Resident Evil Village: Beginner's Guide Resident Evil Village guide, walkthrough

Last update: 10 May 2021

This page of the Resident Evil Village guide provides beginner's tips , which will help you keep the main character alive. Our tips and tricks also cover world exploration and the best items you should buy.

• Standard difficulty is the advisable choice for your first playthrough
• Careful exploration of your surroundings is very important
• Use a knife to destroy containers and some of the furniture
• Lady Dimitrescu and her daughters cannot be immediately defeated
• Buy only the most valuable things at the Duke's
• Extend Ethan's inventory capacity as soon as possible
• You don't have to kill all the common enemies you encounter
• Various items can be crafted with the use of the same ingredients
• Gradually increase the firepower of your weapons
• Don't forget to heal Ethan if he gets severely injured
• Investigate places where monsters were killed
• Adjusting the screen brightness will reduce the risk of missing some treasures

Standard difficulty is the advisable choice for your first playthrough

Resident Evil 8 offers several difficulty levels, with Standard difficulty (the equivalent of Normal) being the ideal choice for a first playthrough.

Playing on Standard difficulty should save you from frequent and frustrating deaths. You should be able to handle most of the hazards you encounter on your first try, although Ethan can still easily lose valuable health points. In addition, some boss battles can be quite challenging and might require several approaches to develop a good tactic. Note that the game also allows you to change the difficulty level as you play. You don't have to worry about having to restart the whole campaign if the chosen difficulty level turns out to be too easy or too hard.

Careful exploration of your surroundings is very important

As you progress through Resident Evil Village, you should never be in a hurry to move on to the next location. Try to explore each place in 100%, i.e., if possible, make sure that the building or a corridor is marked blue on the world map (unfortunately, color coding doesn't appear in open locations such as the village).

Look around primarily for standard loot, but also for puzzle-solving locations, passages and key items. It should be noted at this point that the main character is not able to get everywhere right away and cannot initially interact with some of the devices he comes across. Fortunately, important locations are marked on the world map and you can (and should) return to them later in the game to finish looting them.

Use a knife to destroy containers and some of the furniture

Keep it in mind because not all collectible items lie in plain sight or are stored inside interactive cabinets and drawers. In some cases, you have to be more perceptive. Above all, try to destroy various kinds of chests in the village and large vases in the castle. These types of items can often be easily overlooked and thus, you'll miss various loot.

Some pieces of furniture are vulnerable to Ethan's attacks and they are even easier to overlook. If a particular piece of furniture has a glass front, it's worth trying to break it. There is a chance that you will be able to break the glass and that you will be able to pick up an additional treasure.

Lady Dimitrescu and her daughters cannot be immediately defeated

You must keep this in mind when exploring the castle for the first time. You cannot kill Lady Dimitrescu or her vampire daughters during the first confrontation. By far the best solution when encountering one of the vampires is taking to heels and, in the case of Lady Dimitrescu's daughters, you can additionally use firearms to chase them away for a moment.

Fortunately, you don't have to fear that the game will require you to avoid them until the very end. Ethan will be able to enter full-fledged fights with Lady Dimitrescu and her daughters, but it will happen in predetermined places and moments. All the fights are described in detail in the Bosses chapter.

Buy only the most valuable things at the Duke's

Duke the Merchant is a very helpful, friendly character that you'll meet for the first time on your way from the village to the castle. He puts up many interesting items for sale. At the Duke's, you should spend Lei credits on unique items. We're mostly talking suitcases, weapon upgrades and blueprints that allow you to craft new gadgets. On the other hand, it is not recommended to spend cash on ammunition and consumable items, as you should find these types of supplies while exploring, or just craft them yourself.

The most valuable items cost a lot at Duke's, but you can also sell unwanted items and increase your supply of credits for future transactions. This mainly concerns Treasures, which are described in detail on a separate page of the FAQ chapter.

