How to Change Weapons Without Opening Your Inventory in Sons of the Forest

Endnight Games’ Sons of the Forest gives you several weapons to play with, and considering the island’s less friendly inhabitants, it’s handy to have them around. But it might seem as if the only way to switch weapons is to open up your whole inventory. However, what if there’s another method? Maybe you’ve been wondering how to change weapons without opening your inventory in Sons of the Forest, whether it’s hotkeys or creative backpack usage. Here’s a full explanation.

To Change Weapons Without Opening Your Inventory in Sons of the Forest, Use These Hotkeys

While the game didn’t launch with hotkeys, Sons of the Forest now has a hotkey option that will let you assign not just weapons but all sorts of equippable items to a hotkey. Now, you can switch weapons with the tap of a button.

Here’s how to assign a weapon (or other equippable item) to a hotkey:

• Open your inventory by tapping I.
• Find the weapon you want and move the mouse point of it but don’t click.
• You’ll see a small gray box appear that, if you’ve not assigned a hotkey so far, will be empty.
• Press a number key on the keyboard, from 1 through to 0.

And that’s all there is to it — now, if you hit that number key, the weapon or item will be equipped in Sons of the Forest. To reassign an item’s hotkey, just repeat this but use a different number. Or if you’re looking for a slightly more realistic way of changing weapons without opening your inventory, there’s always your backpack.

How to Change Weapons with Your Backpack in Sons of the Forest

You can also attach two weapons to your backpack and access them without opening up your full inventory.

If you’re scratching your head, we don’t blame you. Sons of the Forest doesn’t sit you down and explain this, but if you hold down your inventory key / button (I on the keyboard), you’ll get your backpack out.

To be clear: Tap I, you get your inventory; hold I, you get your backpack. So what you can do is attach your two weapons of choice to your backpack. You do that by hitting I to go to the main inventory, then right-clicking on the backpack.

That’ll let you add up to two weapons — for example, your axe and stun baton. For some reason, you can’t add your knife. So, now that you’ve added those two, you can hold down I and then click on the weapons on the backpack. Whichever you click is the one your character will equip.

So you have two options, one realistic, one not so realistic, when it comes to the topic of how to change weapons without opening your inventory in Sons of the Forest.