You will often find locked doors stopping you from advancing further in Atomic Heart. These
You will often need to open locked doors to advance or access secret areas in Atomic Heart. Instead of having a single lockpicking ability, the game tasks you to solve puzzles to open doors.
This is because there are different types of locks in Atomic Heart and each locked door is a unique puzzle of its own. You need to first verify what type of lock a door has and then proceed to solve its puzzle accordingly.
How to open all door locks in Atomic Heart
There are five types of locks that you need to solve in Atomic Heart. Some of them are pretty basic, meaning that they are easy to pick. However, the more advanced locked doors will need you to improve your lockpicking skills.
Disk Lock
The easiest lock to unlock is a Disk Lock because you just have to look for the appropriate disk-shaped key and then put it in the lock to open it.
Typical Lock
In a Typical Lock, you will observe a vertical slot in the middle. Picking this lock is quite easy as you just have to twist it until it unlocks.
Take out your cable and turn the knob of the lock left or right until the vertical slit is in the horizontal position. Once you have attained the horizontal position, press the Action button or X button on your controller. This will unlock the Typical Lock.
Colored Dots Lock
To pick this lock, you need to color-match little bulbs by moving the lock’s dial.
In a Colored Dots Lock, you will observe an outer ring with 8 tiny bulbs and an inner ring with 8 corresponding dots in front of each bulb.
You need to match the color of the bulb on the outer ring with the same-colored dot on the inner ring. To do this, you are allowed to rotate the lower three dots only while the bulbs stay fixed.
The most productive strategy is to match a single dot with its bulb. After doing so, count the gaps between the bulbs and their corresponding dots and then turn the lower slots accordingly. This will ensure the color correspondence easily and the door will unlock.
Timer Lock
The most abundant locks in Atomic Heart are Timer Locks and picking them is a bit tricky. On the lock, you will observe a timer in the middle with five pins on the side. You have to unlock these five pins one by one by keeping an eye on the little light bulbs right next to them.
To pick the Timer Lock, use your cable to bring the lock forward. Now observe the bulbs light up and snap your finger right at the moment, a red light appears on the bulb for the set pin.
To snap your fingers, press X on a PlayStation or A on an Xbox. If you couple your finger snaps with the timing of the red light, your pin will unlock and its respective bulb will turn green.
Now you can repeat this for the remaining pins but keep the ticking timer in mind. If you run out of time before unlocking all 5 pins, your lock resets and you have to start all over again.
The best strategy while dealing with a Timer Lock is to keep your eye on a single pin, snap exactly when its bulb turns red, and then move on to the next one instead of trying to unlock all of them simultaneously.
Combination Lock
A Combination Lock is the rarest and the trickiest lock to pick in Atomic Heart. You will observe numerous tiny bulbs on this lock that turn white when you press them.
The first step to picking a Combination Lock is to look for the pattern that you are going to enter into it. This combination could be hidden anywhere in the same room or nearby rooms in the form of a drawing, so you need to examine all the documents, pages, walls, and boards that you come across as an NPC could have drawn it anywhere.
The pattern will look like a circle with an arrow in the middle tracing the required pattern and once you find it, you need to memorize it.
Now, go to the Combination Lock and light the little bulbs in the same order as was present on the pattern drawing you found. Entered correctly, this combination will unlock the lock.
