How to find and unlock all Encrypted Vaults in The First Descendant

Before long in The First Descendant, you’re told to decrypt a couple of 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.

First, I’ll go over everything you need to know about how to find and decrypt Encrypted Vaults, the Code Analyzers you need, and the rewards. After that, I’ll detail all the Encrypted Vaults’ locations. Use the table of contents to find the section you’re looking for.

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.

Enzo makes hacking easier

If you want an easier time hacking into the Encrypted Vaults in The First Descendant, then Enzo‘s your guy.

His Passive Skill, Fire Support, makes hacking much easier for him and any nearby allies. The time limit is increased, the minigame is slowed, and time reduction on failure is halved. This makes hacking into Ultraprecise Vaults a dream.

What’s more, is that rewards are increased when hacking with Enzo, making him a no-brainer when hacking into Encrypted Vaults.

For an easier time and more rewards, make sure to unlock Enzo.

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 (more on that in the next section). 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. However, 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.

Note that hacking the Encrypted Vaults is no longer the only way to get the following rewards. You can harvest these resources in lesser quantities by defeating specific mission monsters. Hacking will give you the most resources, however.

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.

All Encrypted Vault locations in the First Descendant

As the Encrypted Vaults are static, you can farm them effectively if you know where they are.

If you are struggling to find an Encrypted Vault, then it may be because another player has already looted it. Playing on a private server will be the most efficient way to farm vaults. The loot received is the same whether on a public or private server, so don’t worry about that.

Also, remember that the vault types will be random when they spawn, so make sure to have plenty of all Code Analyzers when going vault hunting.

Not all battlefields will have Encrypted Vaults, and so I will only be presenting battlefields with Encrypted Vaults in them.

Sterile Land Encrypted Vault Locations

There is only one battlefield in Sterile Land that has Encrypted Vaults in The First Descendant.

There are five Encrypted Vault locations in Classified Area:

Vespers Encrypted Vault Locations

There are 17 Encrypted Vault spawn locations in Vespers in The First Descendant, with the Lumber Yard and Timberfall boasting the most.

There are five Encrypted Vault locations in Lumber Yard:

There are three Encrypted Vault locations in The Ruins:

There are two Encrypted Vault locations in Lost Supply Depot:

There is only one Encrypted Vault location in Moonlight Lake:

There are six Encrypted Vault locations in Timberfall:

Echo Swamp Encrypted Vault Locations

There are 11 Encrypted Vault spawn locations in Echo Swamp in The First Descendant, with the Abandoned Zone having the most.

There are two Encrypted Vault locations in Misty Woods:

There are four Encrypted Vault locations in Abandoned Zone:

There are three Encrypted Vault locations in Muskeg Swamp:

There are two Encrypted Vault locations in Derelict Covert:

Agna Desert Encrypted Vault Locations

There are 12 Encrypted Vault spawn locations in Agna Desert in The First Descendant, with Vermillion Waste and Remnant having the most.

There are three Encrypted Vault locations in Vermillion Waste:

There are three Encrypted Vault locations in Remnant:

There are two Encrypted Vault locations in The Storage:

There are two Encrypted Vault locations in The Mining Site:

There are two Encrypted Vault locations in Miragestone:

White-night Gulch Encrypted Vault Locations

There are 13 Encrypted Vault spawn locations in White-night Gulch in The First Descendant, with The Mountaintops having the most.

There are two Encrypted Vault locations in Moongrave Basin:

There is only one Encrypted Vault location in Observatory:

There are three Encrypted Vault locations in Shipment Base:

There are three Encrypted Vault locations in Hatchery:

There are four Encrypted Vault locations in The Mountaintops

Hagios Encrypted Vault Locations

There are 13 Encrypted Vault spawn locations in Haigos in The First Descendant, with Dube Base having the most.

There are four Encrypted Vault locations in Dune Base:

There are three Encrypted Vault locations in Forward Base:

There are two Encrypted Vault locations in Starfall Road:

There are two Encrypted Vault locations in Fractured Monolith:

There are two Encrypted Vault locations in The Corrupted Zone:

Fortress Encrypted Vault Locations

There are 11 Encrypted Vault spawn locations in Fortress in The First Descendant, with The Aurora Forest containing the most.

There are four Encrypted Vault locations in The Aurora Forest:

There are two Encrypted Vault locations in Fallen Ark:

There are two Encrypted Vault locations in Convertor Facility:

There is only one Encrypted Vault location in Defense Line:

There are two Encrypted Vault locations in Frozen Valley:

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!

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