In Marathon, your main task is to haul gear out alive. If you die, you lose it all. Most items you find just by being there, but if you want the high-tier loot inside lockbox containers, you will need Lockbox Keys to crack open them. These keys can be a little tough to track down and usually require you to go out of your way to find them, but the payoff makes the extra risk worth it. Without these keys, you’ll leave the best Marathon gear on the table.
How to Get Lockbox Keys in Marathon
You can get Lockbox Keys in one of two ways: either scavenge them during a match or buy them from the Armory.
Scavenging Lockbox Keys is a complete RNG game. Search for major POIs across the Marathon maps. You will rarely find them inside containers or chests; they mostly spawn out in the open as loose loot on tables, shelves, or boxes, and are easy to miss due to being small. Carefully check the shelves at Overflow, the North and South Relays on Perimeter. I found my first Lockbox Key in the red office building with smashed windows at Southern Array.
To buy Lockbox Keys, you must rank up the CyberAcme (CyAc) faction to unlock the specific vendor perk, either the Locksmith upgrade at Rank 4 or the Keymaker perk at Rank 5. Unlocking this node costs 2,500 Credits, and once acquired, CyberAcme occasionally offers free keys or lets you buy them for cheap.
You can purchase a standard key for 1,000 Credits and specific materials like green Surveillance Lenses, green Dynamic Compounds, Sparkleaf, Reclaimed Biostripping, Dermachem Packs, or Plasma Filaments. Further upgrades unlock high-tier keys like the Deluxe Key, which opens better quality lockboxes that base keys can’t.
Marathon Lockbox Locations
You can find lockbox cache rooms by looking for bright red smoke or flares on the roof. These are visible from a distance, even if they clip through other structures. Inside a cache room, there will be locked containers that each require a key to open.
These caches do not spawn every single match, but a few zones have high spawns:
- Perimeter: The blue building in the center of Station, the large eastern structure at North Relay, and the ruined western section of South Relay.
Unless you have multiple keys in hand, you need to be picky about what you open. And don’t get reckless because if you die, you’ll permanently lose the Lockbox Key since Marathon lacks a secure safe pocket like ARC Raiders.
Want the best value from your key? Run the Thief shell yourself or bring a teammate with it. The Thief’s X-Ray Visor highlights what’s inside every locked box with color codes based on the highest tier item. If a box glows blue or purple, open it immediately as you’re guaranteed premium valuables, Cores, consumables, or top level salvage.
