How to Use Key in Layers of Fear (2023)

Layers of Fear hits players with a Walking Sim that can get confusing at times. If you are not used to the scenery around you changing, whilst listening to distorted audio or visual manipulation, you may find yourself often at a dead-end or confused out of your mind – much like the Painter himself. As you often find yourself having to complete puzzles which typically revolve around finding a key, flicking a light switch, destroying some cursed items or looking at something in a new light, getting trapped inside multiple four walls can often leave you at a standstill. With repeating corridors, staircases and gameplay to match the puzzle solutions, backtracking and progressing can often feel like the same thing. When the door shuts behind you, the solution often is to find the key to make your escape. This is Vincent’s guide on how to use the key in Layers of Fear.

How to Use Keys in Layers of Fear

Whilst we cannot point you to every puzzle solution as most do not require a key to progress, you will find that a lot of puzzle hide keys near or inside of objects that require unlocking or some kind of visual manipulation to bring into reality. Very often if a room with multiple locked doors or an obvious next stop paused by a locked door then the room you are in houses the key you need. When this is the case, you will need to complete whatever the puzzle suggests. It can be to move objects around so that the key spawns into the room or using the lantern to obtain the key from within an item. After obtaining the key you need to escape the area you are in, all you need to do is head to the door needed to progress. This will never be the door that you originally entered through which locked behind you.

Once you have the key in your inventory there is no system in place to bring the key out to equip it. Rather, when you go to the locked door, all you need to do is look at the doorknob so that you see the door opening visual prompt on your cursor. Here, you need to click to interact. On PC this will be your left-click on mouse and on Console, it will be the Right Trigger. You should hear the unlocking audio cue to indicate that the key has been used (which will then remove it from your inventory as it no longer has use). After this, you can use the standing opening action by holding and pulling with the mouse or right analog stick in the one fluid direction that the door can open to.

For more on the latest gaming guides by the Gamer Journalist team, be sure to see all of our related GJ articles here. If you are interested, you can also view our Layers of Fear Review here. Thank you for reading.