◆ Stage 2 — Oaxaca, Mexico · Artifact 4 / 4 in Huatulco

Coffee Cup Artifact — Where It Hides in Huatulco

Huatulco's fourth and final artifact — a goofy modern mug waiting at the end of the blue-switch chain, and the page where most players wrongly think the region is done.

▶ TL;DR

The Coffee Cup is the last of Huatulco's four artifacts, sitting deep in the late route after the two-part blue-switch chain. MrLeLedg reaches it at 4:51 in the 100% walkthrough, just past the second blue switch and its nearby message in a bottle. Touch it and your hook banks the fourth and final Stage 2 artifact. Players treat it as a false finish line, but only the Pouch bait, the boat decal, the cloth chest and the legendary fish Hoga remain after it — no more artifacts hide past this mug.

▶ Clip4:51 – 5:07 (16s)·Video by MrLeLedg·Watch on YouTube ↗

◇ Step-by-step pickup

  1. Open Huatulco and work down to the late route.

    By the time you're hunting the Coffee Cup you should already have the Quetzalcoatl Statue, Rubber Ball and Aztec Sun Stone banked from the opening and middle sections. The mug lives in the late route, past the pressure-plate puzzle core, so finish the earlier pockets before you commit to the descent toward the switches.

  2. Clear the Yellow Switch and the second cosmetic.

    The late chain opens with the Yellow Switch, then a cosmetic pickup. Hit them in order — Huatulco gates its rooms behind colored switches, so skipping the yellow one leaves the route past it closed. The second cosmetic is a decoration, not an artifact, so don't let it stop your count.

  3. Trip Blue Switch 1 of 2.

    After the yellow switch and cosmetic, the route hands you the first of two blue switches. This is the start of the blue-switch chain that directly leads to the Coffee Cup. Activate it cleanly before pushing deeper — a missed blue switch is the usual reason the final pocket reads as a dead end.

  4. Trip Blue Switch 2 of 2 and note the message in a bottle.

    The second blue switch sits a short way on, with a message in a bottle nearby — grab the message for the collectibles set while you're here. MrLeLedg hits this beat at 4:35, immediately before the artifact. Once both blue switches are live, the path to the mug is open.

  5. Reach the final pocket and pick up the Coffee Cup.

    Just past the second blue switch you reach the last artifact pocket. The Coffee Cup is the artifact-tagged pickup here — there's no enemy and nothing to scale, so simply touch it with the hook and it banks. MrLeLedg catches it at 4:51, and this is artifact 4 of 4 for Huatulco.

  6. Retract, then mop up baits, the decal, the chest and Hoga.

    With the mug banked, every Huatulco artifact is collected. Retract your hook and finish the region's remaining content: the Pouch bait, the boat decal, the cloth chest and the legendary fish Hoga. None of those are artifacts, so the Coffee Cup is genuinely the last one for the Secrets set.

◐ Walkthrough Keyframes

Late route, after the blue-switch chain. You're past both blue switches and the message in a bottle now — the final pocket is just ahead.
4:54Late route, after the blue-switch chain. You're past both blue switches and the message in a bottle now — the final pocket is just ahead.
Coffee Cup pickup. The hook touches the mug — collection-only, no fight, no scaling, just bank it.
5:00Coffee Cup pickup. The hook touches the mug — collection-only, no fight, no scaling, just bank it.
Huatulco's final artifact banked. From here only baits, the boat decal, the cloth chest and the legendary Hoga are left.
5:05Huatulco's final artifact banked. From here only baits, the boat decal, the cloth chest and the legendary Hoga are left.

✦ Tips

  • Keep an eye on which colored switches you've already tripped. Huatulco's late route is gated yellow → blue → blue, and the Coffee Cup only becomes reachable once both blue switches are live.
  • Grab the message in a bottle by Blue Switch 2/2 in the same pass. It's a separate collectible from the artifact, but it sits right on the route to the mug, so there's no reason to backtrack for it.
  • Treat the Coffee Cup as your fourth tally mark, not a stopping cue. The artifact pickup confirms one collectable, but it's the end of the artifact list — confirm Statue, Ball, Sun Stone and Cup are all banked before you leave.

