If you’ve ever finished a chaotic Rocket League ranked match, earned a random post-game drop, and stared at a locked crate in your inventory wondering what to do next, you’re not alone. A huge number of new players don’t fully understand how to open crates in Rocket League, especially since Psyonix shifted to a mixed crate and blueprint system a few years back. Opening crates can get you some of the rarest, most eye-catching customization items in the game, from white octane decals to exploding goal animations that make every score feel like a celebration. But do it wrong, and you can burn through hundreds of credits on items you don’t actually want, no matter how lucky you think you are.
How to Open Crates in Rocket League Step by Step
The process of opening crates is pretty straightforward once you know where to look, but a lot of new players miss the right menu options entirely. First, you’ll need to earn or trade for a crate: they drop randomly after online matches, are sometimes included in event rewards, or can be traded from other players for items or credits you already own. Once you have a crate in your inventory, head to the “Garage” tab from the main menu, then select “Inventory” and navigate to the “Crates” filter on the left side of the screen.
Click on the crate you want to open to pull up its full item pool, which shows every possible item you can get from that specific crate series. Always check the item pool before unlocking a crate so you don’t waste credits on a crate with no items you actually want. If you’re happy with the possible drops, click the “Unlock” button in the bottom right corner, confirm you have the required number of credits, and the crate will open immediately with a short animation showing your new item.
Most standard crates cost 100 credits to open, same as common blueprints, though limited-time event crates sometimes have different pricing. If you don’t have enough credits to unlock a crate, you can earn credits from the Rocket Pass, event challenges, or trading items to other players, no real money purchase required if you’re willing to put in the time.
What You Need to Know Before Unlocking Any Crate
Crates are a luck-based system, so there’s no way to guarantee you’ll get the exact item you want from a single unlock. Psyonix publishes official drop rates for all crate series to keep the system transparent, and the odds are pretty consistent across all standard crates: common items have a 55% drop rate, rare items 28%, very rare 12%, import 4%, exotic 1%, and black market items just 0.1%. That means you have a 1 in 1000 chance of getting a black market item from any standard crate, so don’t go in expecting to pull a rare goal explosion on your first try.
One of the biggest mistakes new players make is treating crates like a guaranteed way to get rare items, instead of the fun gambling feature they’re designed to be. Credit costs for opening crates add up fast, and if you’re spending every credit you earn on crates, you’ll probably miss out on cheaper, specific items you can buy directly from the item shop or trade for with other players. Some of the most common mistakes players make when opening crates include:
- Spending all their saved credits on crates right after a big win, without planning what items they want
- Ignoring drop rates and assuming they’ll get a black market item on their first few unlocks
- Opening crates during limited-time events when they could save credits for exclusive event items instead
- Trading away rare items just to get more crates to open
If you’re on a tight credit budget, crates are almost never the most efficient use of your resources. Never spend real money on credits just to open crates unless you have extra cash to spare, since it’s purely a luck-based system with no guaranteed returns. I’ve seen players spend $50 on credits just to open crates and end up with nothing but common decals they don’t want, so it’s always better to treat crate openings as a fun occasional treat, not a reliable way to build your loadout.
Tips to Get More Value From Every Crate You Open
That doesn’t mean you should never open crates, though. There are plenty of ways to make crate openings more worth your while, even with the low rare drop rates. First, prioritize opening event crates over standard crates whenever possible. Event crates only contain items exclusive to that specific event, so you can’t get those items from standard drops, the item shop, or regular blueprints once the event ends. That means any rare item you pull from an event crate will hold its value far better than items from standard crate series.
Another smart tip is to hold onto crates from retired series instead of opening them right away. Once a crate series is no longer dropping after matches, the items in that series become rarer over time, and their trade value goes up significantly. Trading up duplicate items is far more reliable than opening more crates if you’re chasing a specific rarity of item. You can trade 5 duplicate items of the same rarity for one random item of the next higher rarity, so if you pull a bunch of common duplicates from crates, you can turn them into a rare or very rare item without spending extra credits.
You can also check community trading hubs to see how much items from a specific crate are worth before you open it. If most of the rare items in the crate are only worth 50-70 credits on the trade market, it’s not worth spending 100 credits to open the crate, even if you like the items. Retired crate items often sell for 2-10x their original value on the player trading market, so hold onto unopened retired crates if you don’t need instant loot, you can trade them for far more value later down the line.
Are Crates Worth Opening Over Blueprints?
This is one of the most common questions new players ask, and the answer depends entirely on what you’re looking for. Blueprints show you exactly what item you’re going to get before you spend any credits to unlock it, so there’s zero gambling involved. If you have a blueprint for a specific decal, wheel set, or goal explosion you want, it’s always better to unlock that blueprint instead of spending credits on crates hoping to get the same item randomly.
Crates are only worth opening if you enjoy the thrill of a random drop, and you don’t mind getting common items most of the time. A lot of veteran players only open crates when they have extra credits left over after buying all the specific items they want, or during events when the crate pool is full of exclusive items they can’t get anywhere else. Always prioritize blueprints for items you specifically want instead of gambling on crates to get them, you’ll save hundreds of credits in the long run.
That said, there’s nothing wrong with opening a crate every now and then just for fun. I usually open 2 or 3 crates every time I finish a Rocket Pass tier, just as a little reward for grinding challenges, and I’ve pulled a couple of really cool rare items that way over the years. Just don’t go into it expecting to get rich quick or pull your dream item on the first try, and you’ll have a lot more fun with the system.
At the end of the day, Rocket League is all about having fun, and if opening a random crate to see what you get adds to that fun, there’s nothing wrong with doing it every now and then. Now that you know how to open crates in Rocket League, you can make smarter choices about when to spend your credits, when to trade crates away, and how to get the most out of every drop you earn. Don’t fall for the trap of chasing rare items nonstop, though. Some of the best loadouts in the game use cheap, common items that look way cooler than rare drops, especially if they match your personal style. Next time you get a crate drop after a match, take two seconds to check the item pool before you hit unlock, you might just save yourself a lot of wasted credits.
