The Laboratory is a section of the Otago in Aliens: Dark Descent that is locked early on in the game and you can’t do anything with it. To stop the player from getting overwhelmed with new mechanics and general info, the developers have made it so that you have to make just a little bit of progress in the story first.
To unlock the Laboratory, players must complete all of Dead Hills’ main objectives. As the first mission in the game, this isn’t too tough, but players can expect to spend at least a couple of hours figuring out the lay of the land and just generally how the game works.
When back aboard the Otago, go to the now unlocked Laboratory screen and talk to Doctor Donald Becker. Here, you can spend your Xenosamples to unlock new Xenotech that makes your life harder, but you will first need to find the Xenotech blueprints, which are most commonly found after killing Alien Queens.
While they’re quite the challenge, it’s well worth killing any Alien Queen you come across. Xenotech gives all kinds of perks per deployment, some passive and some a lot bit more involved. From being able to negate acid damage to armor to making xenomorphs spot you slower to even being able to extract Facehuggers, you’re going to want to invest as much time as you can into upgrading this part of the Otago.
Bear in mind, though, that you will also need to spend your Xenosamples to use them for a deployment and they must be spent each time. It costs 2 Xenosamples per perk, so you will have to pick and choose which Xenotech will be best suited for the mission.
Aliens: Dark Descent is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X & S.
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