Returnal is full of all sorts of different chests. These can contain anything from weapons to consumables to artifacts. Some even require Atropian Keys to open. Others are cursed and can cause a malfunction after opening. However, some of the chests are locked behind pillars and don’t appear to have any keyholes. Here’s how to open the chests behind bars in Returnal.
How to unlock Returnal chests that are behind bars
To unlock the chests in Returnal that are behind bars, players have to shoot the locks in the environment. These locks are hidden in every environment that has one of these chests. These locks are shaped like diamonds and have small yellow centers, as seen in the above picture. Once these are tracked down and shot, the pillars should come down and players can then open the chest. These are pretty standard chests full of the typical gear, weapons, or consumables, but are worth opening nonetheless.
Doors like this only have one lock so there’s no need to try to find more than one. These locks are also almost always very, very close to the door itself so be sure not to stray too far and look all around that particular room. They are even sometimes right above or next to the door so look up before looking everywhere else. Check behind pillars and statues, too, as some are nestled behind one of the many stone sculptures in the game. Very few of them are actually hidden.
These locks are also in the same place every single time, meaning the same chest from the same room in a successive run will have the same lock location. This is helpful for those who don’t want to search around for the same lock for a chest they have opened in the past.
There are many other secrets in the game, too. There are spooky machines called Reconstructors, intimidating red stony beds, inviting green ones, weird yellow force fields, and more objects that simply evade reasoning. For more general tips, check out our tip guide every newer player should know.
