Crimson Desert’s strongboxes are your free ticket to new, sometimes rare gear. Well, “free” if you figure out their complex solutions. Several of these boxes are scattered around Pywel in unlikely places, from castles and manors, down to weird little huts in poisoned swamps. All of them require some ingenuity to get into. In true Crimson Desert fashion, though, the solutions are usually not in plain sight or, depending on the box, readily decipherable at all.
Below, we’ve laid out all the Crimson Desert strongbox solutions we’ve found so far, and we’ll keep it updated as we run across more. Bear in mind that you’ll need an equipped mask to take the loot from these boxes, as it counts as theft — a criminal act that good, law-abiding heroes can’t commit.
Hernand Castle strongbox solution
Depending on what you do when you reach Hernand Castle near the start of the game, this might be the first strongbox you encounter. It’s at the top of the tower (inside the castle, not outside) that you can access from the stairwell outside the main hall. You’ll also need a key to open the door at the top. Purchase one from the back-alley vendor near the windmill in the farmland outside the castle if you don’t have one already.
The box in the room has a music player on its side. This is your puzzle clue, if it works. There’s a persistent bug that keeps the music from playing for some players. Either way, the solution is to press the buttons on the box’s front that play the same tune. There are three buttons on the top row, which we’re numbering from left to right (so 1 is the leftmost and 3 is the one on the right) and five on the bottom, which we’re numbering the same way (so 4 is the leftmost and 8 is the rightmost).
The solution is:
Your reward this time is a new recipe, one for cooking a Lavish Meal. It “overfills” your stamina and requires:
- Fruit
- Grilled meat
- Stewed grains
- Mixed skewer
Bluemont Manor strongbox solution (south)
Enter the manor’s main building, go upstairs, and enter the room at the end of the landing. You’ll see the first strongbox near another door. This one has a picture of a mountain scene, and you need to rotate wheels to get each cylinder at the right position. When we say “turn,” we mean a rotation that moves the wheel so a new facet is facing forward – not just pressing “turn” when prompted. That won’t count.
We recommend saving before interacting with this box. Crimson Desert behaves oddly when it comes to resetting a puzzle, and it’ll take more time to reset it than it would to reload and travel back to the manor from the Hernand Town checkpoint.
The solution is:
- Leftmost: Turn five times
- Second-from-left: Turn two times
- Middle: Turn four times
- Second-from-right: Turn three times
- Rightmost: Turn five times
This strongbox contains a finely crafted gold necklace. At its starting refinement level, it increases your attack by 1 and has a level 1 critical rate buff. The attack boost is lower than your basic refined Tarnished Necklace, so if you’re not keen on this new prize, you can sell it for three pieces of silver.
Bluemont Manor strongbox solution (north)
Exit the room, and enter the manor building just opposite you. Here, you’ll find another box, one with four wooden wheels that each have part of an owl painting. You need to rotate the wheels to complete the painting. We’re numbering the buttons from left to right, so leftmost is 1 and rightmost is 4.
Here’s what to do:
- Press button 2 three times
- Press button 4 once
- Press button 3 four times
- Press button 2 once
- Press button 1 four times
This strongbox contains the Oath of Darkness earring, which starts at refinement level 2 and buffs your defense by 2.
Mudridge Cabin strongbox solution
Way out in the wilds of Hernand, east of the Sanctum of Temperance, is the Mudridge Cabin. It’s actually two cabins, and the mud isn’t ridged – it’s poisoned. So don’t step in it. There’s also a posse of bandits around. Deal with them, enter the cabin on the north side, and you’ll find the box.
This one is a tile sliding puzzle that has you recreate a scene of a tree growing on a cliffside. We’re numbering the tiles from left to right, so the middle left is 1 and the bottom right is 5.
Here’s the solution:
- 3 down
- 2 right
- 1 right
- 4 up
- 5 left
Now all the tiles are in different locations, so we’ll refer to them by position instead of number.
- Center tile: down
- Center left tile: right
- Bottom left tile: up
- Bottom center: left
- Bottom right: left
And there you have it. At the end of it all, you get the Flower Petal Earring, which buffs your defense by 5.
For more help in Crimson Desert, check out our Dragon Stone Chamber puzzle solution guide, along with how to clear the fog from Crimson Desert’s map. We’ve also got tips for tracking down the Blix bounty and Bianca bounty, if you’re struggling with those.