If you’ve been making Back 4 Blood excursions with your teammates, you’re used to doing whatever it takes to survive. A core part of that strategy is finding the game’s signature currency, copper.
You can use copper to purchase a variety of vital upgrades at vendor caches, from increasing your inventory size or buying more heals to getting an important weapon upgrade. You can also spend copper to purchase active cards, those powerful mission boosts that can turn a challenging run into a successful game. The trick is finding that sweet, sweet copper — and it’s not always easy. Here’s everything you should know!
Further reading
- Is Back 4 Blood cross-platform?
- Back 4 Blood enemy guide: How to kill all Special Ridden
- Back 4 Blood’s card system explained
Learn to recognize copper
First, get used to spotting copper. It’s not always easy to see, especially if you are focusing on signs of zombies nearby or other items to pick. Copper generally looks like a small pile of scrap, and up close resembles a collection of the cog-like copper symbol used in the menu screen. Like other items, copper will be highlighted if you get close and take a look at it — but since it’s a bit smaller than other items, it can be harder to notice.
One important note: When you pick up copper, it’s automatically shared among all teammates. That means only one person on your team has to find the copper for everything to benefit. This can be important when planning copper strategies.
Where copper crops up
Everywhere! There are few bad places to look for copper. Common spots to try include:
- On tables
- On shelves
- In a corner
- Inside a car
- On the side of the road
- You get the idea
You can also get copper by completing the challenge cards (and associated bonuses) that the Director sets for the level, which is a great way to get larger sums of copper but also takes more work than just finding it in the environment.
Picking copper cards
Not all cards in the Back 4 Blood deck are about offense and defense. There are also utility cards that can change the way you play or how you scavenge. If you have copper in mind, you absolutely need to use the Copper Scavenger card as the first card in your deck. The effects of Copper Scavenger are cumulative, applying to each Cleaner that uses it, so if you really want copper, have everyone on your team start by running Copper Scavenger at the beginning of a playthrough.
Plan your missions for copper efficiency
If you want to trust RNG and just pick up copper when you come across it, that’s fine. Learning how to spot it and running Copper Scavenger is still a very effective strategy. But if you really want to get as much copper as possible, you can work out a strategy with your team to make sure you are getting it all.
For example, you could decide to have a brief copper scavenging session when an area is clear, where everyone takes a minute and looks for copper. This is a great general strategy because it also allows the team to find any ammo or other things they may have missed. Or you could assign one person as the copper player (especially if not everyone wants to run Copper Scavenger) and have them always look for copper while the rest of the team handles other details and threats.
Finally, keep in mind that copper can spawn pretty much everywhere, so always be looking for it — including in your starting safe zones.
Giving others copper
Copper is very valuable, but it’s meant to be spent — you’ll lose it after a gaming run ends, and there’s nothing to do with it at Fort Hope. Spend it at vendor caches while you are on a mission for the best results.
When you open your inventory and go to the copper and ammo section, you will see an ability to drop a certain amount of copper. We know that seems weird considering copper is shared among the team anyway, but it can be useful if your teammates have been purchasing a lot with their copper but you’ve been sitting on yours. Instead of letting it go to waste, drop the copper you don’t plan on using in front of a safehouse, so your team can pick it up and use it on vendor options inside.