A little way into your ordeal with Resident Evil 2, you’ll come across the Safety Deposit Room. The lockers in this room contain an assortment of life-saving supplies, but you need a few things before you can unlock them. Namely, you need some spare keys for the keypad.
Check the control panel and you’ll see that the number two and three keys are missing from the keypad, which means you won’t be able to open any lockers containing those numbers just yet. It just so happens that includes most of them. However, you can still open lockers 106 and 109. There’s a roll of film in one, which is useful for another puzzle — but one thing at a time.
Head out of the Safety Deposit Room and move up the staircase onto the second floor. Go west and enter the door on your right, into the Shower Room. Grab the Portable Safe from on top of the box in the corner of the room.
How to open the Portable Safe
A note nearby gives some clues as to how to open the Portable Safe, but you still need to engage your noodle if you want to crack it open. There are eight buttons on the safe, each of which corresponds to a light. The lights form a circle and each light in the circle must be activated sequentially. It doesn’t matter where you start; you just have to complete the circle. Unfortunately, I can’t just give you the code as it changes between playthroughs.
The easiest way to solve the puzzle is to assign each button a number from one to eight. With that done, all you have to do now is press each button and see which light it corresponds to. If it helps you to remember, grab a notepad and draw a circle of your own, then write down the number of the button in the position of the light that it illuminates. Once you’ve figured out the order, just enter the code and unlock the safe.
With the safe cracked, you’ll be rewarded with a Spare Key for the keypad in the Safety Deposit Room. You can head back there now to open some of the lockers… or hang on until you have both keys. If you do go back, I recommend replacing the number two key first. This allows you to open more boxes than the number three key.
Finding the second Portable Safe
Put all this keypad business out of your mind, for now, and continue through the Police Station. Just follow the events of the story until you reach the Parking Garage. When you first get here, a cutscene involving another character will play. Although which mysterious stranger turns up changes depending on whether you’re playing as Leon or Claire.
Once the cutscene is over, head out through the eastern exit and make your way through the Kennels, towards the Morgue. You’ll face either Lickers or Zombie Dogs along the way, so be ready for a fight. Once you reach the Morgue, open the storage drawers to find some supplies, a few scares, and most importantly, the Diamond Key.
It’s backtracking time now, folks! You need to use the Diamond Key to gain access to the Linen Room, all the way back on the western side of the Police Station — up on the second floor near the S.T.A.R.S. Office. Inside here you’ll find the second Portable Safe. Unlock this using the same method as the first. Your reward will be the same prize — another Spare Key for the keypad in the Safety Deposit Room.
Take the key back to the Safety Deposit Room and combine it with the keypad. Again. You can now open the other two lockers: 103 and 203! They contain a Combat Knife and a Hip Pouch that increases your carrying capacity.
Congratulations, you’ve solved the Safety Deposit Room Keypad puzzle in Resident Evil 2! The rewards might seem a bit paltry, but you’ll be thankful for that extra inventory space in the long run.
