While you don’t have to open these areas or chests, doing so will often reward you with epic and rare weapons and gear, collectibles like tapes and mementos, and consumables like high-tier Immunity Boosters.
This Dying Light 2 guide will tell you when you get access to lockpicking, how to lockpick, and how to upgrade them.
How to Get the Lockpick Blueprint in Dying Light 2
You won’t get access to the lockpick blueprint immediately, but it’s not long before you can start crafting these tools. You’ll get the lockpick blueprint in the third story quest in Old Villedor, Markers of Plague. You can’t miss it; Hakon will give it to you.
How to Craft Lockpicks
Lockpicks can be crafted with Scrap, and you can craft two at a time initially. Once you have the blueprint, open your menu, and select the Crafting tab. Hover over the grey lockpick icon either under “All” or select “Accessories” to find it, and you’ll see two prompts at the bottom of the recipe card that appears in the middle of the screen. You can craft a few or the maximum allowed by the number of resources you have currently.
Scrap isn’t a hard resource to come by if you’re looking for it. Loot every trash can and bin you come across, as well as any Infected you kill, and you’ll have plenty for lockpicks. Just keep in mind that Scrap is used for tons of other crafting recipes as well.
How to Use Lockpicks
If you’ve played Skyrim, you already know how lockpicking works in Dying Light 2. Approach a locked door or chest, and press the button prompt to begin the mini-game.
A set of lockpicking tools and a lock will appear. To complete the mini-game, you’ll need to turn the lock without any resistance 90 degrees to the right. You turn the pick with one set of controls and the lock with another, both displayed at the bottom of the screen. The less resistance you encounter when turning the lock, the closer you are to the sweet spot.
Any resistance, though, will decrease the durability of the lockpick, eventually causing it to break. You can tell there is resistance when the tools shake and, if using a controller, when the controller vibrates. The best way to open any lock is to do so slowly, stopping when you run into any resistance and repositioning the top tool in increments.
Keep in mind that there are several different difficulties of locks:
Very Easy Easy Medium Hard Very Hard
Very Easy locks don’t have much resistance, for example, and you have a great amount of leeway when turning the lock. Very Hard locks, on the other hand, require precise movement and very slow, methodical positioning and turns to find the sweet spot.
It’s also very important to know: you can still be attacked and take damage while lockpicking. Likewise, chemicals still decrease your immunity while in the mini-game.
How to Force Open Locks
If you upgrade your lockpick blueprint, you’ll be able to force open certain locks. The item card in the crafting menu will tell you the maximum level you can currently force open under durability.
When you approach a door or chest with a lock you can force open, a new prompt will appear to the right of “Lockpick (“difficulty level”). It will display a lockpick symbol and a certain number of lockpicks out of the maximum number you have crafted.
For example, if I have 10 lockpicks and can force open Easy locks, my prompt will show 2/10 to force open. This skips the mini-game entirely.
How to Upgrade Lockpicks
Like other weapon and accessory blueprints, you can upgrade lockpicks at a Craftmaster. These vendors can be found at Faction hubs, like the Bazaar, the Fish Eye, and the PK Floating Fortress. As you assign more Facilities like Water Towers and Electrical Substations and shift City Alignment, they’ll appear in other places, too.
Higher upgrades allow you to force open higher-level locks (as noted above) and increase lockpick durability, making them less prone to breaking. You can also produce more at a time, as well. Initially, you can produce 2 at a time, for example, but upgrading a blueprint to Level 4 allows you to make 3 at a time.
And that’s basically everything you need to know about lockpicks in Dying Light 2. Now you’ll have access to all kinds of fantastic weapons (including the high-level Epic and Rare varieties found in locked Sunken Airdrops), as well as helpful gear and crafting resources. For more tips to stay human, head over to our Dying Light 2 help page.
