Artifact Ball

Artifact Ball

Two artifact balls with each color
Description
Added in	v1.0
Item type	Unique
Location(s)	Artifact Cave
Obtained through	Collecting
Equipable	Yes
Upgradable	No
Throwable	No
Consumable	No
Spoils	No
Storage	None
Statistics
Other Effects	Alters mutant aggression
Range	Decently large radius
Max. Stack	1

The artifact ball is a unique end game item that was added in update v1.0 to The Forest. Thanks to its properties, it is considered one of the most powerful items in the game.

Gameplay[]

The artifact ball is used to alter the way the cannibals work. It may be held in the hand or stuck in the ground. It will have its own HUD icon for you to be able to locate it. When placed down, the artifact can still attract or repel enemies, but it is unknown as to if this also applies to enemies that spawn inside the caves. The Artifact ball affects all enemies spawned on the map.

There are two modes:

Blue: Activated by the Right Mouse Button (L2 on PlayStation). Will cause enemies to become passive, or run away from the artifact ball. It seems to be a good solution for crisis situations. It provides security in every minute of gameplay, making it possible to gather supplies, project new base elements and even rest - being completely safe. This can allow the player to safely build bases in the more dangerous areas of the game before switching to red mode for a siege.

Red: Activated by the Left Mouse Button (R2 on PlayStation). Will attract enemies and make them very hostile. From here, the player are able to break routine of safe farming by organizing your own death matches. Cannibals summoned by the power of the artifact are violent, they might come in big groups. As observed so far, 6 creepy mutants and up to 15 cannibals might come at close time distance. Previously, the game never gave the player this kind of opportunity to test their combat abilities. Red Mode can be also useful during bone/skull/creepy armor/body parts/head trophy farming due to the high number of enemies. It is intended to replace Horde Mode, which existed many updates ago and was removed prior to the full release of the game. It is a good way to test your base's durability, against a massive invasion of cannibals and mutants. After killing all enemies, there is a cooldown before more of them will spawn in the world. It will often take until the next in-game day for the enemy resources to fully reset. To ensure that the maximum number of cannibals and mutants show up on red mode (or to quickly get some action again without having to wait for long) the player should save and exit, then load in their world again. Doing this will refresh the daily enemy resources; they will start spawning in again after a few short minutes.

Closed: Activated by clicking same mouse button twice. This mode, from what is known, has no effect on gameplay.

After retrieving the artifact ball, the player must keep it safe at all costs; if they lose the ball and then save over their current save slot, they will lose it forever, as it will not respawn in its cave location. You can obtain two or more artifacts in multiplayer, just make sure that a griefer does not steal one in the process of duplication.

Theory[]

According to a survivor who shut down the Second Artifact, the Artifact Ball may be tied to the cannibals origin as a behavioral manipulator. The blue mode causes the enemies to fall into a dormant/docile state by quickly draining the urge to hunt/eat, even replacing their desire to kill and eat people/each other with a strong fear of strangers.

On the flipside, the red mode causes the Artifact Ball to produce rage-inducing waves of energy throughout the peninsula, even going so far as to draw enemies towards its location. This may have been used by its creators to send large groups of cannibals to exterminate intruders via planting it discretely at said intruders location.