Icarus Guide: How to Survive in the Arctic Biome

There’s a good chance that you’ve mostly spent your time frolicking in the forests of Icarus. With bountiful fields and serene lakes, the challenges in each mission will eventually give way to tranquil scenery. Eventually, though, you’ll enter the frigid wastelands just to progress further in certain missions like Icestorm Expedition. Here’s our Icarus guide to help you survive the arctic biome, including making the Fur Armor Set, fighting polar bears, and staying safe during snowstorms.

Note: For more information, check out our Icarus guides and features hub.

Icarus Guide: How to Survive in the Arctic Biome

The Fur Armor Set in Icarus

The key factor that you’ll have to contend with if you explore the arctic biomes of Icarus is the cold. It’s likely that you’re just using the Cloth Armor Set. It helps, but you’re better off wearing the Fur Armor Set. These are Tier 2 items, but you need to reach level 20 first before they can be unlocked.

• Crafting Bench – 60x fiber, 50x wood, 12x stone, and 20x leather. Used to create various fixtures; must be placed in a shelter.
• Textile Bench – 60x fiber, 20x stick, 50x wood, and 12x stone. Create this using the Crafting Bench, then deploy it in a shelter. This allows you to make various types of Tier 2 armor.
• Fur Chest Armor – 8x leather, 24x fur, and 8x rope.
• Fur Leg Armor – 8x leather, 18x fur, and 8x rope.
• Fur Head Armor – 4x leather, 12x fur, and 4x rope.
• Fur Arm Armor – 4x leather, 8x fur, and 2x rope.
• Fur Feet Armor – 8x leather, 12x fur, and 4x rope.
• Rope – You’ll need the Leather Breakdown talent from the Survival – Hunting tree. This lets you convert leather into rope.

Each piece of the Fur Armor Set in Icarus provides physical resistance, exposure resistance, and cold resistance. Wearing the full set adds an extra 5% cold resistance, too.

Note: There are other gear pieces that you can wear, such as the Polar Bear Armor Set. Unfortunately, this requires more effort, and you’ll end up wasting so many points for the Blueprint: Polar Bear Armor talent at the bottom of the Survival – Hunting tree.

Those Annoying Polar Bears

By wearing the Fur Armor Set, you should be able to stay warm while trekking through the arctic biome. Sadly, you still need to deal with the deadliest predator in these zones, the polar bear. For some inexplicable reason, Icarus has polar bears even in missions that are considered “easy” or “normal,” and they’re often 30 to 40 levels higher than you.

We genuinely advise you to avoid fighting polar bears head-on, as they’ll simply maul you to death. Instead, assuming you’re playing solo, you can pick a Solo tree talent called Very, Very Quiet. It makes you harder to detect while sneaking, so just stay stealthed if you spot these beasts roaming around.

Note: Polar bears and other types of bears in Icarus tend to have glitchy movement. They can sometimes climb up to reach obstacles or terrain (i.e., ridges and cliffs), which are normally inaccessible for other animals like wolves.

Taking Shelter During Snowstorms

Likewise, you want to watch out for the snowstorms in the arctic biome of Icarus. Compared to the light drizzles and showers in forests, snowstorms will quickly destroy wooden shelters that you’ve built. As such, you’re better off constructing a small shelter/base in a temperate region (i.e., for crafting purposes) before heading to colder landscapes. Using a makeshift shelter at the base of a mountain (i.e., two wooden walls and a wooden roof sloped at an angle) can sometimes help, but I’ve noticed that exposure can still occur if your character is not surrounded by walls.

Still, there are a couple of suggestions that can help you out:

• Hollowing out or tunneling through large rocks – As you can see above, you can use any type of pickaxe to hollow out a large rock formation. Get enough space to crawl inside, and plop down a campfire to stay warm until the snowstorm abates.
• Caves – Alternatively, you can try to look for caves. Since they’re fully enclosed, they can act as shelters for crafting purposes and bedrolls/spawn points. Just try to watch out for cave worms that will reappear from time to time. You can stay close to the entrance as you wait for the snowstorm to pass if cave worms don’t spawn there.

Tools and Equipment to Bring in the Arctic Biome of Icarus

Lastly, let’s talk about the tools and other tips that can aid you as you trek through the arctic biome of Icarus:

• As mentioned earlier, you’ll want to have a small shelter/base in temperate zones. This is where you’ll do most of your crafting.
• Bring equipment that can help replenish your supply of oxygen and water. Likewise, you can pick up ice on the snowy ground and melt it using campfires to obtain water.
• Do most of your cooking in a temperate area. In missions that take place in an arctic biome, make sure you have at least 10 pieces of cooked food before setting out.
• If you need to fight, make sure you’ve got bows and arrows. Since you’re sneaking past any polar bears you see, you’ll probably want to do sneak attack headshots in the event that there’s a hostile mob that can’t be avoided.
• Try to watch out for crevasses. If you fall down, you’ll have to press the escape key then click Unstuck.

Icarus is available via Steam. For more information, check out our guides and features hub.