History Main / CrateExpectations

* In ''VideoGame/{{Cataclysm}}: Dark Days Ahead'', this trope is ZigZagged depending on where you found the crate. In the back room of certain shops, you might find crates packed with useful items, but in basement shelters the crates simply serve as an improvised barricade made by the previous inhabitant of the house.

* ''VideoGame/CrashBandicoot1996'' not only saw levels filled with crates, but destroying all of them in all levels are required to reach the full HundredPercentCompletion. Though they were actually added late in the original game's development as a cheap way to break up dull stretches, crashing through crates became one of the series' defining gameplay elements, as well as the origin of the protagonist's name.

* In ''{{VideoGame/Unturned}}'', crates are not as common as in other games. However there are a still a few inexplicable crates in the sparse towns of PEI. Rewarding Vandalism is averted as the crates are unbreakable. The crate is the first and simplest container a player can craft, so it's up to you to fill the world with wooden boxes of loot.
* Present in the ''VideoGame/{{STALKER}}'' titles. They'll absorb a few rounds before they break (which obviously can be useful during firefights), and in the first game the standard wooden box will occasionally have some goodies inside, but you're more likely to find useful gear in indestructible lockers or boxes. There are also metal boxes that almost always have ammo or healing items inside, but they're more rare. You can't pick up any of them or move them around except by running into them, though.
* ''VideoGame/ResidentEvilRevelations:'' You open crates by attacking them with your melée weapon. This usually means stabbing them.

* In real life, cardboard boxes are way more common, being considerably cheaper and lighter. Beyond that there is always wooden palletes with the contents held together by plastic wrap, which would be very similar to a wooden crate.

* In ''VideoGame/VisceraCleanupDetail'' crates and barrels are scattered around every level. The player can earn bonus points on their evaluation by storing them in marked cargo zones. Some levels have crates or barrels themed after the level, such as medical waste containers.

* ''VideoGame/MadAgeAndThisGuy'': The levels of the game are all chock full of pushable blow up-able crates.

* The ''VideoGame/{{Splatoon}}'' series features wooden crates littered throughout its single-player campaigns. They can be destroyed and may contain Power Eggs or other collectables, but there's not much more to say about their use in the series -- until ''VideoGame/Splatoon2: Octo Expansion'' came along with all kinds of creative applications for this gaming staple. One level might task you with carefully destroying only the correct crates to match a three-dimensional shape, while another asks you to set off a chain reaction that destroys a tower of crates using only a single shot, and still others use crates as the ''floor'', forcing you to mind where you're shooting [[BossArenaUrgency lest you run out of footing]]. The ''Octo Expansion'' also introduces a new variation of special "target" crates, which usually appear in tests where the objective is to destroy a certain number of them.

** 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.

** ''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.

* Parodied in ''VideoGame/SeriousSamTheSecondEncounter'', in which Sam's starship crash-lands after being hit by a crate transport ship. Later on, the player can find the crashed crate-bus as an EasterEgg in the first level, which will cause Sam to announce [[LampshadeHanging how much he hates crates]]. Aside from using crates as a joke, the games are suprisingly barren of them otherwise, and Old Man Murray, the website that coined the term Start to Crate, was one of Croteam's few vocal supporters during the game's development. Early in First Encounter, there is a secret area containing a massive 'pyramid' made of crates.
** ''Serious Sam II'' plays the trope more straight with wooden and metal crates found in lots of places and majority of them containing an item or a monster.
* The ''VideoGame/MetroidPrimeTrilogy'' has crates in areas occupied by space pirates or the galactic federation. They're not wood though but metal. And they contain ammo and health. 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 are 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/SuperMarioBros3'' has crates stored on some of the airships, many times larger than Mario. They can be jumped on, and run in front of.

* From the 8-bit, 2-D era, the ''VideoGame/ChipNDaleRescueRangers'' NES game had crates as a primary means of defeating enemies (either by throwing them, or hiding inside and waiting for an enemy to trip over it). They came in two varieties-- disposable wooden crates and stackable metal ones. All small enough for a chipmunk to lift.

* ''The Jetsons: Cogswell's Caper'' sort of justifies this by setting its first level in a "Packing Factory," but crates are prevalent throughout the game, and throwing them is your principal attack.

* The test chambers of ''VideoGame/{{Portal}}'' usually had dispensers to give you crates as you needed them for {{Block Puzzle}}s, though the game's love of {{Expospeak Gag}}s meant that these weren't just crates but "Aperture Science Weighted Storage Cubes". This particular Valve hero didn't get a crowbar, so we don't know what what was in them - except that [[CompanionCube one of them]] was probably full of love for you.
** The sequel's cooperative play ups the ante with the "Aperture Science Edgeless Safety Cube", which the untrained observer might mistake for [[spoiler:a sphere]].

* Crates are a mainstay in ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquer'', although they aren't very common. When moving a unit over it, the owner receives money or bonus units, or other effects such as improving the units speed, defense or level (after ''Tiberian Sun''). However, there is also a chance for them to explode.\\
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* If you've ever been to a warehouse, you know these things are there somewhere; just not in the amount usually depicted in media.
** No one in their right mind would keep money in them either.
** In real life cardboard boxes are way more common, being considerably cheaper and lighter. Beyond that there is always wooden palletes with the contents held together by plastic wrap, which would be very similar to a wooden crate.

** ''Kingdom Hearts Coded'' and ''Re: Coded'' are particular examples in that pretty much everything breakable is a crate. Some bosses even require crate breakage to be beaten.
** Oddly, the wooden crates blocking paths in ''VideoGame/KingdomHearts3D'''s version of Traverse Town ''can't'' be broken by attacking them in a conventional fashion, instead having to launch something at them with a reality shift.

* ''VideoGame/GoldenSun'' has crates and barrels. Everywhere.

* The various ''Franchise/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.

In short, crates satisfy three of our basic monkey drives: climbing, finding things to eat, and breaking things. They are so widely used that humor website Website/OldManMurray coined the term "Start-to-Crate", [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin referring to the length of time between starting a game and encountering the first crate or barrel]] - most games don't rate especially high. TropesAreTools: crates have too many gameplay uses to ever [[UndeadHorseTrope die]].

** Subverted in ''VideoGame/DarkSouls'', there are various crates in Undead Burg, but breaking them wouldn't net you anything good unless a [[UniqueEnemy Vagrant]] is hidden within them. Although some PvP invaders would use Chameleon spell to disguise themselves as those crate, smashing everything that breaks is the best way to reveal them.

* A fair few ''Franchise/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. Made even funnier when objects such as robots and ancient stone towers can be taken down with a simple wooden crate. 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]].

* Indy goes behind a theater which has several crates stacked behind it for an unexplained reason. Indy uses them to hide from someone.

* The picture is from ''VideoGame/IndianaJonesAndTheFateOfAtlantis''. Indy goes behind a theater which has several crates stacked behind it for an unexplained reason. Indy uses them to hide from someone.

* {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d in ''Webcomic/OurLittleAdventure'': Nondescript cubic boxes are tokens of Quizmalia, the ChaoticNeutral Goddess of Fate and Fortune, so they might contain valuable treasure, {{Booby Trap}}s, improbably large fruit, [[http://danielscreations.com/ola/comics/ep0671.html or all three in reverse order.]]

* ''VideoGame/JakAndDaxter'', from the same developers as the early ''Franchise/CrashBandicoot'' titles also make use of crates.