DON'T LET HIM IN The Locust Guide: How to Recognize and Survive It

The Locust announces itself before it ever reaches you. During a run, DON'T LET HIM IN displays the tip "The locust doesn't breach lit areas." — one line that both names the monster you are facing and hands you its most important rule: light and power are what keep it out. The same recorded run shows the response that follows from that rule: when the monster cut the power, the player brought it back and the monster disappeared — "So, apparently when I get the power, he just disappeared."

How to recognize The Locust

The Locust is one of the named monsters you can face in DON'T LET HIM IN, a game where "you and your friends must keep a monster out of the house." You rarely have to guess whether it's The Locust, because the game names it in two places:

• The on-screen tip. "The locust doesn't breach lit areas." appears during play — the monster-specific rule stated in the game's own text.
• The round-setup pick. A lobby can offer "Locus or the boy" as the pick. The spelling differs, but "Locus" is this monster — the players offered that choice admitted they didn't know what a "locus" was.

Its behavior confirms what the name started. The Locust works the house's doors and windows and cuts the power, and viewers of posted clips have matched that exact pattern to the Locust. Don't try to identify it by sight instead: nothing in recorded play describes what The Locust looks like, so its name on screen plus this work-the-entries, kill-the-lights pattern is the identification.

The Locust's behavior and encounter states

The Locust attacks the house through its entries, and the game describes a monster that "can reach the doors, windows, and even the second floor." In play it opens closed windows ("he's opening up windows") and doors ("And he opened up the door."), and players have found it upstairs mid-round ("Ooh, he's upstairs.").

While it works an entry, the game fires a "breach active" alert. No recorded round shows how to stop a breach that has already started — the player who got the alert asked "Wait, how do I stop the breach, bro?" and nothing on screen answered. Treat the alert as the last warning that an entry is about to fail, and react before it opens (breach survival).

It doesn't need the door at all: "This guy literally jumped through a window," and once it starts coming through one, the player gives you "like 3 seconds before he comes inside." That's your entire reaction window, so know where you're heading before it reaches the frame.

The signature escalation is the power cut. In the recorded run it crossed the house without checking rooms and killed the power ("The monster didn't even check any of the rooms, bro. And he cut the power."), dropping the house into darkness where the player could barely see the walls — and a flashlight didn't rescue him, because he had the flashlight but "not A BATTERY" for it.

Once inside, it hunts. It chases room to room ("He's coming. He's coming.") and is hard to pin down: it "literally just vanished" mid-chase, and one player called it "like invisible." Expect the pressure in waves — one player summed up his night as "like three stages of the monster trying to kill us." That's his impression of one round, not a documented stage list; the safe assumption is repeated pushes rather than a fixed count.

The night runs on a visible clock, and one run reached 6:00 a.m. — the point where the player expected to "see the monster run away." Recorded play never shows the monster actually leaving at 6:00 a.m., so treat morning as the finish line you play toward, not a confirmed ending.

How to survive The Locust

1. Restore power the moment it's cut. This is the one response shown working start to finish against The Locust: the player retrieved the battery, the power came back, and the monster vanished ("Wait, I think he's gone."). It follows directly from the game's tip — a dark house has no lit areas for it to respect, and the power system is what you're defending.
2. Keep doors and windows shut — and never open them yourself. The monster's whole approach is working entries open, so the recorded players' discipline was "shut the window. Shut the window." and "Yeah, shut the door, bro" — plus "Hey, hey, hey, don't open the door. Why you opening the door?" when a teammate almost undid it. A second group held their door against the push the same way: "He's opening the door — close it" ... "It wants to come in — not allowed." The doors and windows are the whole fight.
3. If it gets inside, hide. The hunted player in the Locust run immediately looked for a locker ("Is there a locker here? There's no locker here." — his section had none). Hiding is proven as a survival move in the game: in another group's round, the plan for a blackout was "when the light goes out, hide," the player who found a closet survived while the teammates who didn't hide were caught. That round named its monster only by pool ("Locus or the boy"), so hiding is verified for the game rather than confirmed as a counter to The Locust specifically — but it is the fallback the recorded player reached for. Scout your hiding spots before the lights go out.
4. Play for morning. Keep the lights on, hold the entries, and watch the clock toward 6:00 a.m.

One light question stays open before you rely on any of this: the game never defines what counts as a "lit area." A flashlight needs a battery, and whether a lit flashlight qualifies as a lit area is not established — one group even switched their flashlights off as a precaution while watching for something to come in, without explaining why. The verified light play is restoring house power; don't bet your round on a flashlight counting.

Common mistakes

• Opening doors mid-attack to check. The recorded rounds show teammates opening doors during an active push — the fastest way to let it in.
• Treating upstairs as safe. The game says it "can reach... even the second floor," and players found it there.
• Swinging the paper ball. The recorded player carried one and taunted the monster with it, but no hit or effect is ever shown — it is not a documented weapon or counter.
• Identifying The Locust by looks. Its appearance is never described; use the on-screen tip and the pick screen instead.
• Counting on a 6:00 a.m. walk-off. Players expected the monster to flee at morning, but no recorded round shows it happening — keep defending until the round actually ends.
• Assuming these tricks are Locust-exclusive. The recorded rounds don't show whether power cuts, vanishing, or wave attacks belong to The Locust alone, so don't drop your guard against other monsters.

To see how The Locust compares with the rest of the roster, read the DON'T LET HIM IN monsters guide.