Boxes are square containers sometimes featured in the Contra series. They normally serve various purposes, such as being obstacles or item containers.

Appearances

Contra Force

Weapon Power-ups take on the form of a small, armored box, appearing strongly like a suitcase. These pickups will allow a character access to their special weapons and skills and can be found when destroying stage environment.

Large metal crates appear in the Construction Site. Some are used as part of a scale to reach higher ground. Others appear near the end of the area, and are stacked high and wide, blocking access to the end roof. They also block a control panel for a crusher positioned above them. The heroes must shoot their way through the metal crates to reach the control panel before the crusher smashes them all. Luckily, the crates are rather fragile.

C: The Contra Adventure

Weapon Power-ups and items can be found within yellow boxes marked with a red C. Fire at these grounded boxes to reveal their contents.

An unused box is present in the April 22, 1998 prototype build. In the City Rescue stage, a square box with a Falcon Symbol is positioned on the floor partway through the first section of the stage. The box resembles a pillbox sensor. Destroying the box with weapons fire reveals nothing inside. It is unknown what purpose this box could have served.

Hard Corps: Uprising

Multiple types of boxes are utilized:

• Metal treasure boxes are commonly found within stages. When a character gets close to one, it will open, revealing its contents out into the open to collect. Treasure boxes always contain Items such as Life ups or Score medals. They appear in black, sometimes hiding in plain sight behind out of the way paths. Gold treasure chests are hidden and contain a rarer item like a Star trophy. To uncover them, a character needs to touch the spot the gold chest is invisibly hiding at.
• Wooden crates appear as obstacles within some levels. sometimes they appear in stacked groups while other times a single wooden crate is on the floor. Crates can be Vaulted over using the Vault action. They can also be destroyed and will fill the Combo Meter when they are hit, but they possess no items inside.
• Cardboard Boxes are scattered throughout the shipping floors of the Empire Industrial Laboratory‎. A character can take one with them during their stealthy break-in. To pick up a cardboard box, simply crouch while next to it. When picked up, the box remains on the character's head as they move. They cannot attack while carrying the box but can still jump. A Cardboard box can be used to bypass the cameras and security guards in the area. When adopting a prone position, the moment the box fully touches the ground, the player's sprite will fully vanish, leaving only the box they are hiding within. As long as the player is remaining prone, they cannot move but are completely undetected by the enemy's vision. If a guard is walking nearby, he will simply pass by the downed box harmlessly. Receiving damage will discard the cardboard box.

Contra: Rogue Corps

Crates appear scattered all throughout the Damned City. All Crates can be picked up and thrown to inflict minor to moderate damage to enemies depending on the crate's structural material. Their design also influences what loot they possess, if any. There are numerous designs:

• The wooden crate appears to be a square military chest with small handles on the sides for lifting. These chests are fragile to the Rogue Corps and can easily be destroyed with but a single bullet or Dodge attack. They commonly hold no contents when broken, but on some occasions may randomly yield a single Shield Heart or minor amounts of small-sized Credits.
• A metal crate with green lining indicates a loot crate. This type of crate requires several shots from some firearms to open, otherwise a strong blast or a simple throw will suffice. These crates are guaranteed to have any of the following loot depending on the Mission they are placed in: Shield Heart, Bomb Charger, SP Armor and Life Medal. These contents are always preset in all Graded Missions. In Exploration Missions, only Shield Hearts are guaranteed to drop from these crates. SP Armor and Life Medals are rare and randomized to drop. In addition, Exploration Missions may also yield a Special Weapon inside one of these crates, possibly due to the absence of a gold MiniBug in these types of missions. Special Weapon drops from crates appear to always be the Spread Gun.
• A silver and bright blue glowing metal crate appears only in Exploration Missions. These drop a huge amount of Credits and rarely, Body Parts, B.A.D, and Core Parts. The size of the Credits fallen is determined by the Exploration Mission's chosen Challenge Bet difficulty setting.
• Gold metal crates also may appear in Exploration Missions, following much of the same example as the blue metal loot crate, but yielding higher loot rewards. At random, a secret door located at the end of the 4th section of an Exploration Mission may open up revealing a guaranteed gold crate.

Gallery

Item boxes in C: The Contra Adventure.

A scrapped box from the April 22, 1998 prototype build of C: The Contra Adventure.

Bahamut performing a Vault action over a wooden crate in Uprising.

Sayuri using a cardboard box to hide in Uprising.

Gold treasure chest.

All four differently designed crates in one area, as seen in Contra: Rogue Corps.

Trivia

• The cardboard box's appearance and role is largely based on its appearance in the Metal Gear series, also by Konami.