Crafting is a big part of Days Gone. Players will often find themselves opening the crafting wheel during various situations. It is a fast way to make meds and distractors, repair a melee weapon and build all sorts of destructive items. There are many fun features to explore in the game.
Days Gone has recently come out on PC, driving more new players to the game. Among the many features it has to offer, learning to craft new recipes and use them in exciting ways can help keep fans busy while waiting for a potential sequel.
Updated March 12, 2022, by Ashely Claudino: Crafting is becoming a more common aspect of most games, and people just seem to have fallen in love with it! Days Gone also has lots of recipes that gamers can unlock, it's almost impossible to sum up only the fifteen best recipes, but that's exactly what's been done in this article. Now it's been updated to include some tips on how to get some of the crafting materials necessary to make these recipes, making it easier for players to stock up.
15 Attractor Bomb
The attractor bomb is a great way to catch the Freakers' attention for a few seconds before it explodes and takes some of them down and weakens those that remain alive. Players will unlock the recipe once they have completed 71% of the Ambush Camp Hunter storyline.
Materials Needed
- 1 can
- 1 gunpowder
- 1 spark igniter
- 1 car alarm or alarm clock
- 1 scrap
Acquiring gunpowder will be very important when it comes to crafting most explosive items in the game, so it's best to know where exactly to get it. Gunpowder respawns, and it's not found when searching cars for example; rather, it's out in the open. Its best spawning and farming location is at Spruce Lake Nero Checkpoint in the Crater Lake region.
14 Molotov Cocktail
The Molotov Cocktail is probably the recipe that players will resort to the most throughout their playthrough. It is a great way to take down a large group of opponents, and it's easy to craft. Though, sometimes it's a bit too difficult to find Kerosene, so be sure to always craft as many as possible so that Deacon always has space in his inventory for more.
The recipe will be unlocked right at the start of the game, during the prologue. When riding through the dark tunnel with Boozer, he'll teach Deacon how to make a Molotov.
Materials Needs
- 1 beer bottle
- 1 rag
- 1 kerosene
13 Residue Bolt
The residue bolt is a type of crossbow ammo. If the player shoots an enemy with this bolt, the enemy will attack their allies. Players can use this item to get creative in fights.
For example, rippers tend to start throwing explosives at their allies. Snipers are particularly effective due to their powerful weapons. Either way, it makes it much easier to take down enemy camps with a lot of enemies. Players unlock this recipe after completing the mission "They're Not Sleeping."
Materials Needed
- 1 cedar sapling
- 1 scrap
- 1 nest residue
Clearing nests is the only way to get nest residue in this game. And there's no need to worry — even though nests don't respawn, the residue that they leave behind once they're burned will always respawn from time to time. Sleeping five times in a row is usually the best way to make all respawning materials reappear.
12 Focus Cocktail
Taking down a horde can extremely difficult to pull off. This is especially true once players have unlocked the harshest parts of the map, such as the Highway 97 region, which harbors some of the most difficult hordes in the game. It is in these areas that players will really have to start using up their items.
The focus cocktail will restore some of Deacon St. John's focus, and then slowly regenerate it for a period of time. The recipe becomes available once the player completes 36% of the Ambush Camp Hunter story.
Materials Needed
- 1 rag
- 1 mushroom
- 1 sterilizer
11 Attractor
An Attractor will be particularly useful at the start of the game. It's a great way to get the attention of enemies; it'll help players sneak by or just gather them up before tossing a Molotov and watching them burn.
Players will unlock the Attractor recipe after the mission "Do You Have My Back," which means Deacon will have to help Iron Mike retrieve some maps and visit the courthouse with him.
Materials Needs
- 1 can
- 1 car alarm or alarm clock
- 1 scrap
10 Smoke Bomb
Many gamers love to do stealthy playthroughs of all kinds of games. The smoke bomb is a mandatory item for those trying to achieve this. It can also get the player out of some tricky situations, especially in the early game when Deacon doesn't have access to as many powerful weapons and might have to resort to his boot knife.
Getting the primary suppressor unlocked from Ada Tucker's camp also comes in handy for those that prefer a quieter type of gameplay. The smoke bomb recipe is unlocked once the player completes 21% of the Ambush Camp Hunter storyline.
Materials Needed
- 1 can
- 1 rag
- 1 gunpowder
- 1 scrap
Rags are pretty much everywhere around the map in Days Gone, so it's quite difficult to run out of them. However, if that's ever the case, clearing Ambush and Marauder Camps and looting corpses will always fill up the player's inventory with rags.
9 Health Cocktail
A Health Cocktail can be more useful than bandages and medkits in certain situations. Unlike the other medicine in the game, not only will it immediately heal a portion of Deacon's health, but it will also keep healing him over time at a slower rate. This is especially helpful if players are fighting a lot of enemies and being hit constantly.
To get access to this recipe, players have to complete the mission A War We Can Win first.
Materials Needed
- 1 rag
- 1 mayweed
- 1 sterilizer
8 Baseball Bat Axe
The Baseball Bat Axe is one of the strongest melee weapons in the game. Though the Superior Mace and the Superior Metal Axe are more powerful, they can't actually be crafted, unlike the Baseball Bat Axe.
