What does light do, exactly?

[Zebulon Ecthelion]

The game says that the monster hates light, so you'd think that places that are lit are safe zones where the monster won't come out, but no, the monster will come out in lit areas, just not as frequently it seems. Does anyone know what the actual mechanic behind light is? What makes the monster sometimes come out in lit areas?

[Standin.Fever]

he will linger and search for you less if spawned, but making noise will still make him appear regardless. without light it almost guaranteed to come out and hunt you randomly, with lights on it's just much less chance of it, but still possible.

also, there are a few occasions where it looks scripted like opening prisoners cell, as just opening adjacent cells wont spawn him, at least for me

[Lazaruz]

Originally posted by Standin.Fever:

he will linger and search for you less if spawned, but making noise will still make him appear regardless. without light it almost guaranteed to come out and hunt you randomly, with lights on it's just much less chance of it, but still possible.

also, there are a few occasions where it looks scripted like opening prisoners cell, as just opening adjacent cells wont spawn him, at least for me

Can vouch for this outof my own experiences aswell (and what I've been told).

A good way I've found to think about it is having Lights active makes it quite less likely that the monster will randomly spawn and begin a search, and, in my experience, it becomes less likely to immediately act upon "quiet" noises such as winding your flashlight once or twice, but "loud" noises (for instance an explosion) will still cause it to spawn and begin a search

[:(]

So if there is light, he will stay in the holes until you make noise, or until a scripted event happens, see @Standin.Fever's comment.

If the power is out, he will roam the Bunker freely, and will always be hunting. If you have enough fuel, you can crouchwalk around the whole bunker and almost never see the monster.

[WALL3T]

just an FYI the monster can make new holes too. i wont say where but just know if you frequent an area enough, itll make 'em just for you!

[CaptainNoobles]

there are only two scripted appearances of the monster, and neither of them involve the prisoner.

He emerges based on sound and lights, with there being two types of sounds (loud sounds, and quiet sounds). Loud sounds will almost guarantee the monster comes out of the holes even if the area is lit up, while quiet sounds has a high chance of causing an appearance in the dark, or if the lights are off the monster will instead move to one of the holes nearest to the source of noise and wait.

There's a pretty neat steam guide that breaks down the behaviour of the monster if you're interested in that side of things