Magic Box Glitch

The "Magic Box Trick" is a glitch in Syphon Filter: The Omega Strain and the main method of gaining access to the game's Beta Weapons, which are not an "official" part of the game and were dropped during the game's development stage.

In addition to being able to obtain normally unattainable weapons and equipment, players can use this method to acquire great weapons on very low levels (equipment which normally needs to be unlocked by typical means), this method can immensely aid players to get certain ratings (such as Tactical Explosives Specialist), not to mention that weapons with abnormal (much larger) magazines will be available for use.

Essentially, the objective is to make certain special weapon crates give you a different weapon which is not normally included in them (note that the trick only works with certain weapon crates).

Box Trick

Step 1 - Where are the special weapon crates located?

First of all, certain "special" weapon crates are necessary to perform the trick, look for crates which try to "remove" your weapon instead of surrendering a new one (the kind of crates in which the agent can deposit the weapon of the same kind).

For example, let's suppose our Agent is carrying a FA-MAS assault rifle, upon interacting with a crate it will normally give the player the option to pick up additional ammo, those are the standard crates, which won't work for this trick. What we are looking for is a crate which, upon interaction, will not show any available weapon (in other words, it will have an empty "Available" item window).

The box locations are:

Carthage 2: A total of 5 magic boxes in this level.  

• The first magic box is located in the C-4 train area: when you get to the train area there will be a small stair case walk up that and there's the first MB (magic box)  
• The second is in the same area it's the shotgun box on the left side of the train.  
• The third M.B. is in the power room it's the one on the bottom left corner of the room  
• Go to the room with the three pipes where the guys keep coming out of; jump down in the water. Take that little tube and go all the way until you reach this room that has three boxes. There's a shotgun box that's one of the two that is in there.  
• Same room as the 4th is the SG-36 box that's one too. 

Belarus 2: 1 M.B. in this level. It's located in the room with all of the things you can climb on A.K.A. the scaffolding room. The magic box is located on the very top one. There's a RPK already in there.

Tokyo: The magic box here is located in the 2nd garage area (where the big black van is also where you first begin your expedition through Murukawa Tower.) It's a little left of the van in the shadows. 

Yemen 1: Every box in the arms bazaar is a magic box. EVERY ONE OF THEM!!!! (but only in the market)

Minsk: Every DSC-1 case is a magic box; don't try the regular boxes because they're not magical. 

Step 2 - Weapon Selection

Equip your agent with a FA-MAS assault rifle (through the pre-mission Equipment Selection screen or by capturing one from the enemy but not from that specific crate). That particular crate generally surrenders a FA-MAS assault rifle (if no Back weapon is carried, or if a different back weapon is carried) but for the trick to work we cannot take one of the firearms from that specific box); the objective being to obtain the same type of weapon which is included in that crate after interacting with it.

Step 3 - How does it work?

Essentially, the box will "convert" its usual weapons (FA-MAS in this case) to the weapons we want depending on the number of rounds which are left in the magazine of our own rifle.

1. After carrying a FA-MAS and getting to that specific crate in Carthage 2, opening the interaction window should show that nothing comes up under the "Available" option;
2. If you have your FA-MAS with a full 25-round magazine press X, your weapon should have "vanished";
3. Interact with the weapon crate yet again and note that it contains something;
4. Press X to obtain the weapon (null), if you use it it won't show any weapon;
5. Pause the game (Start button) and go to 'Equipment' (alternatively press and hold the Left directional button and highlight the new weapon);
6. Press Down (directional button) and drop the weapon.
7. Pick it up again (it should show up on your back).
8. You can now use it as another weapon.

The crate is now "full" with this weapon (null), the XM29 OICW.

The reason the crate spawned this weapon (and "converted" its stored FA-MAS) was because of the number of rounds in the magazine (in this case - 25).

If you had 24 rounds it would spawn an MGL with an unusually large 24-round capacity (check the list below for the number of necessary rounds and the weapon it will spawn, note that the freshly spawned weapon will have the number of rounds corresponding to the number of rounds left in the magazine before it spawned).

