This guide will be updated periodically if we find new strategies and tips, especially for Hardcore mode.

Resident Evil Village is out right now, and it’s quite a doozy from the last game. If you want a great callback to the action-heavy survival horror nonsense from Resident Evil 4, this entry will be perfect for you.

Of course, walking around the village and Castle Dimitrescu isn’t going to be an easy feat, so here are a few tips to keep surviving. We’ll divide this guide into two sections: one basic guide and one boss guide. The latter will be filled with major spoilers, so we’ll put up warnings in case.

Let’s start with the basics.

Play Through The Story

This one’s pretty obvious: Ethan’s arsenal and tools won’t expand unless you progress deep into the story. Key items you get will unlock many parts of the village. If you hit a brick wall during the exploration bits, just play through the story and fight through the story sections.

Change Red Map Spots To Blue

Exploration is pretty important in RE Village: you need to scavenger for items and treasure to sell off if you want to stand a chance against the lycan horde in the game.

Open up your map: you’ll see a lot of red and blue locations. If a map location is red, that means that there are still items and goodies to search in the village. If it’s blue, you’ve exhausted the location of its goods. This will help add more items you can sell to the Duke, which also means more bullets and weapons.

You Have Weapon Slots: Use Them

Map your weapons to each of the d-pad directions so that you can access them easily. It’s best to swap between weapons; the basic combo involves going back and forth between the pistol and shotgun. The pistol can pick off faraway targets while the shotgun just deals more hurt to enemies.

When Aiming, Let Lycans Sway To Your Reticule

Resident Evil veterans should know this tip by heart. Usually, when you’re aiming down sights, it’s best to let the shuffling undead and lycans in RE Village just sway towards your reticule. It’s a lot easier than you fiddling on the controller/mouse to aim at its head.

Only Craft Items When You Need To

RE Village is built in a way that you’ll be fighting the unexpected. As such, you need to craft items on the fly to counter the obstruction and solve the situation. Which is why it’s a bad idea to create extra shotgun ammo for example; you might be fighting a long-ranged foe or an enemy who is way more effective at close range.

Safe your resources for later and when the time comes; pausing the screen to craft will stop time anyway.

When In Doubt, Melee/Knife & Guard/Parry…

It’s not the most effective, but your melee/knife attack saves ammo. Ditto your guard move; time it right and you can push back bad guys.

..Or Just Run

Running away from enemies saves you bullets. Using your guard/parry helps push enemies back so you can amscray safer. Most of the time, the game has bits where you can escape from the stage itself.

Protip: use quick turn (press back + B) so that you can do a quick 180-degree turn and hightail it when needed. Get used to doing this a lot if you want to save ammo for future battles.

When You’re Selling Stuff, You Can Combine Certain Objects

Combining two treasures will yield bigger cashouts from the Duke. Before selling any treasure, just double-check to see if it’s missing any pieces. Chances are you should be able to spend a bit of time searching for the missing bits in the vicinity of the village, or any place you can revisit. Good examples include necklaces with matching jewels in its socket, or a separate head and body of a doll.

You Can Guard And Shoot Your Pistol At The Same Time

This is pointed out by RE content creator Sphere Hunter on Twitter. Pretty handy once you’ve successfully pushed back an enemy.

Did you know Ethan can guard and shoot his pistol at the same time? pic.twitter.com/DOj3pam8mX

— Suzi Hunter (@TheSphereHunter) May 8, 2021

Yes, There Is A New Game Plus…

After you’re done with the main story, which should take you about 10 to 12 hours, you can replay the game with all of your weapons, upgrades, items, and treasures. But it’s not made entirely clear on how to access it.

Let’s sort that out: to access the feature, you’ll need to choose Load Game from the main menu, then scroll down to wherever your completed save game file is. Select and confirm it and you’ll get the prompt to start a new game.

How To Survive The Lycan Invasion When You Start Out (On ANY Difficulty)

Here’s a guide from Kumikones on how to survive the Lycan onslaught at the start of the game on any difficulty, even Village of Shadows. Just one protip: the Lycan ambush runs on a timer, so stalling and “laming out” is the best strategy here.

Resident Evil Village Boss Guide

This one is spoiler-filled because we’ll be mentioning the big bads you’ll be confronting, so here’s your warning.

Vampire Daughters Bella, Daniela, and Casandra

Reward: Crystal Torso (5,000 Lei)

Lady Dimitrescu’s three daughters may seem invincible at first, but they can be defeated if you can find a way to expose them to cold air.

Bela is the first daughter to try her luck against Ethan right after we explore the Castle’s lower floors. When Bela starts to attack you, immediately shoot the other window to ensure she is vulnerable no matter where she stands in the room. From this point onwards, all you need to do is shoot her until she crumbles into dust.

Daniela is hidden behind the locked Iron Insignia door near Lady Dimitrescu’s bedroom. You can make the room colder by opening the roof window using the handle on the posts. Once Daniela starts to feel the cold, blast her to smithereens.

Finally, Cassandra is in the room next to the Mask of Pleasure. Right before you begin the fight, you should find a pipe bomb along with some ammo. Once the fight begins, push the bookcase to expose the crack in the wall. Throw the pipe bomb at the wall to make Cassandra vulnerable – shoot her until she turns to dust.

Tall Vampire Lady Dimitrescu

Reward: Crystal Dimitrescu (25,000 Lei)

Complete the four masks puzzle at the Castle to unlock the poisoned dagger. The following cutscene shows Ethan stabbing Lady Dimitrescu with the dagger, transforming her into a winged beast. Who knew?

