her back to base Virgil will give you the blueprint for the Vegetable Farm: Potato.
Unfortunately, the odds are that you don’t actually have a potato yet. You’re in luck though. Just near Transporter 3 is an area with a few buildings and a big trash pile in the middle. In the trash pile, you should find a stash with three potatoes. Don’t eat them during a mission unless you’re on the verge of death. Once you get back to base camp you should be able to build two Vegetable Farm: Potato, which is the limit for the level one base camp.
Farms take 300 minutes to grow food by default, but this can be improved by adding more crew members to your base improvement crew. Once your crops are grown, you’ll get three food items from each plot. While this just supplies a trickle of food when they’re first built, once you upgrade base camp and have plenty of crew members farming will mostly replace the need to hunt or forage for food.
How to Cook in Metal Gear Survive
Cooking is easy in this game. Virgil will show you how to do it your first time, but there are some nuances to it. Firstly, any cooked item will replenish more health than its uncooked form, so plan on stopping at your campfire every once in a while and having a massive cook fest.
There are also recipes that combine multiple items to make a food dish. These are the most desirable food items because they replenish much more hunger than any of the items going into the dish separately. Additionally, make sure you cook every piece of meat you get. If you eat raw meat and get sick, you’ll have to use medicine. If you run out of medicine, you’ll have to craft it which takes up valuable resources you could use elsewhere.
For more on Metal Gear Survive take a look at our game hub or one of the guides below.
