The Sinking City 2 ERC Crate Locations

Confirmed crate locations

These are the crate sites we have confirmed. The list grows as we log each chapter — we would rather publish a short verified list than a long invented one.

In progressWe are still logging the remaining crates in Time and Tide and Cold Comfort. If you have mapped them, the contact page takes corrections and contributors get credited.

Why crates matter more than they look

Ammunition economy is the difficulty curve in this game. You cannot buy rounds, crafting only goes so far, and every fight you take costs more than it returns unless you are efficient. A crate is therefore not loot — it is permission to fight the next encounter instead of running past it.

The attachments matter too. Weapon parts in The Sinking City 2 are conditional modifiers rather than flat stat bumps, so the specific parts you pull out of crates shape which gun is actually your best one.

How to spot a crate

They are marked, military-looking containers rather than generic scenery, but the game is extremely dark and crates are frequently placed in side rooms off the critical path. Three habits find most of them:

• Clear side rooms before objectives. The path the objective marker draws almost never passes a crate.
• Look behind desks and under stairs. Interior spaces in this game hide containers at floor level where the lighting is worst.
• Raise gamma. Genuinely. See PC settings if you are on keyboard and mouse.

Crate and pen accounting

Because one pen opens one crate, the two are worth tracking together. If you are carrying a spare pen at the end of a level, you missed a crate. If you are staring at a crate with no pen, the pen is still on the level.

The full pen picture is on the activator pen page, including what to do when you leave a chapter with an unopened crate behind you.

If a crate will not open

• No pen in your inventory. This is the answer roughly nine times out of ten.
• You are at a normal container. Ordinary lootables open instantly; if there is a prompt about an activator, it is an ERC crate.
• You expected a key or a code. Crates take neither — they are not part of the safe code or key systems.

One more thing worth knowing about ammo crates specifically: what a crate gives you is weighted toward the weapons you have been using, so a run built around the shotgun tends to keep finding shells. That makes committing to two guns more efficient than spreading your upgrades across all six.