Lady Dimitrescu takes the fight to the top of the castle as she drags Ethan to a new location. Head up the stairs and grab the ammo placed on the barrels. Don’t forget to smash the jar to find 25 handgun bullets.

In her final form, Lady Dimitrescu is incredibly slow when walking along the top of the castle. This gives you plenty of time to avoid any of her attacks. Fire at Lady Dimitrescu’s face, not her mount’s head. Use the shotgun in order to deal the most damage. When Lady Dimitrescu takes to the air, switch to your rifle or handgun to shoot her out of the sky.

Lady Dimitrescu will alternate between these two phases before crashing into the middle of the castle. Make your way up the stairs, collect the ammo hidden in the jars and repeat the process until she dies.

Beneviento/Angie

Reward: Unborn Key, Angie (28,000 Lei)

Love hide & seek? Then you’ll enjoy this thrilling boss fight.

Donna Beneviento has transformed herself into Angie, a creepy talking doll. Find Angie three times as she blends in with the rest of the dolls at House Beneviento. As soon as the fight begins, head to the first door on the left, go up the stairs and enter the room on the right. Angie is leaning against a chest of drawers found at the end of the room.

Go back downstairs back to the room you started in, enter the connected room and find Angie on the left side of the sofa. Finally, leave the room and follow the bloodstains on the wall to find Angie sitting on a rug. Don’t forget to pick up Angie before leaving House Beneviento.

Moreau

Reward: Crystal Moreau (40,000 Lei)

Once you are in Moreau’s arena, look out for any barrels as you will find plenty of ammo for your weapons. You want to attack Moreau when he appears out of the monster’s mouth to deal the most damage. You can also make use of any land minds or pipe bombs to stop Moreau in his tracks. There are a few explosive barrels dotted around the arena; blow these up when Moreau gets close.

Moreau will climb on top of the roof and perform his acid raid attack; take shelter. This attack marks the second phase of the fight, though Moreau will likely use this ability a second time before dying. Avoid taking any damage by heading to any building with a cover above it. Once the acid rain stops, walls of slime will block your path. You can either shoot them down or use your knife to destroy them. Keep hammering Moreau with bullets until he’s dead.

Urias, Lycan King

Reward: Crystal Hammer (35,000 Lei)

Yes, you can take down the giant lycan with the big hammer. However, you might be out of ammo. Find ammo on the ledges next to the lamps; these will regenerate for the duration of the fight.

The trick to beating Urias is to circle strafe around a pillar, forcing him to attack an empty space. As long as you stay behind the pillar, it is unable to hurt you.

Urias will hop to the middle platform, summoning Lycans to make the fight even harder. Use this opportunity to search for ammo, reload your weapons, and plant land mines if you still have any in your inventory. This fight is very easy if you master the circle strafe technique, as you should have plenty of time to shoot the giant in the face multiple times.

Heisenberg

Reward: Crystal Heisenberg (70,000 Lei)

In perhaps one of the most tonally jarring segments and fights, and that’s saying a lot for this series, you fight mutated “cyborg” Heisenberg. In this fight, you’re thrown a bone in a form of a mini tank. Before the battle, try to equip a sniper rifle on the ready.

Heisenberg charges at you blades first – aim your machine gun at his glowing red points to stop his attack. If you can’t damage his weak points in time, you can block his saws to receive significantly less damage. You can also fire your cannon, blasting Heisenberg back to the other side of the battlefield.

Keep your distance from Heisenberg. If you’ve dealt enough damage, Heisenberg will hit you with an attack that knocks you out of your mini tank. Don’t panic: you’re close to defeating him. You can find spare ammo near the metal walls, though these walls can be knocked down by Heisenberg’s attacks. On foot, you need to attack Heisenberg’s “head”, preferably with a sniper rifle. With enough shots, Heisenberg will perform one last big attack before finally crystalising.

Urias Round 2

Reward: Crystal Mace (60,000 Lei)

Urias is back for a rematch. Fortunately, you’re playing as Chris Redfield in this short-but-sweet segment. You have a lot of ammo at your disposal, so go nuts. 

However, you can’t use brute force here: aim at Urias’ tentacles on its back. Chris’ squad will also offer you support in the form of an orbital strike. You need to find a safe spot, charge the attack, and fire at it. Urias is pretty slow, so just judge your distance accordingly, charge, and let loose. Three orbital strikes should put this uber Lycan down.

Mother Miranda

Reward: You win the game!

Mother Miranda has many forms in this battle, as per tradition in an RE game.

In her spider form, you can avoid being attacked by keeping your distance. The perfect weapon to use in this fight is the sniper rifle (without the magnifying scope) as it can handle Mother Miranda no matter what form she’s in. When Mother Miranda starts to fly around the stage, she will summon three balls which turn into fire. You can shoot these projectiles before she has the chance to hurt you.

In the second phase, Mother Miranda removes all colour from the scene for a short bit; you need to fight in the dark her. Take a few hits, then the scene returns to normal. She will do an AoE attack but will summon pillars before that happens. Hide behind the pillars to avoid taking damage.

Continue to avoid her attacks. Keep firing at her as often as you can to trigger the final event, in which Mother Miranda ties you to the ground as she prepares her final attack. Fire your weapon at her to interrupt her attack, and don’t stop until she’s dead.