Alan Wake 2: How To Get The Bolt Cutters

Alan Wake 2 features a dark environment and a vast area to explore. However, not all map areas will be pre-unlocked for the players. Many areas will be added to the map only after the players have explored them or gained access.

As you progress through the game, you will notice several areas locked with metal gates. The only way to get past these gates is by cutting the locks, and for that, you will need the Bolt Cutters.

Where To Find The Bolt Cutters

While you’ll run into locked gates that require the Bolt Cutters relatively early on, you will need to wait until the end of Return Chapter 5: Old Gods to acquire this invaluable tool. This is around the same time when you can unlock the Hunting Rifle. The Bolt Cutters are located in the overlap at Valhalla Nursing Home, so you will have to unlock and enter the overlap first. After making it through the Wellness Center of Valhalla Nursing Home and watching Tor enter the overlap, you must complete the Valhalla Nursing Home overlap ritual in order to pursue him.

As with other overlap rituals, you must find some items to complete the ritual. In the case of the Valhalla Nursing Home overlap ritual, you must play the Anger Remorse record on the Jukebox, which will unlock the overlap in the pond. After that, head into the pond to enter into the overlap. Just like the previous overlaps, you will find yourself stuck in a loop, crossing the same or similar paths again and again.

Keep pushing forward, and you will find a chamber down a slope. Inside that chamber, there is a light switch, which you can use to turn on the lights and unlock more chambers. However, the light switch won’t work unless you turn the generators on for power. The generator is located just through the doors on the left of the switch. Once the power is restored, turned the lights on; you will find a new door has opened inside the chamber.

Go through that door, and you will eventually reach a chamber up some stairs. Inside the chamber, you will find a switch to turn on the lights. Just beside the switch, there is a cabinet that has the Bolt Cutters inside it. But there’s a catch: the cabinet disappears whenever the switch is turned on.

However, that’s not an issue. You must turn on the lights to get the key that unlocks the cabinet. When you find the switch, turn it on, and it will reveal a new chamber. Head inside that chamber, and you will find the Tool Cabinet Key in the desk’s drawer.

After collecting the key, come back and turn off the lights. The metal cabinet will appear. Now unlock the cabinet with the Tool Cabinet Key you got. Collect the Bolt Cutter from the cabinet.

Once you have got the Bolt Cutters, you will be able to revisit areas that were previously locked. With the tool to get past these locks, keep exploring, and you can gather all the items that were locked in these areas before.