Extend Ethan's inventory capacity as soon as possible

In Resident Evil Village, filling up your inventory comes easy, even despite the fact that Key Items and Treasures are stored in separate tabs and don't use up space in the main inventory window. This stems from the fact that each new collected weapon will take up a large number of inventory slots. Additionally, slots can become clogged with, among other things, larger quantities of ammunition.

Duke the Merchant offers Extra Baggage suitcases to increase your inventory room. They are not cheap, but you should still make their purchase a priority. At the Duke's you can also sell "older" weapons (e.g. the first shotgun once you find a better one) and thus, free up inventory slots. For more information on buying suitcases, see the Inventory - how to increase size? page.

You don't have to kill all the common enemies you encounter

In Resident Evil Village , just like in the previous parts of the series, the main character keeps struggling with a limited supply of ammo and medicine, and it is not always possible to replenish them through crafting or more thorough exploration. Trying to kill 100% of the monsters you encounter may make your situation progressively worse, because it may turn out, for example, that the supplies used to eliminate a given opponent exceed the loot he drops.

If you have limited supplies or don't want to waste them, you can sneak past a given enemy or choose to run away. In the case of larger creatures, hiding inside a hut that the beast cannot enter can also be a good strategy - the monster will lose interest after a while and will move away.

Various items can be crafted with the use of the same ingredients

This is a useful tip if you plan on crafting large quantities of items. You need to be aware that different items may have common ingredients. This means that crafting item A automatically makes it impossible to produce item B.

As there is no limit in the game for carried ingredients, it is best to use them only when needed, not immediately after picking them up. For example, if you have used up almost all shotgun ammo during a battle, then produce it right away to keep using the weapon. However, do not craft the maximum possible quantity of shotgun ammo so that later on it doesn't turn out that you won't be able to craft sniper ammo when you really need it.

Gradually increase the firepower of your weapons

As a reminder , you can improve your weapon stats at Duke's, but unfortunately, you have to pay a lot for each weapon upgrade. Weapon upgrades are available for all weapons except grenade launcher, though you should focus on the weapons you use regularly in combat.

The priority is to increase the Power parameter, because it improves firepower and allows you to deal more damage. Increasing this stat will not only make winning fights easier (aim for headshots, if possible), but you will also use less ammunition.

Don't forget to heal Ethan if he gets severely injured

In Resident Evil 8, the health bar is not visible at all times, and it may happen that you forget and ignore the fact that the main character has considerable taken damage. The game will signal very serious damage with a screen distortion, although at this point, you may not have enough time to use a medicine.

It's a good idea to regularly check Ethan's health in the inventory window – think about regenerating HP when health bar is orange; red means he's already on the verge of death. Also, remember to always have at least 1 First Aid Med in stock in case you suddenly get seriously injured. Fortunately, the game offers a lot of checkpoints and you can also manually save the game, so in case of death, you don't have to repeat large parts of the campaign. More tips can be found on a separate page Wounds - how to heal?

Investigate places where monsters were killed

After killing each monster, you should check the place where it died. You should find loot - it could be Lei credits, ammunition, an artifact or some unique item. It's also an incentive to actually engage in fights instead of avoiding them, even though the treasures dropped by a slain beast don't always outweigh the amount of supplies used to defeat it.

Collecting loot can unfortunately be difficult in the case of flying monsters and lycans hiding on rooftops, as Ethan won't necessarily be able to get to the places where they died. Still, try to get close to the place where the monster is killed, because it may turn out, for example, that the loot is lying on the edge of the roof within your reach.

Adjusting the screen brightness will reduce the risk of missing some treasures

As you progress through RE8 , you'll visit many dark locations that may be illuminated by single and not-so-powerful light sources. In these types of places, it is easy to bump into an enemy hiding in the darkness, or to miss loot that may be hidden, for example, in chests or cabinets located in dark corners.

If you don't want additional complications, it's a good idea to increase the default screen brightness level in the game options. It is recommended for at least examining locations which, for most of the time, are much darker than other ones (e.g. in open spaces). This will help you avoid potential problems and reduce the risk of missing an opportunity to fully explore an area.