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Star Wars Outlaws lockpicking explained

Though Star Wars Outlaws lockpicking looks complicated at first, it's a breeze once you get the knack of it. Here's how to nail it.

Star Wars Outlaws lockpicking: Kay looking michievously downwards

How does Star Wars Outlaws lockpicking work? While Massive Entertainment is bringing us a huge open world to explore in Star Wars Outlaws, that’s not to say every door and entryway will be open to Kay and Nix. Sometimes you’ll have to sneak into areas you’re definitely not supposed to be in, and lockpicking is a huge part of that process.

While lockpicking can be tricky to get to grips with at first in Star Wars Outlaws, it won’t take long before you’re jamming open anything and everything you can in the new PC game. Unlike some of the best RPG games like Skyrim, you won’t be trying to feel your way around a lock. Instead, you’ll be relying on audio and other visual cues to get the job done. We recently got hands-on with the game in our Star Wars Outlaws preview, so we’re here to impart our hard-learned technique to you.

Star Wars Outlaws lockpicking: a Data Pick in a lock

Star Wars Outlaws lockpicking explained

Lockpicking is a mini-game within Star Wars Outlaws that is necessary to get to grips with when trying to enter locked spaces or trying to get into chests and other containers full of loot. Before you can even think about picking a lock, you need to make sure you have a Data Spike available to do the job with.

The mini-game itself plays a short rhythmic sequence, looping a series of clicks and a bleep at specific intervals. When the bleep plays, a red light on your Data Spike and a yellow light on the console will flash. You need to match the sequence the tone is playing by pressing ‘Lock In’ at the exact moment the pair flash, causing the blue light on the console to also flash – this indicates part of the puzzle is solved. You’ll know when you’ve completed the mini-game when the gears on the lock begin to shift.

If you struggle with the rhythmic audio sequences, it’s possible to rely entirely on visual cues. Though it’s more of a flex to get the bleep timing down, the puzzle becomes much easier if you just focus on locking in as soon as the light pair shows.

Star Wars Outlaws lockpicking: primer on lockpicking

As an extra accessibility layer, Massive has also kindly included a visual UI helper and the ability to tweak the difficulty of Dataspiking in the settings. Considering how good Ubisoft’s accessibility work has been recently – Prince of Persia The Lost Crown being a big 2024 highlight – you can rest assured that Dataspiking won’t be a cumbersome task if you don’t want it to be.

And that’s all you need to know about Star Wars Outlaws lockpicking. Now the galaxy far, far away is your oyster – provided you have enough Data Spikes – you’ll have no problem unlocking the open-world game’s secrets when the Star Wars Outlaws release date arrives at the end of August.

Additional guiding by Christian Vaz.