Step 4 - Increasing the Array of Possible Obtainable Weapons

Since the FA-MAS has a limited 25-round magazine, it won't allow the player to obtain the weapons which require more than 25 bullets in each magazine, meaning that to obtain a weapon such as the Flamethrower (requires 158 rounds left in the magazine) it is necessary to obtain a weapon with a much larger magazine.

This is where the M249 (with a 200-round magazine) comes in:

• Repeat the following steps but this time leave the FA-MAS in the crate with a 20-round magazine (fire 5 rounds and make sure the magazine has 20 left).
• Obtain the M249 SAW machine gun and the number of possible obtainable weapons increase dramatically (because of the 200-round magazine).
• (Optional) If you need additional ammo to reload the freshly-obtained weapon make sure you drop your current one and pick another one from the box (you can collect its ammo, allowing you to reload the machine gun's 200 round magazine).
  • After you have reloaded the M249, drop the reloaded weapon and choose the one from which you obtained the ammo.
  • Drop the empty weapon in the box and pick your loaded machine gun.
• Fire the number of rounds to match your wanted weapon (see list below), for example let's suppose you want an M134 Minigun (93 rounds).
• Fire until you have 93 rounds in the M249 magazine then drop it in the crate again.
• Obtain the Minigun and go to the equipment screen then drop it, then pick it up again.
• If you need extra ammo (which is understandable, given the M134's wild fire rate) repeat the first part of step 3, only with the Minigun.

Significant notes

• Not all weapons which are able to be spawned in the crate are 'Back'-carried ones, in fact, equipment encompassing all the five categories of weapons which one can carry can be also obtainable (for example an 'Auxiliary' weapon such as the Helico 960 Submachine Gun or the Five Seven pistol which is a 'Sidearm'), make sure you drop the weapon of the corresponding type (if you're carrying it) to pick the new one up. The weapons can be seen with a corresponding category in the table below.

• In the European (PAL) version of the game, other types of weapons (such as Auxiliary or Melee weapons) cannot be spawned through a crate which spawns a Back-carried weapon (such as the FA-MAS crate which was mentioned earlier).

Nonetheless, it's still theoretically possible to obtain other weapons via special crates corresponding to the specific type of weapon (for example, in the PAL version it's still possible to obtain a Desert Express .50 by using a crate which normally spawns handguns (such as the Desert Sniper .44 or Jerico-9 in the Arms Bazaar in Yemen 1); the same is true for Auxiliary weapons (such as the Uzi crate in said Arms Bazaar). The main problem is that there's no weapon with a large enough magazine to allow the player to spawn sidearms which require a larger number of rounds (such as the Makarov which requires 85 rounds in the magazine).

If a Back-carried weapon crate is used to obtain an auxiliary gun then it won't simply spawn the new weapon which was supposed to appear (outside of this, obtaining Back-carried weapons functions normally).

• Certain special crates will require the player to drop more weapons of the same kind in order to spawn a new gun, an example is the special weapon crates in the Arms Bazaar in Yemen 1 (the player will need to pick up some extra Uzi SMG's from the enemy, then drop them in the Uzi crate in the bazaar; 5 weapons are required until the box can generate a new weapon), the same applies for the Jerico-9 and Desert Sniper .44 crates (though these are more limited by the number of rounds in their magazines).
• Certain special boxes can be themselves "converted" to spawn other types of weapons (this is particularly useful in the PAL version of the game), for example if the player drops enough Galil Assault Rifles on an empty Uzi crate in the Arms Bazaar, it will be able to spawn back-carried weapons (potentially including the M249).

