How to use the Scanner in Atomic Heart

Nathan Warby
Atomic Heart players using glove ability

The world of Atomic Heart is brimming with valuable resources and equipment to interact with, and players are given a useful Scanner to easily find what they’re looking for. However, it’s not totally clear how it works, so here’s how to use the Scanner in Atomic Heart.

Atomic Heart lets players loose in the vast open world of Facility 3826, which is crammed full of challenging robotic enemies to fight and objectives to complete. There are also plenty of resources and weapons to pick up along the way to aid you as you progress through the story.

With so much going on, players will be glad to hear that they’re armed with a Scanner to quickly pick out key items in the environment. However, since launch, many have struggled to figure out the Scanner controls.

If you’re wondering how to use the Scanner in Atomic Heart, we’ve got you covered.

Atomic Heart: How to use Scanner

The Scanner is an essential tool in Atomic Heart.

To ping the Scanner in Atomic Heart, players must press R1/RB twice and keep the button held down on the second press.

The confusion comes from Atomic Heart‘s tutorial, which explains that the input for the Scanner is “Hold R1/RB + R1/RB.” This has led many players to assume it’s a typo as they attempt to hold L1/LB at the same time or hold the button down before pressing it a second time.

It’s easy to see how this would be confusing, but hopefully, you’ll have no more issues now that you have the right Scanner input.

Atomic Heart Scanner explained

Once you’ve managed to use the Scanner in Atomic Heart, it will quickly reveal any enemies, loot, story items, or interactive objects that are nearby. The key items will flash up a different color depending on what they are, check out each one below:

  • Blue: Containers that can be looted.
  • Orange: Enemies, as well as a list of strengths and weaknesses if you hover over them.
  • White: Interactive objects such as Save Stations or switches.
  • Purple: Story items that are needed for the current mission.

It’s also worth keeping in mind that the Scanner doesn’t freeze time like it does in other games, so you’re still open to attacks while taking in your surroundings.


For more on Atomic Heart, be sure to check out our other guides:

Atomic Heart PC requirements | Does Atomic Heart have multiplayer? | Will Atomic Heart have microtransactions? | Every Atomic Heart edition | Atomic Heart voice actors | All Atomic Heart voice actors

Image credit: Mundfish

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About The Author

Nathan is a Senior Writer at CharlieIntel. He’s an expert in EA Sports FC, Call of Duty, and Overwatch, as well as superhero games, including Marvel’s Spider-Man. With a master's degree in Magazine Journalism from Nottingham Trent University, he worked as a Trainee Reporter for Derbyshire Live before moving into games media, with bylines at Dexerto, Cultured Vultures, and more. You can contact Nathan by email at [email protected].