History Main / CrateExpectations

* Subversion: ''GliderPRO'' has milk crates, but being furniture they do nothing good for paper airplanes.

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** ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]'' is full of them too. Every building seems to have a basement filled to the brim with crates and barrels full of vegetables. Inverted during the Thieves' Guild quest, when you get to kill someone by placing poisoned fruit in a barrel.

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* ''ShadowComplex'' uses these from time to time. Most contain health, but a few do not, and a select few also cannot be aimed at without large amounts of luck. Excluding the prologue mission, the [=StC=] is pretty high, though.
* Skip the fancy book opening animation and moody cutscenes at the start of ''CastlevaniaLordsOfShadow'', and you'll be whipping boxes within two minutes of game start. For shame, Mercury Steam!

* The ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry'' games have barrels everywhere, but they're still not without crates. Every game in the series has crates containing [[PowerUpMount animal friends]], but the second game also has throwable crates.

* You start ''Franchise/{{Batman}} - Return of the Joker'' and already you see your first crate. Crates in that game contain powerups.

* ''[[DawnOfWar Dawn Of War 2]]'' has crates that if shot at with highly penetrating and explosive bolts by the heroes reveal supplies of bombs, grenades, mines and other munition. [[FridgeLogic Wait]].

* Link comes across randomly located crates in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess'', which he can destroy with his sword (or, if you're a wolf, your claws) to reveal hearts and Rupees. These crates are found all over the place; there are even crates, for no discernible in-game reason, on small islands in the middle of Lake Hylia. In ''Ocarina of Time'', one crate in Kakariko contains a Cucco. And then there's the boxes [[WombLevel ''inside'' Lord Jabu Jabu]] (the giant whale-god of the Zoras in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime'') that you can break open to get hearts and other items.
** 'VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheWindWaker'' notably contains crates (with Triforce logos) in the [[spoiler:Tower of the Gods]] dungeon. It makes you wonder if the Hyrulean gods are really the executives of a shipping company.

* [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] in ''[[Film/TheMatrix The Matrix: Path of Neo]]'' during a training level in which Neo remarks: "Crates, how original"

* In ''VideoGame/StrongBadsCoolGameForAttractivePeople, Episode Five: Eight-Bit Is Enough'', Marzipan goes totally Lady Crate-Ape and starts throwing crates around. In the next screen over, there's a whole pile of crates, one of which you have to smash to get at a plot-critical item. Later, if you smash it again, there's that same plot-critical item you already have. Strong Bad rejects it on the basis that he has the original, and doesn't need any lousy respawned copy version.

* Crates in the ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros'' series show up in order to be broken to get the items inside (or to throw at the other players). One must be careful though as some of them explode. Also in ''Brawl'' the crates and barrels are themed to the level and some come with wheels. Brawl also has a specific explosion crate that can be triggered early by fire attacks. Fire-based characters might want to keep their distance...

* The ''MetroidPrime'' series has crates in areas occupied by space pirates or the galactic federation. They're not wood though but metal. And they contain ammo and heath. Other areas have non-crate storage items with these and a few offer justification when scanned as to why they don't always have items inside.
** There's also forms of "living crates," which are plants, cocoons, or even balls of premature nightmare monsters, which act exactly the same as crates except for the fact that they're not cubes.

* ''[[VideoGame/{{Diablo}} Diablo 2]]'' is unique in the gaming world for having precisely one real interactive crate in its entire length - in the Countess' Tower Cellar, in the left-hand treasure trove, at the base of the tower, lies a single, lonely, breakable treasure crate. There are plenty of other crate-type objects in the game, including several dozen that are simple environment objects, but only one real crate. Alas, poor crate, we hardly knew ye...
** Crates will also rarely spawn in the Barracks, but even so...

There's also the ammo crate, and in ''[[RatchetAndClank Ratchet and Clank Future: A Crack in Time]]'', the camo crate, which was almost invisible, and had more bolts than average crates. It should be noted that crates went through a huge graphical update during the transfer to HD, especially the rubble they leave around, so this is hardly due to laziness on the part of the graphic developers.
** This trope is given a huge lampshading in RatchetAndClankAll4One, when the main characters come across a crate factory in their travels. As the MissionControl says, "They have to come from somewhere!"

* ''[[SuperMarioBros Super Mario]] [[VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy Galaxy]]'' has crates in several levels, which can be broken up with spin attacks.
* ''VideoGame/SuperMarioSunshine'' has a fair few crates. They can be broken with a ground pound. One of the game's 120 Shines requires the player to break an arrangement of crates within a time limit!

* A fair few ''SonicTheHedgehog'' games from ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure2'' through to ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2006'' have crates. In ''Sonic Adventure 2'' you can get power ups to be able to break metal crates, and in VideoGame/SonicHeroes only the power formation can break the metal crates. ''Sonic The Hedgehog (2006)'' is the worst offender though as they are everywhere, usually used for Silver's physics puzzles. The crates are even 200 years in the future, in Crisis City and Flame Core, both ravaged by Iblis's flames. So how the hell do the crates still remain there?
** Made even funnier when objects such as robots and ancient stone towers can be taken down with a simple wooden crate.
** Hell, even ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure'' had some. There were a few at the very beginning of Red Mountain, though they weren't really used for anything other than somewhere to put a couple of [[MechaMook robot monkeys]].