Weapon List

Here's a list of the currently known Magic Box obtainable weapons. Make sure the number of left rounds on the magazine match the specific weapon you want the box to spawn and note each weapon's corresponding category; also note that, depending on the game version, some crates might not spawn weapons as usual:

Number of Rounds Left in the Magazine	Spawned Weapon	Weapon slot
0	M16	Back
1	Desert Express .50	Sidearm
2	Beretta 92F	Sidearm
3	M16 A1	Back
4	M4	Back
5	Uzi	Auxiliary
6	Uzi 45	Auxiliary
7	Tec .45	Auxiliary
8	Tec 9	Auxiliary
9	Jerico-41	Sidearm
10	G 53	Auxiliary
11	Heckler and Koch G11	Back
12	C-36 Rifle	Back
13	SG-36	Back
14	C8 Rifle	Back
15	SG-8	Back
16	Mark 23	Sidearm
17	G51 A3	???
18	MC 36	???
19	M1 Super 90	Back
20	M-249 SAW	Back
21	M4 Carbine	Back
22	MAK-10 10mm	Auxiliary
23	Mak 32	???
24	MGL	Back
25	Objective Individual Combat Weapon System	Back
26	ShotHammer	Back
27	PSM	Sidearm
28	RPG-7	Back
29	SSG 550	Back
30	Advanced Combat Rifle	Back
31	ABRAM 2000	Auxiliary
32	Air Pistol	Auxiliary
33	M82 BFG	Back
34	AK-47	Back
35	Beretta 93R	Sidearm
36	Combat Shotgun	Back
37	Biz 9	Auxiliary
38	SSG 550 Sniper	Back
39	D229	Sidearm
40	SKS	Back
41	SMAW_Old	Back
42	Helico 960	Auxiliary
43	China Type 56
44	China Type 67
45	Colt .45 M1911 A1	Sidearm
46	CZ 75	Sidearm
47	CZ Mach-9	Sidearm
48	Desert Eliminator .357	Sidearm
49	Dragunov	Back
50	FA-MAS	Back
51	FN FAL	Back
52	SSP 90	Auxiliary
53	Galil AR	Back
54	Galil SG-1	Back
55	G-17	Sidearm
56	G-18 MP	Sidearm
57	G-20	???
58	G 33E	Back
59	G 33 SG-1	Back
62	PPK	Sidearm
70	M16K	Back
71	MDS A4	Auxiliary
76	FAL SG-1	Back
77	Scorpion	Auxiliary
78	Close Assault Weapon System	Back
79	Heckler and Koch PSG-1	Back
81	SKS SG-1	Back
82	M1 90	Back
83	Desert Sniper .44	Sidearm
85	Makarov	Sidearm
86	HK_MSG90	???
87	Spectre	Auxiliary
88	Tanfoglio_Ta90	???
89	USAS 12	Back
90	RAS-70	???
91	UNP 45	Auxiliary
93	M-143 Minigun	???
94	(Uzi)	Auxiliary
95	AK-47	Back
97	SG 36	Back
98	(UNP 45)	Auxiliary
99	Base	???
100	Combat Shotgun	Back
101	C8 Rifle	Back
104	Jerico-9	Sidearm
105	AK-74 SU	Auxiliary
106	92F	Sidearm
107	G11	Back
108	RPK	Back
109	VSS-Special	Back
110	Shot Defender	Back
111	Stava SG-76 H-BAR	Back
112	Mark 23 SD	Sidearm
113	SR-15	Back
114	AU300 Mod-R	Back
115	Marz FMG	Auxiliary
116	Vek R4	Back
117	M16 A2	Back
118	Sawed Off	???
120	M79	Back
122	Riot Shotgun	Back
123	Riot Pistol	Sidearm
124	TH3 Blaster	Back
125	Stava M85
126	MDS-7	Auxiliary
128	DSC-1 Thermal	Back
130	Slug Defender	Back
131	AU300 SMG	Back
132	AU300 HBAR	Back
133	Helico pistol	Sidearm
134	CZ-58	???
135	C3 Assault Rifle	Back
136	G-22 SD	???
137	Grenade Launcher-69	???
138	M4_M203	Back
139	SPAS-15	Back
140	SPAS-12	Back
141	MDS SD2	Auxiliary
142	MDS A3	Auxiliary
143	Slughammer	Back
144	MDS-K PDW	Auxiliary
145	SKSM	???
146	Sweeper 12 Gauge	Back
147	US M60 E3	Back
148	VSS-DU	Back
149	Stava B1	???
155	Dragunov_Snow	Back
157	SP-57	Sidearm
158	Flamethrower	Back
159	SMAW	Back
161	Shovel	Melee