Resident Evil Requiem: How to Find All Care Center Lockpicks – Rare Metal Guide

Why These Lockpicks Matter in Resident Evil Requiem

After spending a couple of hours wandering the Care Center in Resident Evil Requiem, I hit that first “Simple lock” drawer in the West Wing and immediately felt punished for exploring too fast. I didn’t have a lockpick, I couldn’t mark it on the map, and I knew it probably hid something important. The breakthrough came later when I realized there are actually five lockpicks in the Care Center, but only four simple-locked containers. In other words: if you know where to look, you can open every simple lock and still have one lockpick to spare.

This guide walks you through each lockpick location in the Care Center and Basement, explains when you can reach them, and gives practical tips so you don’t miss the point-of-no-return lock in the Bunkroom. I’ll also cover what you actually get from simple locks (all Rare Metal) and how that ties into crafting bullets for the Requiem weapon.

How Lockpicks and Simple Locks Work

Before we dive into locations, it helps to understand how lockpicks behave in Requiem, because that affects how you plan your route:

• Lockpicks are consumable. One lockpick opens one simple lock. There’s no minigame: you just use it and the lock is gone for good.
• There are 5 lockpicks in the Care Center. That’s more than the number of simple-locked containers (4), so you can open them all.
• All simple locks reward Rare Metal. Every single simple lock I opened gave Rare Metal – the crafting material you need to make Requiem weapon bullets later.
• No backtracking to the Basement. Once you’re done with the Basement section, you can’t return, so any simple lock or lockpick down there is missable if you rush.

The game tries to spook you into “saving” lockpicks because they’re consumable, but in practice, in the Care Center at least, you’re safe to open every simple lock you see. The real risk is missing a lock or a lockpick before you’re forced out of an area, especially in the Basement.

Key Progress Items You’ll Need

Two progression items gate a couple of the lockpicks:

• ID Bracelet (Level 1) – Lets you unlock the Security Point door on the Ground Floor West Wing and reach the Custodian’s Office.
• Joint plugs – Used to power certain Basement doors, including those leading to the Workshop and the Boiler Room.

By the time the game pushes you toward the Basement, you’ll naturally have what you need, but it’s worth knowing ahead of time so you don’t waste time backtracking, trying to brute-force a door that’s simply locked by story progress.

Lockpick #1 – Lead Researcher’s Office (1F East Wing)

This is usually the first lockpick you can grab, and I completely missed it my first time because I sprinted through the room during a tense moment instead of looking around.

How to reach it:

• Head to the 1F East Wing of the Care Center.
• Enter the Lead Researcher’s Office (you’ll pass through here as part of the main objective).
• As you step inside, look straight ahead and slightly to the left.

You’ll see a side cabinet with a lamp on top. The lockpick is lying right next to the lamp. It blends in more than you’d expect, especially on darker brightness settings.

Tips from my run:

• Turn the camera low and sweep side-to-side; the item icon appears only when you’re fairly close.
• Grab this before leaving the East Wing the first time; it’s easy to forget and have to backtrack later.

Lockpick #2 – Custodian’s Office (GF West Wing)

This one is locked behind your first level of security clearance. I wasted time trying every door down here before realizing I simply didn’t have the right ID Bracelet level yet.

Requirements: You must have the ID Bracelet (Level 1).

Step-by-step:

• From the Care Center lobby, head into the West Wing Ground Floor.
• Find the Security Point door near the kitchen. With Level 1 access, you can now open this.
• Proceed through until you reach the Custodian’s Office.
• Inside, check the locker against the back wall.

Open the locker with your normal interact button (typically E / X / Square) and you’ll find the second lockpick waiting inside.

Don’t make my mistake of bolting through this area during a scare and forgetting to check lockers. The Custodian’s Office is safe enough to loot thoroughly once you’ve cleared nearby threats.

Lockpick #3 – Office (1F West Wing)

Once you’ve grabbed the lockpick from the Custodian’s Office, the next one is practically on your route if you remember to keep exploring upward.

From the Custodian’s Office:

• Leave the office and take the nearby stairs up to the first floor of the West Wing.
• At the top of the stairs, go straight ahead into the Office (it’s usually one of the first doors in front of you).
• Walk to the far end of the room and check the main desk.

The third lockpick is on that desk. It’s easy to spot if you have the habit of checking every workstation, but because nothing obviously “shines,” it’s also easy to miss when zombies are banging around nearby.

Pro tip: This is also around where many players first meet that West Wing “Simple lock” drawer. With two or three lockpicks now in hand, you can safely open it without worrying that you’ll run short later.

Lockpick #4 – Workshop Vent (Basement -1F)

The last two lockpicks are in the Basement, and this is where things get trickier. The Workshop vent lockpick is the easiest to miss, because the game pushes you to focus on the obvious path instead of the corner of the room.

Requirements: You need a joint plug and access to the Basement Holding Cells.

