In Borderlands 2 for the PS3, and Xbox 360, there are a couple of exploits you can use to keep your golden key indefinitely without ever using it up, which will essentially give you unlimited access to rare (purple) weapons, mods, and items.
These tricks require that you have access to at least one golden key however, so this won’t get you a free gold key. If any of your friends have one though, you can log onto their game to try it out, or check out my other guide for a tip to get at least one free gold key.
I’ve personally used both of these, and they work perfectly. Make sure to follow the steps precisely so you don’t risk losing your golden key.
Easy Rare Weapons, Mods, & Items – Method 1
This method requires a USB stick, a second controller, and at least one golden key. It’s also a good idea to have your game saved in Sanctuary so you can get to the golden chest easily.
Move the saved game that has access to the golden key over to the USB stick. You don’t have to copy the entire profile, just the saved game. Also make sure you don’t move the DLC file that has the golden key in it to the USB stick if that’s how you have your golden key, because removing the USB stick during your game while it’s accessing DLC on your USB stick will make it exit to the title screen.
Also, make sure your co-op partner’s profile is on the hard drive and not on the USB stick. This is important, and you’ll see why shortly.
Now, with your saved game on the USB stick, and your second profile on the hard drive (or an online co-op partner, etc), continue your game and point the console to your USB stick to load it. Take both players to the golden chest in Sanctuary. At this point, unplug the USB stick from your console. It will say that you can’t save from here on out unless you choose a new save location, so make sure to not choose a new save location and just continue.
Now open the chest with the primary character, and have the second character loot the chest. Have the second character exit the game and save. Now, either exit the game forcefully with the Guide button or PS3 button and going to the home screen, depending on the console you’re using, or simply turn the console off.
When you continue your game, your co-op partner will have the items, and your golden key will still be available to use again. You can easily use the duplication exploit if you both want a copy of the items that you ended up with.
This was done on an unpatched version of the game, so this may be fixed in the future.
Easy Rare Weapons, Mods, & Items – Method 2
This method is less effective than the first, since when you open the chest with a level 1 character, it gives you a maximum of level 7 items, which isn’t overly helpful for higher level characters. However it can help you get the Purple Reign challenge which will net you an easy 166 Badass tokens once you loot 20 purple weapons.
Log into the profile that has access to the golden key, and continue your game.
Anyone that joins this person in a co-op game will have access to the golden key as well, but it doesn’t use up the golden key on the owners profile, it only gets used on the profile of the person that joined you.
This means that you can create an infinite number of alternate profiles to join your game, use their golden key, take the rare items, and then log them off.
Once the golden key is used on that alternate profile, it’s gone from that profile for good. I tested this by quitting the game without saving on the alternate profile, and the golden key was still gone the next time I logged in with that profile.
This was done on an unpatched version of the game, so this may be fixed in the future.
