So I just got to the part where Mr. X starts chasing me around, and boy is he annoying. I want to explore and find ammo/items, but he appears all the damn time so I have to run, and can't get back to those rooms again without him appearing. I have a couple questions that may help down the road. I'm playing as Leon on normal if that's worth noting.

First, and most importantly, does he go away permanently at some point in the story? To the point where I could explore in peace again? If so I may just critical path things until he's gone, then explore all the red rooms I have later. (I personally don't care about spoilers here.)

Second, does he really respond to noise? It seems like he shows up every 30 seconds no matter how quiet I am. I can lead him to one side of the station, then slowly walk back to the other side and avoid all combat. Only to have him appear anyway by the time I walk there.

Basically, I want to scrounge and can't really do that right now. Any thoughts here are appreciated.

I'm not done with the game yet so I'll probably nope out of this thread after I post this, but I wanna help

So first of all, you can definitely lose him, and often. I too thought it was futile to run away at first but you can definitely completely lose him and have him wander around aimlessly. Just run. You'll experience good stretches where he can't find you. But yes he's constantly looking for you for a good chunk. Something also to note is you go to areas other than the police station and Mr. X isn't a constant looming threat in those places. Places like the Sewer. I myself have just entered the Lab. Hope this helps

I was able to get down to the under the police station without ever running into Mr X. Pretty sure I will have to go back to the police station at some point, but is that normal?

@majormitch: It's probably enough just to say that there's an opportunity for you to return to the station later without having to worry about him. At least in my own experience I didn't run into him in the station after returning.

That's normal. You meet him for the first time under the station.

I also want to add that I thought he'd make the rest of the game miserable for me when I first ran into him, but it turned out to be fine. I had plenty of fun the whole way through. Looking forward to the forthcoming playthroughs.

Look up a guide - all you really have to do is make it to the clock tower and do a puzzle, go back and get that dead guy Ben's parking garage key, and try to leave. After a cutscene, he will be gone and you will be free to explore.The only time in the entire Leon A campaign where he'll chase you for a significant amount of time is this segment. There are two more shorter ones after this and that's pretty much it.

At least for the first Leon run. I'm pretty sure Claire's runs and the Leon B run are similar. Discussions of Mr X on your Kotaku's and Polygon's seem greatly exaggerated, he's not really an overbearing presence here.

Thanks all! Yeah, he was very annoying for that one stretch in the police station. I'm past that now, and thankfully I could still explore after that. I'm sure he'll show up in some capacity again later, but hopefully that's the worst of it. I really like this game, but I do not care for Mr. X... he could have been a lot more overbearing for sure though.

Some general tips against Mr. X:

• Flashbangs stun him very well. I'd say absolutely essential for an hardcore s-rank run.
• Running through a couple of rooms usually lose him.
• Seems like any noise will attract him (i.e. doors opening, gunfire, and explosions).
• Though not recommended, you do enough damage to him he'll "take a knee", effectively being stunned for a little while.
• He won't run into save rooms (except the main hall in the police station).

I just kept running into the Dark room lol. Then depending on where I was going I'd wait for him to go the opposite way.