Atomic Heart lockpicking puzzles: How to pick all lock types

(Image credit: Focus Interactive)

There are several Atomic Heart lockpicking puzzles that you'll need to frequently solve to reach new areas, from finger-snapping locks to coded combination locks. You'll find many of these blue and red locking devices throughout Atomic Heart, blocking both compulsory, story-related rooms and optional areas or shortcuts usually containing some loot – often item blueprints – so it's well worth solving every puzzle lock you find (and, if you want more Atomic Heart tips, we can help you there). However, there are several types of puzzle lock modules that can appear on these devices, and later in the game you can even find locks with multiple modules. Here’s how to solve Atomic Heart lockpicking puzzles as well as some tips for solving them quickly.

Atomic Heart finger snap locks

P-3's Scanner

Make sure you also know how to use the Atomic Heart Scanner as it's a vital piece of tech

To unlock the Atomic Heart devices that require P-3 to snap his fingers in time with a spinning red light, you need to press X for PlayStation or A for Xbox as the red light next a pin turns on. Do this for all the pins on the lock and you’ll deactivate it, allowing you to progress. I advise focusing on one light at a time, so pick any of them and then wait until the perfect moment as the light turns red to snap your fingers, instead of trying to follow the red light around. Repeat this for all the other pins to easily get past the lock.

Atomic Heart finger snap lock solved — (Image credit: Focus Interactive)

Be aware that speed is important since you’ve got limited time before the lock resets, although there aren’t any consequences to failing so just try again. Each pin you successfully activate also causes the red light to switch direction and move faster, so subsequent pins become trickier to activate with stricter timing. Snapping on an already activated pin will deactivate it too, undoing your progress.

Atomic Heart color match locks

Another lock type in Atomic Heart is the color matching lock. These task you with rotating a few colored dots in a circle so that they match with lights of the same colors on an outer ring. You also have a section at the bottom of the inner circle that allows you to reorder three positions on the circle.

Atomic Heart color matching lockpick puzzle — (Image credit: Focus Interactive)

The best thing to do for these locks is to rotate the inner circle so that at least one of the colored lights matches up, then see how far off the other colored lights are from their correct positions. With this knowledge, you can rotate the inner circle and use the section at the bottom to swap the positions of the lights until they’re in the correct places relative to each other. Then rotate the lights back into position to solve the lock.

Atomic Heart white combination locks

These Atomic Heart combination locks consist of a white module covered in buttons with lights on them, although they’re quite rare, so you won’t see them often. To unlock the mechanism, you need to find the correct combination of lights to press – order and position are important here, but as with the other locks, there’s no consequence for getting it wrong, so you can try again.

Atomic Heart white light combination lock puzzle on station master's office — (Image credit: Focus Interactive)

However, the correct combination must be found out in the world, so you won’t have to brute force it. Search the rooms and areas near to the lock for a drawing of the correct code. It’ll look like a circle with an arrow inside pointing out the exact path of buttons and the order you need to press them to solve the lock. Try looking at scattered documents, pages, blackboards, and walls for the combination and once you’ve found it, remember the button combination and enter it into the locking device. The first time you’ll encounter this is when you must solve the Atomic Heart station master puzzle to get inside the office of the cable car station for the story, but you'll find the optional Atomic Heart VDNH door code a few hours later.