Before long in The First Descendant, you’re told to decrypt a couple Encrypted Vaults. The problem is that we are not told at all how to find or solve these, and there are no markers on the map. Allow me to give you a hand.
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How to find Encrypted Vaults in The First Descendant
Encrypted Vaults are genuinely difficult to find in The First Descendant, although you may have seen their markers a few times while completing missions.
You’ll find Encrypted Vaults in every region in the game (apart from Kingston!), and they’ll stay in the same place. This means that once you know where they are, you can return to keep looting them (like Munitions and Resource Boxes).
Note: Even though the vaults will spawn in the same location, I’ve noticed that they may take on a different difficulty (more on that later), so make sure to come prepared when hunting down vaults!
You may have seen these small holographic images on the floor throughout the game. These indicate that a vault is nearby.
When you activate your Ecive (regardless of whether you’re standing on a holographic square), a beep will signal that you’re in the proximity of a vault. Keep looking around and activating the Ecive, and you’ll soon hear a deeper beep.
This means you’re facing the right direction.
Please note that any white markers show you the location of a Munitions and don’t relate to vaults whatsoever.
Keep following the deeper beeps. The vault should be on a similar elevation to the holographic marker so don’t worry too much about that.
If you can’t find a vault, this means that someone else has claimed it and it needs to respawn. When you get familiar with the vault locations, this won’t be too much of an issue.
If you’re struggling to find a vault, you may be better off spamming your Ecive as you explore a region. You’ll eventually hear a beep and can follow it like a compass to the vault.
Now we’ve got to the vault, we need to decrypt it.
How to decrypt an Encrypted Vault in The First Descendant
Now that you’ve found your vault in The First Descendant, let’s hack into it. Thankfully, it’s easier to crack into these vaults than it is to find them.
Upon walking up to an Encrypted Vault, you’ll use the appropriate Code Analyzer to start hacking into it, consuming the item. So if you fail, you’ll still lose the Code Analyzer.
You’ll be met with a quick-time event.
You’ll have to press the button shown to you in the middle of the dias right when the red line is inside the highlighted zone. The more difficult the vault you’re hacking, the smaller the highlighted zone is and the more of these you’ll have to complete.
If you don’t do it in time, or you miss three times, then you’ll have failed.
Once you’ve completed the minigame enough, you’ll get the rewards.
And that’s all there is to it! The lead up is much trickier than hacking the vault itself.
The different types of vaults and their rewards in The First Descendant
There are three different types of vaults in The First Descendant, with more difficult vaults looking grander than their predecessor.
Here are the different Vaults and their required Code Analyzer in The First Descendant:
| Vault Type | Required Code Analyzer |
|---|---|
| Encrypted Storage Box | Code Analyzer |
| Precise Encrypted Vault | Precision Code Analyzer |
| Ultraprecise Encrypted Vault | Ultra-Precision Code Analyzer |
You’ll need to make sure you have the right Code Analyzers ready when hacking into these vaults. Since the vaults are indistinguishable, it may be handy to have them all to cover your bases.
Thankfully, you won’t need to hunt down specific vaults, as the loot is all the same between them. It’s the region that dictates the rewards. Although stronger vaults in The First Descendant will net you more goods and will be harder to crack.
How to get Code Analyzers in The First Descendant
To hack into these vaults in The First Descendant, you’ll need Code Analyzers, and each type of vault requires a different one.
These items aren’t made, they’re found, by eliminating specific monsters throughout all the regions. You’ll need the boss monsters at the end of missions, so you’ll have to replay missions and beat the boss for a chance to earn the Code Analyzer.
Every mission boss monster has a chance to drop one of the three Code Analyzers, with rarer chances for better Code Analyzers. So there is no optimal farming method as every mission with a boss monster could reward you with one.
The Code Analyzers will only work for vaults in the same difficulty. So Code Analyzers found by bosses in Normal difficulty missions can only unlock Normal difficulty encrypted Vaults.
All Encrypted Vault rewards in The First Descendant
The research material rewards from the Encrypted Vaults, no matter the type, depend solely on the region you find them in. So, if you want a specific item, you’ll need to find any vault in a specific region.
Here are all the vault rewards and the regions you’ll find them in:
| Region | Vault Reward |
|---|---|
| Sterile Land | Negative Ion Particle |
| Vespers | Conductive Metallic Foil |
| Echo Swamp | Thermal Metallic Foil |
| Agna Desert | Positive Ion Particle |
| White-night Gulch | Cooling Metallic Foil |
| Haigos | Highly-concentrated Energy Residue |
| Fortress | Pure Energy Residue |
As you can see, Kingston doesn’t have any Encrypted Vaults. I suppose the Magisters never decided to hide vaults in there.
Now that you have all the information about Vaults you could possibly need, you can finally go out there and hunt them down.
Research materials can be pretty hard to find, so make sure to give yourselves breaks when grinding for Descendants and Weapons!
