Alone In The Dark - How To Open The Docks Safe In Chapter 3

During Chapter 3 of Alone in the Dark, you will make your way to a foggy dock, where you need to find a manifest inside a warehouse. Getting into the warehouse itself isn't too difficult, but inside you need to solve a word puzzle and open a safe containing the manifest. While the answer to this puzzle seems simple once you understand it, wrapping your head around it in the first place is a bit of a challenge.

Docks safe lock solution

The note given to you in the warehouse office talks about a man's things, but more importantly, provides a single clue to unlock the safe in the room. The clue is "What is left, Later is right, and Hell is back again," with those three words bolded. This note is almost nonsensical, but it's the only piece of information you are given to open the safe. However, if you are familiar with the combination lock on the safe, it might make a little more sense.

Rotating combination locks like the one on the safe are opened by turning the dial to the correct number by turning left (counterclockwise), right (clockwise), and back left again, which is what the clue describes. Unlike other puzzles in Alone in the Dark, the cryptic words in the clue don't relate to another clue that will provide the numbers, but instead you must simply count the number of letters in each word, making the solution 4L, 5R, 4L.

The safe doesn't have every number listed, instead using Roman numerals on certain spots. The four and five are in the bottom right corner, just before the six at the button of the dial. Turn the dial left (counterclockwise) to the four, turn it once back to the five, and once back to the 4 to open it. Do not do a full rotation between numbers, just turn once from the 4 to the 5 and back to the 4. Once the combination has been put in correctly, the safe will open and you can collect the contents.