How To Unlock Doors (& Chests) in Starfield (Digipicks Guide)

As with all Bethesda games, Starfield loves to hide loot behind locked doors, and for this particular adventure, you’ll be able to access these goods by lockpicking with Digipicks. Unlike Skyrim or Fallout, the lockpicking in Starfield is a bit more puzzle-like, requiring players to slot a set of picks into layers of a circle.

For sneaky players, the Digipick minigame is a fun way to earn free loot throughout the space journey and a great way to find expensive contraband that can be sold for top dollar to certain vendors. If you’re the type of player who prefers to explore on your own terms, lockpicking, and the Security skill, are invaluable as many hidden Outposts and abandoned Factories have lots of locked-up loot.

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Using Digipicks to Unlock Everything

Whenever you come across a locked door, chest, or computer, provided you have a Digipick on your person, you’ll be given the option to unlock it. This opens up the simple, but enjoyable, lockpicking mini-game. In the beginning, you will only be able to access the lockpicking of basic locks, unless you took the Security Skill when building your character as rank one in that skill allows the hacking of Advanced locks.

The mini-game presents the player with a large circle, made up of smaller circles. Each of these layers contains slots that must be filled by the pick choices on the right side. Basic locks are fairly simple as each pick choice is guaranteed to go into one of the slots, while the more advanced levels start to see multiple-use picks as well as unusable picks. Simply spin the picks to fit in the correct slots and click confirm.

The circled layers must be completed from the outside first before moving into the inner circles and there will be times when a mistake is made. Luckily, you can spend an additional Digipick to undo a move but be careful with this mechanic as Digipicks are a scarce resource, and using them all up for a useless container can be quite defeating.

Once each circle layer is complete the chest, or door, will pop open allowing access to the sweet loot inside.

Make Lockpicking Easier with the Security Skill

The easiest way to use Digipicks is to simply level up the Security Skill rank in the skills menu. Each rank-up will make a new type of lock accessible, as well as provide another benefit to your lockpicking prowess. To gain a rank in Security you’ll just need to spend a Skill Point that is earned when leveling up, as well as complete the extra step that each rank requires. With Security, this requires simply picking a certain number of locks before the next rank is available.

At full rank, the Security Skill will allow players to spend an extra Digipick to remove some of the choices in the lockpicking mini-game. This simple addition is invaluable when picking master locks and will save a lot of time, and picks, in the long run.

Once all the skills are mastered, and you’ve had some practice, picking locks with Digipicks in Starfield will become an easy task that will net thousands of credits throughout your playthrough.