How to increase cold resistance in The Way of Winter in Once Human

I don’t know about you, but I’ve frozen to death a few times already, and the game doesn’t exactly make it simple to figure out how to increase your cold resistance. Lucky for you, I’ve finally figured it out and can tell you exactly how to survive the cold.

How to increase cold resistance with food in Once Human

Screenshot by Destructoid

There are a few ways you can increase your cold resistance, and the first is quite simple: food. There are various new crops in the game that raise your resistance against cold (and heat, too). The crops available in the starting area include:

• Spikemato
• Sunny Ginger
• Polar Pepper

Eating any of the above crops will grant you plus five cold resistance. This means that your character can withstand colder temperatures without getting hypothermia. You can see how much cold resistance you have by paying attention to the meter just below your mini-map.

Screenshot by Destructoid

The blue indicates when you’ll start to freeze, and gets smaller the higher your cold resistance is. The same applies to the red bar and heat resistance.

The next way to increase cold resistance is by using a variety of tools. There are two main items you can craft to buff your temperature resistance, and these are Heatium or Coldium, and the Chaosium Lantern. Yeah, the naming department clearly wanted to keep it simple!

Heatium raises your cold resistance by ten, and it requires Thermoium and coal or Hot Rock Ore.

Screenshot by Destructoid

You can unlock the Thermoium and Heatium recipes by researching Polar Expedition I, found under the Infrastructure tab of your Memetic menu. You’ll need to work fast once you’ve crafted Heatium, however, as it only lasts for 60 minutes.

The Chaosium Lantern works even better, but it requires Chaosium to function. When you run out of Chaosium, your lantern will stop working.

Screenshot by Destructoid

The Lantern is great since it can both raise or lower your body temperature depending on the environment, but it eats Chaosium fast, so you’ll have to get loads of the stuff.

You can get Chasium by looting Vulture enemies or by crafting it at a furnace if you’ve unlocked the Chaosium Extraction memetic, also found under Infrastructure. Polar Expedition II, just below it, will unlock the Chasoium Lantern.

How to increase cold resistance with gear in Once Human

The final and arguably the most reliable way to increase cold resistance in The Way of Winter is by crafting gear with special skins. In the Armor Crafting menu at your Gear Bench, you’ll be able to select from a variety of skins.

Screenshot by Destructoid

What you choose will influence what sort of resistance your clothing has. Your top and pants offer cold or heat resistance, so pay special attention to these. Different skins will offer different levels of resistance.

Tips for exploring colder areas in Once Human

During the early stages of The Way of Winter, I’ve found it difficult to go to the coldest areas that are open to us right now. What has worked for me, however, is when combining several of the above. Since Chaosium is still quite hard to come by, I tend to use a Heatium and keep a stack of food on me.

On my armor, I’m using the deer hides (any variation will do), at least until I can find the natural habitat of the Mountain Cow Hide.

That’s it from me. Good luck surviving the cold, friends!

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