* ''BanjoKazooie'' succumbs to the inevitable and has a living crate as a ''boss''. It's an AsteroidsMonster to boot.

* ''VideoGame/DwarfFortress''. You get barrels and bags with items you buy in the expedition planner, or just get barrels for the sake of getting barrels, and part of the game's [[RefiningResources recursive]] InventoryManagementPuzzle involves the construction of barrels, bins, and bags to organize the endless clutter you will produce.
** Crates and bins are simply very useful, but barrels are ''essential'' for a fortress. Any player who does not take getting barrels [[SeriousBusiness seriously]] is in for a world of [[GameOver Fun]]. Without enough barrels, no excess food will be stockpiled, and no [[BoozeBasedBuff alcohol can be brewed]]. A lack of either can literally mean the death of your fortress.
*** The player can save on the wood that would be needed to make barrels by making stone pots (which can also contain food and booze) instead. After all, if you're in a biome with few trees, you'll need the wood to make beds, as your dwarves apparently can't make beds from anything else.

** ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]'' is full of them too. Every building seems to have a basement filled to the brim with crates and barrels full of vegetables.
*** Inverted during the Thieves' Guild quest, when you get to kill someone by placing poisoned fruit in a barrel.

* The various ''KingdomHearts'' games contain crates, of the jump-upon and break-for-lootz varieties. The level that gives the strongest FridgeLogic is [[{{Disney/Pinocchio}} Monstro]], set inside the giant whale himself. Monstro has intact crates strewn through all of his major organs... Having intact ones in his stomach is even a stretch. And how exactly is he not in a great deal of ''pain''?
** [[FridgeBrilliance Maybe he is, and that's why he always looks so grumpy?]]

* Subverted and lampshaded in ''VideoGame/FableII'': smashable crates and barrels are everywhere, but are invariably empty. (About halfway through the game you do start seeing the occasional ExplodingBarrel of gunpowder, but they're rare.) One of the loading screen's earliest helpful hints is (approximately):

* ''[[RedSteel Red Steel 2]]'' has enough crates for the protagonist to be called the second coming of [[HalfLife Gordon Freeman]].

* About half of [[http://doom.wikia.com/wiki/E2M2:_Containment_Area_%28Doom%29 Episode 2 Map 2]] of ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}'' is a maze made of crates. And if you abuse the Doom engine, you can go Crate-Jesus and run along the tops of them as if they were side by side. The multiplayer sourceport Skulltag has a skin which ''is'' a crate.

* Episode 2 Map 2 of ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}'' is essentially a maze made of crates. And if you abuse the Doom engine, you can go Crate-Jesus and run along the tops of them as if they were side by side. The multiplayer sourceport Skulltag has a skin which ''is'' a crate.

* The ''{{Half-Life}}'' series features several crates, mostly empty, although some have items. As of ''VideoGame/{{Half-Life 2}}'', the ones containing stuff have a distinct appearance (and are much smaller), and both kinds (among other items) can also be thrown at enemies with the Gravity Gun, not to mention be used as platforms to float on. Thanks, Source engine!\\

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* ''The Amateur'' by Robert Littell. The protagonist's best friend in the CIA is a "crateologist", whose job it is to study photographs of crates and work out what's in them. At one point he deduces that a well-guarded stash of crates contain a shipment of black-market condoms, and is unamused when the protagonist suggests the Soviets have become GenreSavvy and are shipping classified material in condom crates.
* ''DeathLands''. The group find some sealed crates in a secret government stockpile and J.D. starts going into GunPorn detail over what exotic weapons might be in them. Everyone (except J.D.) bursts out laughing when the crates turn out to be full of thousands of plastic zippers.

* ''DeathLands''. The group find some sealed crates in a secret government stockpile and [[TheArmourer J.D.]] starts going into GunPorn detail over what exotic weapons might be in them. Everyone (except J.D.) bursts out laughing when the crates turn out to be full of thousands of plastic zippers.

* ''The Amateur'' by Robert Littell. The protagonists best friend in the CIA is a "crateologist", whose job it is to study photographs of crates and work out what's in them. At one point he deduces that a well-guarded stash of crates contain a shipment of black-market condoms, and is unamused when the protagonist suggests the Soviets have become GenreSavvy and are shipping classified material in condom crates.

* You start ''{{Batman}} - Return of the Joker'' and already you see your first crate. Crates in that game contain powerups.

* Several ''PokemonXD'' areas have them as roadblocks and you need to push them around to navigate. One level has you push them onto symbols to open a doo.

* Crates are parachuted into the battleground in the ''{{Worms}}'' games, presumably by the same air force responsible for the air strikes, napalm strikes, mail strikes and concrete donkeys. They can give weapons, tools or health, and [[MadeOfExplodium explode if you shoot them]]. Also, depending on the game, if there's an animal inside a weapon crate, destroying it might also release a sheep, [[BaaBomb which will also explode if it touches solid ground.]]

* In the ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry'' games, it's barrels.