Players unlock this recipe once they have completed 29% of the Ambush Camp Hunter storyline. Its components are all common things that are often scattered throughout the map, making it possible to easily craft this great melee.
Materials Needed
- Baseball bat
- Saw blade
- 1 scrap
Although saw blades aren't a very common crafting material, and they don't have particular spawn locations, they can often be found at Ambush and Marauder Camps as well as workshops.
7 Crossbow Bolt
Although it's not for everyone's playstyle, the Crossbow is perhaps the best weapon to keep on Deacon at all times. Players can actually craft its ammo, so it can be very reliable compared to regular weapons. It should come as no surprise that the Crossbow Bolt is also one of the most common craftables in the game.
Its recipe is unlocked once the prologue is completed and Deacon retrieves the Crossbow from his Weapon Locker.
Materials Needed
- 1 cedar sapling
- 1 scrap
6 Remote Bomb
Defeating hordes and clearing infestation zones is much easier once players get access to remote bombs. As the name indicates, these are bombs that are remotely activated. Thus, they have to be placed before the player denotes them. This makes them quite helpful when it comes to taking down larger groups of enemies.
Placement is key. Players should place them outside cave entrances, near explosives, near windows — places where the Swarmers will funnel themselves. Players unlock remote bombs are unlocked after completing the mission "We Couldn't Take The Risk."
Materials Needed
- 1 airbag
- 1 spark igniter
- 1 box of nails
- 1 scrap
5 Proximity Bomb
The Proximity Bomb isn't only good for taking down hordes, it's also a good way to eliminate human enemies. Players can set up these traps beforehand and then leave. Once an opponent approaches it, it'll go off and take them out. They are quite useful and fun to use.
Players will unlock the Proximity Bomb recipe once they've completed 50% of the Ambush Camp Hunter storyline, that's seven out of 14 Ambush Camps.
Materials Needed
- 1 can
- 1 spark igniter
- 1 gunpowder
- 1 box of nails
- 1 scrap
4 Stamina Cocktail
As the game progresses, players are sure to stumble upon a horde or two. If not fully prepared, a horde can kill the player in a matter of seconds. Stamina is extremely important in these types of situations; if Deacon runs out of stamina, he won't be able to outrun the horde.
To unlock the stamina cocktail recipe, the player has to complete 14% of the Ambush Camp Hunter storyline. Thankfully, they can achieve this fairly early in the game.
Materials Needed
- 1 rag
- 1 berry
- 1 sterilizer
3 Incendiary Bolt
Molotov cocktails are the most common way to burn nests. However, there is a much more practical and frugal way to do this: incendiary bolts. To make a molotov cocktail, players need 1 kerosene, but the same amount of kerosene creates three incendiary bolts.
Since higher difficulty modes make resources more scarce, getting this recipe will save the player a lot of kerosene. Players unlock the recipe once they have completed 57% of the Ambush Camp Hunter storyline.
Materials Needed
- 1 cedar sapling
- 1 kerosene
- 1 rag
- 1 scrap
Kerosene is often found in sheds around the map, so always be sure to check their interior when driving by a shed. Another great way to get some kerosene is going by the O'Leary Mountain camp (the one where Boozer stays at the start of the game). This is a guaranteed spawning location, so it doesn't hurt to stop by every so often and see if it's been replenished.
2 Pipe Bomb
When it comes to defeating hordes, there are a few known strategies. When getting chased by a horde, a useful strategy that fans have discovered is to throw a pipe bomb at Deacon's feet while he runs and continuing to sprint forward.
The bomb takes a few seconds to explode, and will blow up any Freakers chasing Deacon. This also works with grenades but, unlike pipe bombs, grenades aren't craftable and can only be purchased at encampments, using credits. Players unlock this recipe after completing the mission "They Will Never Stop."
Materials Needed
- 1 small pipe
- 1 box of nails
- 1 gunpowder
- 1 scrap
It may seem common in the world of Days Gone, but scrap is needed for nearly every crafting recipe in the game. Acquiring the Monkey Wrench is a must in this case, since it doubles the effectiveness of scrap needed for repairing Deacon's bike, thus making more scrap available for crafting. Farming scrap is all about looting human corpses and searching broken-down and abandoned vehicles.
1 Napalm Molotov
The Napalm Molotov is a much more powerful version of the regular Molotov Cocktail. It is the perfect recipe for large hordes with over 50 Swarmers, and can significantly weaken the horde in just a couple of seconds.
To get the recipe, players have to significantly progress in the main story of the game. The Napalm Molotov recipe is unlocked once the player completes the mission "You Alone I Have Seen."
Materials Needed
- 1 growler
- 1 rag
- 1 kerosene
- 1 polystyrene
Visiting NERO Checkpoints is the most effective way to get Polystyrene in the game without having to visit dangerous Freaker-riddled areas. So, it's best to farm it this way considering, that the only reason to want to craft Napalm Molotovs is destroying all massive hordes in the late game.