⚠ Warnings

  • The second cosmetic in the late chain is a decoration, not an artifact — don't count it toward your four and don't assume the artifact hunt ended there.
  • If the final pocket looks sealed, you almost certainly skipped a blue switch. Backtrack and confirm both Blue Switch 1/2 and Blue Switch 2/2 are activated before blaming the route.
  • Don't quit Huatulco the second the Coffee Cup banks. The Pouch bait, boat decal, cloth chest and the legendary Hoga still remain — leaving early is how players miss the rest of the region's content.

⌕ Common Questions

Is the Coffee Cup really the last Huatulco artifact, or is there a fifth somewhere?
It's the last one. Huatulco has exactly four artifacts — Quetzalcoatl Statue, Rubber Ball, Aztec Sun Stone and Coffee Cup — and the mug is number four. Anything you find after it (the Pouch bait, the boat decal, the cloth chest, the legendary Hoga) is real content but not an artifact, so it won't move your artifact count.
I can't reach the Coffee Cup's pocket — the way looks blocked.
That's the blue-switch gate. The final pocket only opens once both Blue Switch 1/2 and Blue Switch 2/2 are tripped, and those come after the Yellow Switch and the second cosmetic. Backtrack, activate any switch you missed in that order, then descend again — MrLeLedg's run shows the chain ending right before the 4:51 pickup.
Why is there a modern coffee mug in an ancient ruin at all?
Pure developer whimsy. Scale the Depths deliberately salts its artifact lists with anachronistic modern junk — a Toy Submarine, Canned Bread, a Soda Can, a Jar of Dirt — and the Coffee Cup is Huatulco's entry in that joke. There's a real-world nod underneath it: Oaxaca, the state Huatulco sits in, is famous for Pluma coffee grown in the mountains right behind the resort.

★ What you get

Completion
Counts toward the Huatulco 100% Secrets achievement.
Endgame impact
The fourth and final Huatulco artifact — collecting it, alongside the Quetzalcoatl Statue, Rubber Ball and Aztec Sun Stone, completes the Stage 2 artifact set.
Sells for
The Coffee Cup cannot be sold. Artifacts exist for lore and 100% completion only.

✎ What Players Are Asking

Real questions from Steam Community discussions, archived as they appeared.

  • “The Coffee Cup feels like the finish line, but it isn't — Huatulco hides its collectables in multiple artifact pockets across the route, so don't stop the moment you grab one.”
    — Whisper of the House (guide writer)·Whisper of the House — Huatulco 100% Guide·2026-06-01

    Why this matters: Why this matters: the Coffee Cup is a false finish line. Because it lands so late in the run, players read it as 'done' and skip the message in a bottle, the bait, the decal, the cloth chest and Hoga — the guide writer's warning that the region has multiple pockets is exactly the trap this page exists to break.

⌬ Related Secrets

Artifact 3 of 4 — the one right before this
Aztec Sun Stone →
3:39 in the walkthrough
Artifact 1 of 4 — the Feathered Serpent the 'Pluma' (feather) coffee name echoes
Quetzalcoatl Statue →
1:52 in the walkthrough
Full world breakdown — door puzzles, every artifact and Hoga
Huatulco — Stage 2 Overview →
Index of every Stage 2 secret
The master index across all four worlds
All Secrets — Every World →
Loch Ness → Huatulco → Outer Banks → Point Nemo
Why the game called this artifact a Coffee Cup

Let's be honest: a modern Coffee Cup makes zero historical sense in a sunken Mesoamerican ruin. Coffee isn't native to the Americas and wasn't farmed in Mexico until the late 1700s and 1800s, so this is plainly the developers having fun — the same playful, out-of-place 'wait, why is this down here?' energy that drops a Toy Submarine, Canned Bread, a Soda Can and a Jar of Dirt into other artifact lists. There is a real regional hook, though. Oaxaca is one of Mexico's premier coffee-growing states, and the mountains rising directly behind Huatulco hold Pluma Hidalgo, the celebrated 'crown jewel' subregion that lends its name to Pluma coffee. Pluma carries a protected denomination of origin — only beans from the qualifying Oaxaca area may legally use the name — and it's grown shade-grown and organic at roughly 1,300 meters of elevation. The nicest coincidence: 'Pluma' is Spanish for 'feather,' quietly echoing the feathered-serpent Quetzalcoatl statue you collected earlier in this very stage.