Containers are nodes which can be gathered from for various items within New World, including refining resources and ingredients. They exist within enemy hotspot zones, and are often found within buildings or near zone bosses. If a player is on a gathering quest for a particular zone, all containers within the zone are capable of providing the required quest items, regardless of their type.
Containers of the same type can provide different items based on what region they are in. It is best to check the wiki page for the individual resource you are after to determine which region it is available in. Larger containers of a given type will provide more resources than smaller containers of the same type, but have the same loot pool. Large containers also take a longer amount of time to gather, when compared to their smaller counterparts.
For any given container, there is a cooldown before it can be gathered from again. This cooldown is not shared, so multiple players may harvest from the same node at the same time. This cooldown does not affect any Quests or Faction Missions that require you to open the chest for a quest item. When a player is able to gather from a container, it will emanate a white glow from the top of the node. If the container is still on cooldown, it will not glow and cannot be gathered from again until the cooldown has expired.
Collecting from a container will be interrupted when the player is hit by an enemy. Progress on collection is not persisted between collection attempts, so if the action is interrupted the player will need to restart the gathering process.
For quests/missions, wells in enemy zones also count as containers.
Container size affects how many items it drops. There are small, medium, and large containers. There is also a container "tier", and it is currently unclear what this affects besides physical appearance. Drops are also affected by Luck.