How to get there:

• Head down to -1F Basement and make your way to the Holding Cells area.
• At the far end of the Holding Cells corridor, you’ll find a door that can be powered using a joint plug.
• Use the joint plug to unlock that door.
• Go through into the room beyond – this is the area with the forklift blocking access to Inspection.
• In one corner of this room there’s a vent you can crawl into.

Crawl all the way through the vent toward the Workshop side. Near the far end, you’ll find the fourth lockpick.

What finally worked for me was forcing myself to stop and scan every corner before interacting with big obvious things like the forklift. If you rush straight to the objective, it’s very easy to ignore that vent completely.

Lockpick #5 – Boiler Room Puddle (Basement -1F)

This is the sneakiest lockpick in the Care Center. It’s in plain sight, but the floor is electrified the first time you see it, which tricks you into thinking it’s unreachable.

Requirements: Another joint plug and access to the Boiler Room corridor, near the Basement Security Room save point.

Step-by-step route:

• From the Security Room save point in the Basement, find the corridor with two joint-plug powered doors: one leading to the Boiler Room.
• Normally you’d power the Boiler Room door directly – doing so exposes you to the electrified puddles inside.
• Instead, use the joint plug to power the other door down the corridor to the left.
• Go through that alternate door to enter the Boiler Room area from behind.
• Now you can safely reach the electrified puddles from the non-electrified side.

One of those puddles has a lockpick lying in it. Coming from the rear side lets you pick it up without frying Leon.

Common mistake: I initially powered the Boiler Room door itself, tried to “tank” the damage to grab the item, and burned through healing items for nothing. Always check if there’s an alternate power route before walking into environmental hazards down here.

All Simple Locks in the Care Center (And What’s Inside)

Now that you know where all five lockpicks are, here’s the key point: as far as I and multiple guides can confirm, the Care Center only has four simple-locked containers. That means you’ll always end up with one spare lockpick if you comb the whole area.

Here’s what you need to know about the simple locks themselves:

• Total simple locks: 4 in the Care Center region.
• Distribution: 3 in the upper Care Center floors, 1 in the Basement Bunkroom.
• Contents: Every single one I opened contained Rare Metal.

The upper Care Center simple locks show up on drawers and lockers with the familiar “Simple lock” prompt when you approach. The game doesn’t try to hide them; your job is just to remember to backtrack with lockpicks once you’ve found them.

The critical one is the Basement Bunkroom locker:

• When you use the joint plug to power the Boiler Room door, follow the route that also leads you through the Bunkroom.
• Inside the Bunkroom is a simple-locked locker.
• Use any lockpick to open it and claim more Rare Metal.

Important: The Basement section is not revisit-able once that part of the story wraps up. If you leave the Basement without opening the Bunkroom locker, that Rare Metal is gone for the rest of the playthrough.

Using Rare Metal – Why You Should Open Every Simple Lock

You might be wondering whether it’s worth the trouble to hunt down every lock and lockpick instead of just pushing the story forward. In this case, it absolutely is.

Once you’ve advanced far enough to access the Security Point locked room next to the East Wing Waiting Room, you can analyze a sample and unlock the ability to craft bullets for the Requiem weapon. Rare Metal is a key ingredient for that ammo (usually combined with blood).

In practical terms:

• The Requiem gun is one of your best tools against tougher enemies.
• Extra bullets mean less stress during late-game encounters.
• Every piece of Rare Metal from simple locks translates into more crafted ammo later.

I went through one run where I’d missed the Bunkroom locker and one upstairs drawer, and I felt that shortage of Requiem bullets during a nasty late-game sequence. On my second run, after grabbing all four simple locks, I had enough crafted ammo to comfortably handle those same fights.

Route Tips and Final Checklist

If you want to be efficient and avoid backtracking or misses, here’s the route that worked best for me:

• Early East Wing: Grab Lockpick #1 in the Lead Researcher’s Office as soon as you first visit.
• First West Wing circuit: Once you have ID Bracelet Level 1, clear the Custodian’s Office (Lockpick #2) and then head up to the 1F Office (Lockpick #3). Use a lockpick on any West Wing simple lock you’ve found.
• Basement descent: When pushed to the Basement, get Lockpick #4 in the Workshop vent before solving forklift-related objectives.
• Boiler Room branch: Use a joint plug on the side door to approach the Boiler Room from behind and collect Lockpick #5 from the puddle.
• Bunkroom sweep: While in this section, open the simple-locked locker in the Bunkroom. Remember: you can’t come back.
• Final mop-up: After returning from the Basement, use any remaining lockpicks on upstairs simple locks you haven’t opened yet.

If you follow that rough order, you’ll finish the Care Center with:

• All 5 lockpicks collected.
• All 4 simple locks opened.
• Maximum Rare Metal from this area to fuel your Requiem ammo crafting later.

Once you get into the habit of sweeping offices thoroughly and questioning every powered door in the Basement, the rest of Requiem’s collectibles feel a lot more manageable. If I could backtrack and tell myself one thing before that first West Wing “Simple lock” tease, it’d be this: there are enough lockpicks for everything here-just don’t leave the Basement until you’ve checked every locker and vent.