The Hardest Locks in Gothic Remake and How to Beat Them
A 4-plate chest is a warm-up. The locks that actually snap picks are the 7–8 plate monsters where every plate seems to drag two others with it. Here is the approach that works, whether you solve by hand or with the solver.
Facing one of these right now? Open the free Gothic Remake Lockpicker solver →
What makes a lock "hard"
Two things: plate count and link density. Simple chests run 4–5 plates, tough ones 6, and the hardest locks in the game run 7–8 — and on top of the extra plates, their coupling webs are denser, so a single move ripples through half the lock. Every pin still needs to land in its target hole (nearly always the center hole 4), and the two-mistake limit still applies. More plates just means more ways to accidentally shove a linked pin past the edge.
Step one: probe, don't push
Never start a hard lock by trying to solve it. Start by mapping it. Nudge each plate one hole left, then back right, and write down which other plates moved and in which direction — same or opposite. A careful probe costs nothing, and at the end of it you hold the lock's full link web. Players who skip this step are the ones feeding chests their entire lockpick stack.
Step two: solve in the right order
With the web mapped, look for high-influence plates — the ones whose movement drags several other plates along. Solve those first, while the lock is still flexible and you have room to absorb the side effects. Plates that are isolated (linked to nothing, moved by nothing) go last, because you can always park their pins in hole 4 at the end without disturbing anything. Working in the opposite order is the classic mistake: you align the easy pins early, then wreck them one by one while fighting the connected core.
Step three: let the solver do the tracking
Honestly? On 7–8 plates, tracking every coupling in your head is where runs go to die. Enter the pin positions and the link web you probed into the Gothic Remake Lockpicker solver, and it returns the shortest move order that never strains the pick — then plays it back step by step while you click along in-game. If a "wrong" solution looks suspiciously mirrored, that is the known left/right flip: plate and pin move opposite ways, so directions can appear reversed. Toggle Mirror L/R and follow the new sequence instead of re-entering everything.
Underwater locks: solve before you dive
Some locks are underwater. The interface works exactly the same — same plates, same couplings — but your oxygen drains the whole time you puzzle. The worst way to do these is to open the lock and start probing with your air ticking down. Instead: look at the lock, back off, map and solve it on dry land (or with the solver), and only dive once you know the exact move order. Then it is just execution: click through the sequence and surface with the loot.
Why not just mod it away?
There are popular PC mods that skip the minigame entirely, and if that is your thing, go for it. But most players hunting for a solver want the opposite — the loot and the satisfaction, without the guesswork. Probe the web, respect the solve order, keep the solver open on your second screen, and the hardest locks in Gothic Remake become the most satisfying ones. For the fundamentals, read how lockpicking works; to survive more attempts per lock, see lockpicking training; and to keep picks in your pocket, check where to get more lockpicks.