Wondering how to get those awesome yet rare items in 99 Nights in the Forest? If you want to get your hands on a powerful tactical shotgun or a sturdy thorn body, you’ll need to find a ruby chest, and in this guide, I’ll very quickly tell you everything you need to know about them.
In case you’re new here, I’ve been an advanced 99 Nights in the Forest player ever since the game’s first week, so I’ve pretty much seen it all at this point. Let’s get into the details!
By the way, I have a video version of this guide if you prefer watching or listening instead. Subscribe if you want to stay up-to-date as well, cause I make these as often as I can:
Where Do Ruby Chests Spawn?
Long story short, ruby chests can show up in pretty much every place where a regular chest can spawn. I’m serious, they can show up as early as the first house you see after one campfire upgrade, or as late as a military facility surrounded by bears that you can only reach after maxing out your base.
They have a distinct ornate design, unlike every other chest that’s currently in the game. I’ve seen these spawn atop the slide in playgrounds, and the video I linked at the start shows me getting one in a basketball court of all places.
They’re all random every playthrough. A handful of these chests will “replace” a normal chest spawn every time you start a new run, and as far as I know, there’s no other way to find them aside from simply exploring the map.
One Guaranteed Spot, With A Caveat
The only way you can guarantee a ruby chest spawn is by clearing the cultist stronghold. After you’ve gone through all of the floors of the stronghold, which opens up around after the first attack on your camp, you’ll gain access to a ruby chest, among various other useful rewards.
Since the stronghold resets every 20 minutes, you technically have an unlimited supply of ruby chests that you can farm. However, your average run probably won’t even last long enough to clear that place more than two or three times.
Heck, I doubt the average person would even try to “farm” it unless they’re going for a 500-day badge run. It’s just too much work for what could potentially be horrible loot. Speaking of loot, let’s go over how it works…
Ruby Chest Mechanics
A ruby chest can only be opened by a single player. After it has been opened, every other player in the party will see a gold chest in its place. This means that, unlike most other containers, each ruby chest only adds a single “special” item into your playthrough rather than giving everyone in the team a chance to earn one.
By doing this, they can keep the game relatively balanced. Otherwise, players would just rush to find one of them so that the entire party can be kitted out with shotguns and kunais. With that said, what else is found in them anyway?
The Loot From Ruby Chests
In a nutshell, these things contain some of the best equipment in the game (not all), which are the following:
- Tactical Shotgun – The best ranged weapon in terms of raw damage output. The only downside is that its ammo is extremely expensive to craft.
- Kunais – You get quite a lot of these, though they’re usually not great unless you manage to find them early in the run, as their damage falls off hard later on. These are fantastic speedrunning weapons, which is why speedrunners typically use the assassin class.
- Riot Shield – In my opinion, this is the worst drop as it’s just a shield that reduces incoming damage while held, and you can’t attack while using it. I just prefer not taking damage at all, so it doesn’t get much (or any) use from me personally.
- Chainsaw – Fantastic tool for chopping down trees, including the big ones that weaker axes can’t even damage. Horrible as a weapon, though.
- Thorn Body – Currently the best armor in terms of defense, and it deals a small amount of damage to enemies that hit you.
- Gem of the Forest Fragment – Technically, the chest just kind of spits this out alongside actual useful stuff, but I’ll include it here since it still counts as loot.
And that’s really all you need to know about ruby chests in the game! There’s a lot of other special chests nowadays, including ice and alien variants. However, these still have some of the absolute best equipment that you can find. Maybe we’ll get an even rarer version further down the line!