Clive Barker’s Hellraiser Revival: How to Get the Tongue Key and Sneak Past Bruno

The Tongue Key opens a door sealed with stretched human skin in the “Ghosts of Reykjavik” stretch of Clive Barker’s Hellraiser: Revival, and the only way to get it is to solve a barbed-wire skull sitting on a desk in Bruno Keller’s studio. Clearing that door leads straight onto the catwalk above Bruno’s operating theatre, where you need his keycard to go any further.

Quick answer: Inspect the pinned skull on the studio desk, press every pin on its cranium to open the jaw, take the Tongue Key inside, and use it on the fleshy mouth door nearby.

Get the key for the blue courtyard door

Before any of the skull work, you reach a courtyard with dumpsters and a locked blue metal door with a mesh window. Aidan’s item bar is empty here, so the blue door needs a key first. That key waits in the laundry room on the far side of the courtyard.

Head across the courtyard into the laundry room and approach the work table. Select “F Put clothes on” to equip Aidan with the jacket and gloves.

Taking the folded clothes uncovers a Key, described as looking regularly used. Pick it up. The stool holds a cult memo and the blue crate under the table gives +1 Scraps if you want them.

Go back to the blue door, use “F Open”, then choose the Key to go through.

Reach Bruno’s studio past the guard

A guard stands in the brightly lit corridor beyond the blue door, facing away. Stay out of sight by crouching in the darkness: press C, enter the dark room on your left behind the folding screens, and remain there until the guard has gone by.

Continue along the teal corridor past the waiting chairs and into an office, where +10 Coins sit on a bookshelf to the right. The next room is a bedroom with a chained round bed. The studio comes after that, a large space with a desk, an easel, a glass display case, television sets, and a window looking down on the operating theatre.

Solve the skull pin puzzle for the Tongue Key

A human skull wrapped in barbed wire and driven through with nails rests on the studio desk. The pins act as buttons, and pressing them in the right spots drops the jaw to reveal the key. The relevant pins sit across the back and crown of the cranium, above the barbed wire, not on the face.

Select “F Inspect” to open the 3D view. Move the mouse to turn the skull until its back and upper cranium are visible.

Solving the skull pin puzzle — The inspect view of the barbed-wire skull, where the pins on the cranium work as buttons. Image: Saber Interactive / via @terabyteterry

Turn the skull until the cursor is over a pin and the “F Press” prompt appears; press every pin. Viewed from the direction it initially faces you, their positions are as follows.

Order	Pin position
First	Jammed into the right side of the skull
Second	At the back of the skull, on top
Third	On the left side of the skull
Fourth	At the top of the skull, dead centre

Pressing First Pin — Rotate the skull to its rear and look for the highlighted pin before pressing it. Shown at 00:05 in Ghosts of Reykjavik’s video. Image: Saber Interactive

What matters is pressing all of the pins on the cranium, so if the order above does not line up with your view, keep rotating and press every pin you can highlight until the mechanism reacts.

The last pin raises a diamond-shaped plate at the topmost part of the skull. Tilt the view to look directly down at the plate, then press F in the diamond’s middle. The jaw will swing open.

With the mouth open, press F to take the Tongue Key, which carries the description “Hard to open up without a tongue.” Once you know the pins are buttons, the whole thing takes about 20 seconds.

Collecting Tongue Key — The Tongue Key on the inspect screen, ready to add to your inventory. Shown at 00:14 in Ghosts of Reykjavik’s video. Image: Saber Interactive

Open the mouth door with the Tongue Key

In the same studio, look between the red curtains beside the tall glass display case for a doorway sealed with stretched skin pinned around its frame. An open mouth sits in the middle of it. Interact with the door and select the Tongue Key to insert it into that mouth-shaped lock.

The door opens onto a catwalk above the operating theatre. You know it worked when the “Sneak past Bruno” objective appears along with the prompt “C Crouch and sneak.”

Sneak past Bruno and take his Keycard

Below, Bruno keeps talking as he works on Charlotte, a restrained woman in the lit operating chair. Aidan has no weapon in this area, so remain crouched throughout.

On the catwalk, collect the +6 Coins from the small round table beneath a lamp. Follow the railing to its far end, then descend the metal stairs.

Stay crouched at the foot of the stairs and use furniture to block the chair from view. Crawl beneath the workbench, pass the barred EXIT gate (it is locked and not your route), then continue under the counters and gurneys.

Hide behind the dark curtain facing the chair, beneath the metal shelving stocked with bottles. You can watch Bruno from this spot.

Hold your position. Bruno remains by the chair for roughly ninety seconds before moving around to the other side and heading toward the back of the room. Once he leaves, emerge and crouch your way straight to the chair.

On the blood-stained medical cart just to the chair’s left, find Bruno’s Keycard hanging from a blue lanyard. Press F to pick it up; its text reads “Your ticket out of Bruno’s operating theater.”

Bruno will catch you if you stand or cross the exposed, lit floor while he faces your side. Don’t reach for the cart while he remains at the chair, either. You have no weapon, so getting spotted leaves you unable to win a fight.

Open the security door with Bruno’s Keycard

Facing the chair, turn left to find the exit under the green EXIT sign. Crouch while going through it and into the short service corridor. This escape section is finished when the “Sneak past Bruno” objective vanishes.

Go into the small wood-panelled anteroom, where a coat rack is next to a card reader and a heavy metal security door. Choose “F Open,” then select Bruno’s Keycard. On the other side, paintings line a wood-panelled hall, and the keypad cabinet bearing code 9901 is immediately to your left. Bruno’s Keycard grants access to this security door alone. Farther along, before the Chatterer chase, you’ll reach a save point.