Can You Pick Locks in SIGNALIS?

In the retro, survival horror game SIGNALIS, you’ll be navigating through a dystopian world as the Replika, Elster. As you make your way through the story, however, you’ll encounter the toughest challenge of all: locked doors. It’s nothing new for a video game to incorporate a unique lockpicking system, but this one is particularly tricky. So, the question becomes … does SIGNALIS let you pick locks, and if so, how?

Can You Pick Locks in SIGNALIS?

Yes. In fact, the system that SIGNALIS uses to allow the player to pick locks can be challenging. When the player goes to pick a lock, they’ll enter a puzzle involving a makeshift key and a small screen. In-between the key and screen are a series of toggle buttons with up and down arrows. In addition, to the right is an ‘F’ button to pay respects to try unlocking the door. As mentioned, this puzzle can be particularly hard, as it’s not explicit about your objective — aside from getting the door opened, anyway.

Related: Signalis Review: Puzzles and Gore Galore

If you look closely, you’ll see that the key has several notches with lines on them. Note the screen, which displays the inside of the lock, and … wait … there are four pins on the lock, and four lines on the key. In essence, your objective here is to use the toggle buttons to make the lines on the key match the pins. If you’re doing it correctly, when you press the ‘F’ button, and when they key goes into the lock, the lines on the pins should match. It will inevitably take some trial and error, and the antiquated graphics might make things a bit harder than they should be. But, with a bit of patience, you’ll figure this out in no time!