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 in Once Human, and the game doesn’t make it simple to figure out how to survive the cold. Luckily, I’ve finally figured it out and can tell you exactly how to increase your cold resistance in Once Human.

How to increase cold resistance with food in Once Human

There are a few ways to 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 +5 cold resistance. This means that your character can withstand colder temperatures without getting hypothermia. You can see how much cold resistance on the meter just below your mini-map.

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

How to increase cold resistance with tools in Once Human

The next way to increase cold resistance is by using various tools. The two main items that buff your temperature resistance are Heatium or Coldium and the Chaosium Lantern. Yeah, the naming department clearly wanted to keep it simple!

Heatium raises your cold resistance by 10, and it requires Thermoium and coal or Hot Rock Ore.

You can unlock the Thermoium and Heatium recipes by researching Polar Expedition I, which can be 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.

The Lantern is great since it can raise or lower your body temperature depending on the environment. However, 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 can choose from a variety of skins.

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 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 just about covers everything about increasing your cold resistance in Once Human. Good luck surviving the cold, friends!