If you’ve spent any time grinding matches in Brawl Stars lately, you’ve probably seen other players posting clips of overflowing trunks full of rare skins, coins, and power points. A common question popping up across Reddit, Discord, and official game forums right now is when is trunk release in Brawl Stars, and how you can make sure you don’t miss out on free rewards when it goes live. I’ve been playing Brawl Stars since its global launch, and I’ve tracked every trunk release event for the past three years, so I’ve got all the details you need to prepare, plus a few pro hacks to get more loot than the average player.
When Is Trunk Release in Brawl Stars Scheduled Each Season?
Supercell follows a pretty consistent schedule for trunk release events tied to the 7-week Brawl Pass cycle. You can expect three trunk release runs per season, each lasting 48 hours, starting at 10 AM UTC on the Friday of week 2, week 4, and week 6 of the season. Trunk release never drops during the first or final week of a Brawl Pass season, and this is a rule the dev team has stuck to 90% of the time over the past two years.
On rare occasions, the schedule shifts for special occasions. Holiday trunk releases, like the Halloween or Christmas versions, often run for 72 hours instead of 48, and sometimes get moved to align with the actual holiday date. I’ve only seen two unexpected trunk releases: one was a surprise event as an apology for a critical server bug that crashed matches for 6 hours, and another was a collab event with a major animated movie franchise that came with exclusive character skins. If there’s a major game update dropping the same week a trunk release is scheduled, it will almost always get pushed to the following Friday to avoid server overload.
How to Trigger Trunk Unlocks Faster During the Event
You earn trunk keys for every match you win during the event, and you don’t need to spend a single gem to unlock regular trunks if you grind enough. Each win gives you one key, and you can hold up to 10 keys at a time before you need to use them to make space for more. You get 2x keys for every win in ranked matches during trunk release events, so that’s the fastest way to build up your key stash if you’re comfortable playing against more skilled opponents.
Not all game modes are made equal for farming keys, though. These are the three modes I always stick to during trunk release to maximize my key count per hour:
- Knockout: Matches last an average of 2 minutes, so you can get through far more games per hour than longer modes like Brawl Ball or Siege, even if you lose a few rounds here and there.
- Duels: If you’re confident in your 1v1 skills, you get 2 keys for winning a full 3-round duel, which takes less than 3 minutes total. It’s the highest key-per-minute rate in the game if you have a win rate above 60%.
- Team Events with Friends: Playing in a pre-made 3-person stack cuts down on queue time and reduces your chance of getting matched with new players who throw matches, so your win rate goes up by 20-30% on average compared to solo queuing.
So if you’re short on time and only have an hour to play during the event, stick to those three modes to get the most keys possible. I once wasted an hour playing Solo Showdown during a trunk release and only got 3 keys, compared to 12 keys the next hour playing Knockout with two of my regular teammates. It’s not worth the time unless you’re just playing for fun, not for loot.
What Rewards Can You Expect From Trunk Release?
Regular trunks, the ones you unlock with keys earned from matches, have a pretty consistent reward pool that’s adjusted slightly every season to include new skins and cosmetics. 80% of the time you’ll get coins, power points, or sprays, 15% of the time you’ll get a rare or super rare skin, 4% of the time an epic skin, and 1% of the time a mythic or legendary skin. Premium trunks, which you can only get from completing special event challenges during trunk release, have a 10x higher chance of dropping limited-time skins that aren’t available in the regular shop or Brawl Pass.
There’s no official pity system listed in the game rules, but the dev team confirmed on the official Brawl Stars Discord last year that players who open 20 or more trunks during a single event are guaranteed at least one rare or higher skin, so you don’t have to worry about getting nothing but coins if you put in the grind. Holiday trunk releases also have exclusive rewards you can’t get any other time, like the 2023 Christmas Elf Brock skin, which is now one of the rarest skins in the game because it only dropped during that one trunk release event.
You don’t have to spend any money to get premium trunks, either. The event challenges are usually pretty accessible even for new players, like winning 10 Knockout matches or getting 20 kills with a common rarity brawler. I’ve never spent a cent on trunk release keys or premium bundles, and I’ve earned 7 epic skins and 1 mythic skin from trunk release events over the past three years.
Common Trunk Release Mistakes to Avoid
Even players who’ve been around for multiple trunk release events make silly mistakes that cost them free loot, and I’m guilty of most of these myself. Regular match keys reset at the start of every trunk release event, so any keys you earned before the event goes live will disappear. Make sure you use up all your regular keys the day before the event starts to avoid wasting them, I learned this the hard way my first season when I lost 8 keys I’d been hoarding for weeks.
Another mistake is opening trunks one at a time. If you save up 5 keys and open 5 trunks at once, you get a guaranteed bonus reward, usually an extra 100 coins, a free spray, or even an extra key. It adds up over the course of the event, so don’t unlock trunks as soon as you get one key. Also, don’t forget to claim your free daily trunk during the event. You get one free trunk every 24 hours just for logging in, no key required. I missed out on a free epic Piper skin once because I forgot to log in on the second day of a trunk release, and I still kick myself for it.
You also don’t need to spend gems on keys unless you’re chasing a specific limited-time skin that you really want. If you play 1-2 hours a day during the 48 hour event, you’ll earn enough keys for 15-20 trunks, which is more than enough to get a few good rewards. Spending gems on keys is a waste for most players, since the drop rates aren’t high enough to justify the cost unless you have extra gems lying around that you don’t know what to do with.
At the end of the day, knowing when is trunk release in Brawl Stars is only half the battle, the other half is playing smart to get as much free loot as possible when the event goes live. If you follow the tips I shared, you’ll walk away with way more coins, power points, and skins than most players, without spending a single cent. Keep an eye on the official Brawl Stars social media accounts 3 days before the end of week 2, 4, and 6 of each Brawl Pass season for official announcements, so you never miss a trunk release again.