Fallout 76 lockpicking: How to pick locks and upgrade the skill

How does lockpicking work in Fallout 76? Before the bombs dropped, people would stash stuff they didn't want other people to get their hands on in their safes, or behind locked doors. It's a sensible security measure, but the sad truth for the region of Appalachia in Fallout 76 is that almost everyone is either dead, an irradiated husk, stuck in a vault, or roaming the countryside and shooting everyone else.

They won't need their stuff anymore, and that's where lockpicking comes in. It's a little different than previous Fallout games, but only in how the skill is obtained. In this guide we will go through how to upgrade your Fallout 76 lockpicking skills and how to pick locks.

If you need a hand getting started, make sure you check out our Fallout 76 guide for beginners as well. It's ideal if you're only just getting into the Fallout games after watching the hit TV show that's available on Amazon Prime Video.

Upgrading your Fallout 76 lockpicking skill

In order to upgrade your lockpicking skills in Fallout 76 and break into secure safes or doors, you'll need each of the three perception perk cards associated with improving your lockpicking abilities. The Fallout 76 perk cards you will need are: Picklock, Expert Picklock, and Master Picklock. These are all the cards that improve your lockpicking skill by one and you can equip all three to have a maximum skill level of three. For every card you have equipped, you'll also increase the size of the lockpicking sweet spot, which will make breaking into safes and unlocking doors a little easier.

There are a couple of things, however, that you do need to be aware of about using these perk cards. All three only have one rank, meaning that you'll only be able to equip them rather than upgrade their ranks like many other perk cards. This means that should you get a duplicate of the Picklock card, you can't combine them to make a "Picklock rank 2" card. You also can't equip more than one of the same type of card to improve the rank as they need to be the individually named cards. The only way to improve your skills at picking locks is to find one of each of the three perk cards and equip them at the same time.

How to pick locks in Fallout 76

The actual process of picking locks in Fallout 76 is the same as the previous Bethesda Fallout games. Upon looking at a locked door or safe that you can potentially unlock, the view will focus on the lock itself, as well as a screwdriver and the bobby pin you are currently using. You will need a supply of bobby pins to be able to break through, but the problem is these items feel more prone to breakage in Fallout 76, and are less plentiful.

To access the contents inside, move the bobby pin around and turn the screw to turn the lock. If you see the bobby pin begin to shake, it means that you need to adjust your bobby pin position to find the sweet spot. If it shakes too much, that bobby pin will snap and you'll be forced to use a new one. The higher the lock difficulty, the smaller the sweet spot is and the bobby pin will be more likely to break. So be gentle with the analogue stick as you move it around to pick locks.

Now that you have a start on how lockpicking works, you may wish to learn more about that other bit of thievery: Hacking. You can find out more about the changes that have been implemented in our Fallout 76 terminal hacking guide. If you need more help with Fallout 76, we've got plenty of other guides including our pages on the Power Armor locations, Treasure map locations, weapons and Magazine locations.