Kingdom Come: Deliverance lockpicking explained - lockpicking skill perks, how to pick locks and where to get lockpicks

Kingdom Come: Deliverance's lockpicking isn't fully explained the first time you get to try it out, and even later when you get some lessons it can feel tricky.

There's a knack to it, like all awkward mechanics - and at least the difficulty is fairly realistic - so here on this page we'll be doing our best to explain just how to pick locks in Kingdom Come: Deliverance as well has how to get lockpicks, too.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance lockpicking explained - how to pick locks

Lockpicking in Kingdom Come: Deliverance is both a skill in the game, and a skill in and of itself. You'll need to learn the knack for it and exercise a little muscle memory if you want to get any good at it, but thankfully it's one of those things that, once you know how to do, should be fairly easy to repeat.

When you've found a lock you want to pick, be it a door or a locked chest, hold down your interact button to get started, and you'll be greeted with this screen:

Your task is to get the cursor - the little circle in the middle - to hover over the right spot, and then when you've found the right spot to rotate the lock around, moving the cursor to keep it in place relative to the rest of the mechanism.

So, first things first, find the right spot. This is done by moving the cursor around (with your right analogue, or just the mouse if on PC), until the central ball goes golden.

It'll get larger the closer you are to the sweet spot. When the ball's at its largest, hold it there.

Now, you need to turn the lock, using the left analogue stick, or by just holding D on the keyboard - it's a lot easier on the keyboard, in all honesty.

At the same time, you need to move the cursor round at the same speed that you're moving the lock, so they're turning together and the cursor's position in the lock is always the same relative to the rest of it. So if the sweet spot was directly down from the centre, at 6 on a clock, and you've then turned the lock half way round so far, the cursor would now be at the top, at 12 o' clock, and still in the sweet spot.

Once you've worked it all the way around, the lock will spring open, and you'll be in. Just try not to get detected as you clear out the contents and make an exit!

How to get lockpicks and other things to know about picking locks in Kingdom Come: Deliverance

Fortunately, getting lockpicks is a fairly simple task in Kingdom Come: Deliverance.

At the very start of the game, where you're trying to pick the lock to a troublesome chap's chest in order to get his payment to your father, you can get some lockpicks from your friend, Fritz.

After that however, the more conventional way to get lockpicks is to simply buy from from a trader. The first time we encountered this they cost us about 18 Groschen each. If you're short on that, the easiest thing to do is sell what you have, or to loot and raid as you progress further into the game.

They do seem to be pretty rarely stocked at traders though, so your best bet is to simply set a rule of thumb for yourself and buy them whenever you see them, even if it takes a little work to get the coin together. You'll find it's worth the effort when you're fumbling for that last pick on a crucial chest.

Aside from how to get lockpicks, here are some general tips, tricks and things to know about lockpicking:

• Lockpicks can break - it's quite easy to break a lockpick, and it'll happen just about every time you fail at picking a lock. To avoid this, try not to force the lock to turn if there feels like there's some resistance to it. This is really tough on the controller, as it's in need of a patch, but on PC it's simply a case of not pressing D unless you know the cursor is in the right spot.
• Be wary of noise - this is more of a general point about sneaky crimes, but with lockpicking the thing to note is that breaking a lockpick is by far the noisiest part of it (hence the noise-reducing perks found below). When you know you're in a high-risk situation, avoiding breaking a lockpick is the surest way to make it out undetected.
• On PC, tweak your mouse sensitivity - One of the issues with lockpicking is that the sensitivity on the cursor suddenly ramps up when you get into the lockpicking minigame, making it hard to control as you twist the mechanism. On PC, a great way to solve this is to use any added functionality you have with your mouse and reduce the DPI to its minimum, or use the "sniper mode" button that often comes with gaming mice. Cheers to our pals at Eurogamer Germany for that tip!

For more knightly tips and guides like this, we have a main page of various, helpful Kingdom Come Deliverance tips, as well as an explainer on how to save in Kingdom Come: Deliverance, a complete guide to all 25 Treasure Map and treasure locations, a comprehensive page on the tricky Kingdom Come: Deliverance lockpicking, how to pick locks and how to find lockpicks, as well as info on where to get Kingdom Come: Delviverance horse armour and how to find or buy a horse, too.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance lockpicking perks and skill tree

Finally, here's a quick rundown of the lockpicking skill and its relative perks, so you have an idea of what to improve as your lockpicking still goes up.

Lockpicking skill perks: