Don’t let Resident Evil 2’s stunning new visuals and completely overhauled gameplay fool you: This remake of the 1998 survival-horror classic is still very much a Resident Evil game. That means that you’ll have to conserve ammo, manage your inventory wisely, and know when and when not to engage a giant-tongued zombie monster in order to get out of the Raccoon City Police Department alive. If you want to make your journey through Capcom’s gorgeously reimagined horror adventure just a little less frightening, here are 10 key survival tips. Aim carefully (and don’t waste ammo) Resident Evil 2’s zombies don’t go down easily, and you’ll rarely have a surplus of ammo to unload into them. Stay as still as possible, wait for your aiming reticle to shrink and aim for the head to do as much damage as possible. Zombies often get back up once they hit the ground, so unless you see a head explode, you should use your combat knife (more on that below) or fire a few extra rounds at the head until you’re certain they’re dead. Shooting a zombie’s legs will slow it down, while later enemies will have obvious weak spots to focus on. Just don’t spray-and-pray when things get hectic, as every bullet matters. The combat knife is your friend You should aim to always have a combat knife on you, as it could save you tons of ammo — and your life. The knife is a great tool for finishing off downed zombies without wasting ammo, and you can shove one into any zombie that grabs you to avoid getting bitten (you can achieve the same effect with any grenade you have equipped). Just keep in mind that combat knives will break after a few uses, and if you plant one in a zombie, you'll have to to pick it back up once the enemy is dead. Deal with the zombies (when you can) A big part of Resident Evil is knowing when and when not to engage the undead (for example: You’re not going to take on a Licker with just a pistol). But if you have the proper firepower and health to clear out a room, you should. You’ll be doing a ton of backtracking in Resident Evil 2, and the more enemies you deal with immediately, the fewer you’ll have to worry about later. Safe often (and in multiple slots) If you’re playing on normal or assisted mode, you should be saving every time you come across a typewriter. Death can happen quickly, even on the game’s standard difficulty, and the last thing you want to do is have to backtrack through room after room of undead because you lost your progress. Your number of saves does affect your overall ranking at the end of the game, but you likely won’t be shooting for high scores your first time through. Be sure to take advantage of your multiple save slots, too. If you’re extremely low on healing items and resources, you might want to save in a new slot as to not overwrite a previous save in which your character was in better shape. This way, if you find yourself constantly dying due to low health and ammo, you can revert back to an earlier save and try to make a smoother run to your next objective. MORE: The Best Headsets for Immersive Gaming Examine everything As you collect various doodads, make sure to open your inventory menu and examine them. Seemingly benign objects will often yield crucial passwords, keys and clues if you just move them around a bit. Use the quick turn Pressing down + circle on PS4 or down + B on Xbox One will allow your character to do a quick 180-degree turn. On top of letting you get from place to place faster, this move lets you instantly face an enemy you’ve been running away from, and is crucial for giving yourself time to dodge deadly boss attacks. Board up those windows As you progress through the police department, you’ll collect a few wooden panels that you can use to board up open windows and keep zombies out. Use them at every opportunity. You’ll have significantly fewer undead to deal with if you do. Drop what you don’t need Inventory space is precious in Resident Evil 2, so don’t let useless objects clutter up your bag. The game places a convenient red check mark next to keys and puzzle items that have already served their purpose, so be sure to discard anything you don’t need. Write down puzzle solutions Every time you find a solution to the various combination locks, safes and puzzle terminals throughout the game, be sure to take a photo of or write down those solutions. This way, you won’t have to hunt down those clues on subsequent playthroughs, shaving precious minutes off of those speedrun attempts. Use your map and explore everywhere Resident Evil 2’s map system is incredibly intuitive. If a room is marked as blue, you’ve fully explored it; if it’s red, there are still more items and secrets to discover; and if it’s blank, you haven’t been there at all yet. If you’re pounding your head on the wall wondering where to go next, check every unexplored room and unopened door, and use any keys you have on any corresponding locks you haven’t tried yet. You’ll find tons of handy items in the process, and will eventually stumble onto whichever key or puzzle solution you need to progress. Credit: Capcom<doc-sep>Resident Evil 2 brings you back to Raccoon City. While this version shares a name with its inspiration, it’s effectively a brand new game. Here are some tips to help you get started. Don’t waste ammo You’ll always want more ammo. At no point will you have too many bullets. We spent a sizable chunk of our game cursing ourselves for wasting shots hours earlier. You don’t gain anything by killing a zombie. You don’t have to kill every zombie. Your combat knife is (mostly) useless Aside from your firearms, you’ll pick up several Combat Knives. It’s tempting to think of these as your fallback weapon when you’re out of (or low on) ammo, but the zombies will quickly dissuade you of that notion. Your knife is a weapon of last resort. It’s good for two things: checking to see if a zombie is really dead (slash at it while it’s on the ground), and stabbing a zombie who grabs you. Running is almost always an option Taking the last two points together, consider running. Sometimes this means running past or away, and sometimes it means leaving a zombie to deal with later. Again, don’t think that you have to put down every monster you see. It’s better to ignore some and save your bullets for when you really need them. Let zombie heads move into your sights Ammo is scarce, and headshots are powerful. Try aiming not where the zombie is but where it’s going to be. Let it walk into your reticle where you’re aiming, and then fire for a headshot. Unlocking every door takes time (but it’s usually worth it) Resident Evil 2 is a very gamey game. It’s full of puzzles and locked doors whose solutions and keys are hidden throughout the world. You’ll be doing a lot of looping and backtracking to open every locked door, sometimes many hours later. Putting in the work whenever you find a combination or key always pays off. You tend to find something valuable like healing herbs, ammo, or even a Hip Pouch to increase your inventory. Your map tells you when you’re done with a room Your map is invaluable for navigating Resident Evil 2, but there’s more information there. When you first enter a new area, the room will be colored red on your map. A red room means there’s still something to find inside. Sometimes, this is a lock you can’t open or a puzzle you can’t solve yet. Other times, this is just an item you haven’t stumbled across or picked up yet. Check your map often to make sure you’ve picked up everything you can. Touch every door Speaking of your map, here’s a trick for making it easier to read: Interact with every door. If it’s locked, trying to open it adds information to your map. That could be text that describes the way it’s locked (Chained Door, for example) or it could be an icon indicating that you need a special key. You can tell which doors you’ve tried to open just by looking at the map, too. Doors you haven’t interacted with are white. Locked doors you’ve interacted with are red. Hover over the locked doors, and you’ll see what’s locking them. This is basically planning for the future. When you get an item that can open these doors, you don’t have to guess where it’ll work. You just have to check your map because you’ve already done the work to label the doors on your map. Use multiple save slots Mistakes can be particularly costly in Resident Evil 2. Maybe you wandered into an area, freaked out, had particularly bad aim, and wasted a bunch of ammo. Load a recent save file, and you can effectively rewind time and try again with the knowledge you gained from your first attempt. You’ll be shocked at how much faster you can get through the game when you know that’s coming and you’re not tiptoeing around. You have 20 save slots. Experiment. Use them. Inventory space is a constant, manageable battle You’ll start the game with only eight inventory slots. You’ll get more, but you’ll never be burdened with an overabundance of inventory slots. So inventory management is like a game within this game. Some of the items you pick up, like ammo (obviously) and grenades, will stack. Others, like healing herbs and keys, won’t. You can combine some of what you pick up: Combined herbs make better healing items, and gunpowder becomes ammo. Doing this will free up (at least) one slot. You can do this on the fly, too. As you pick up items you find in the world, you’ll likely just mash buttons to drop it into the first available inventory slot. Instead, if you’re planning ahead or you need something specific, you can combine items by storing them into an already occupied slot. For the most part, you’ll do this for healing herbs and ammo. Also, if you can’t fit something in your inventory, it’ll show up on your map. Make your way to the nearest Item Box, unload some of your inventory, and return to grab what you left behind.<doc-sep>Capcom’s Resident Evil 2 remake might look similar to its action-focused Resident Evil 4 or Resident Evil 5 at first glance, but the game is still very much rooted in survival-horror. For newcomers to the genre, it can be difficult to survive Raccoon City’s many zombies and monsters, not to mention the puzzles found around nearly every corner. Tips and tricks to surviving in Resident Evil 2 Staying alive during the zombie apocalypse in Resident Evil 2 isn’t easy. Zombies are harder to take down, resources are scarce, and you’ll be doing a lot of moving around through areas where your safety will be compromised. However, with a few tips to get yourself started, you’ll be ready to conquer both Leon and Claire’s stories and strike a blow to the heart of Umbrella Corporation. 1. A down zombie isn’t a dead zombie Many other zombie series live and die by the “headshot to kill” strategy, with a bullet to the dome capable of taking down any undead coming your way. In Resident Evil 2, it will take about three bullets from your default 9mm pistol to knock a zombie down, and only if they’re all headshots. If the zombie’s head explodes with one of these shots, it’s dead, and you won’t have to worry about it anymore. More often than not, however, a zombie will get back up moments later and resume its attack. You can expedite its final death by continuing to fire into its head as it goes down, but it can take nine or more shots for this to happen. There are some very tight areas where it will be necessary to completely kill enemies in order to keep them from attacking you, but more often than not, you can simply shoot them in their legs to limit their mobility. A crawling zombie can still grab you, but it will take a lot longer to do so. 2. Run to save ammo This isn’t Resident Evil 5, and you are going to run out of ammunition in the middle of some tough encounters. In these situations, your best option is often just to run until you can escape the threat and pick up some more resources. There is an art to running away in Resident Evil 2, however. Enemies will lunge at you from a few feet away in order to grab and take a bite out of your neck, which can do serious damage. To avoid this try to draw the zombies you face over to one side of a room or hallway, and then quickly dash to the other side. In all but the smallest areas, this can be the difference between life and death. 3. Stock up on knives and grenades If you do happen to get grabbed, you don’t automatically have to take extra damage. Whenever most enemies grab you, you’ll see an L1/LB button prompt quickly appear on screen. Pressing this before you’re bitten will cause you to stick a knife in their head or a grenade in their mouth, either of which will force them off of you long enough to get away. If it’s a knife, you can also grab it out of their corpse once they’re dead. With the game’s limited carrying space, keeping a supply of both knives and grenades can seem tedious, but it will come in handy during difficult moments. Just ensure that your knives aren’t about to break, as their durability goes down with each use. 4. Always check your map With the many twists and turns in Resident Evil 2’s environments, it’s nearly impossible to stay properly oriented without looking at your map on a regular basis. Luckily, it’s incredibly useful for not only figuring out where to go next, but also locating resources you’ll need to survive. Once you’ve opened up the map, you’ll see three different colors for rooms. Black rooms are ones you have not visited yet, while red rooms are those you have visited but have not completed an objective or located all items. Blue rooms have been completed or all items have been picked up. Once you’ve walked near an item, it will pop up on your map, as well. If you’re confused about where to find more ammunition or green herbs, this is a great first option. When you’re struggling against enemies in a confusing space, you can also use the map to locate the nearest exit without having to waste precious in-game time. Against late-game bosses, this is a necessity. 5. Examine every item Walking in circles and not sure how you’re supposed to open a door or figure out the solution to a puzzle? The answer might be in your pocket. Go to your inventory and look for items labeled “key items,” and choose the option to examine them. This lets you rotate the items around in any direction you want, allowing you to find secrets codes or buttons. Sometimes, doing this will reveal another item inside, like when opening a small toolbox. Other times, however, you’ll find something written on the underside of an object which can come in handy with nearby puzzles. If you feel like you’ve already checked everywhere else, there’s a pretty good chance that this is the solution to your problem. 6. Expand your inventory We can’t count how many times we ran out of space in our inventory while picking up ammunition, key items, and new weapons in Resident Evil 2, but some of those headaches can be avoided by expanding your inventory through hip pouches. These items can be found throughout almost all of the game’s environments, with a few available in the starting police station. Make sure you get at least one before you’ve left this area, and the second one located in the storage locker area can be yours if you locate two missing keys for its control console. The storage you have available at the start of the game will seem like plenty, but then you’ll get a second, third, fourth, or even fifth weapon, along with extra ammunition.<doc-sep>Welcome to Raccoon City! Whether you're playing as Leon Kennedy or Claire Redfield, you'll need your wits about you to survive this city-wide zombie infestation. Zombies are relentless in Resident Evil 2. It can take multiple headshots to take one down, and those are the game's easiest enemies. Plus, Resident Evil 2 is about a lot more than capping zombies; exploring and puzzle-solving are just as essential. This guide is meant to offer a primer to new players and a refresher for old fans, not spoil specific puzzles or story moments in the game. Sorry, this isn't the post for anyone looking for safe and locker combinations. Instead, these gameplay tips are things I wish I knew my first time through the campaign. Resident Evil 2 Strategy Guide and Gameplay Tips A Refresher on the Story and Lore of the Resident Evil Franchise You don't need to be steeped in Resident Evil lore to get the gist of what's going on in Resident Evil 2. It opens with about the most prototypical zombie outbreak plot imaginable and tells a self-contained story from there. But the Resident Evil series has developed quite an ornate mythology over the years, so a lore check might provide some useful background. 1996's Resident Evil is set in what was then the "near-future" of 1998. It follows Raccoon City P.D. 's special forces S.T.A.R.S. (Special Tactics and Rescue Service) team—Chris Redfield, Jill Valentine, Albert Wesker, Barry Burton and Brad Vickers—as they infiltrate a murder mansion overrun by zombies and other grotesqueries. Chris and Jill discover the mansion is being used for Umbrella Corporation experiments and defeat the deadly supersoldier Tyrant, who you'll come to know very well playing RE2. All of the characters in the original Resident Evil appear in other games in the series, but they don't matter too much to the plot of Resident Evil 2. You'll visit S.T.A.R.S. offices in Resident Evil 2, but that and a document or two is about the extent of the overlap between the first two games in the series (no word on whether Vickers' cameo made it into the remake). The only real exception is Chris Redfield, whose sister, Claire, comes to Raccoon City to find him in RE2. How to Use the Map in Resident Evil 2 There's nothing more useful than the Resident Evil 2 map. The goal is to accrue blue. A blue room means you've collected all the items. A red room means you still have some exploring to do. Once you leave a room unexplored, the items you've left behind will appear in miniature on the map screen. Puzzles also appear on the map as an exclamation mark icon. Hover over it and text will reveal exactly what kind of puzzle it is. Once you've found an area's map (they're usually pinned to the wall in an obvious location), rooms you haven't found yet will appear, outlined in white. It's a really useful map! Ammo Locations: Why Wasting a Few Bullets Is Not a Big Deal (Really) Resident Evil 2 is an insanely well-balanced game. When the nightmare scenario happened—completely running out of ammunition—I had to run from a few zombies instead of fight, but the ammo was there whenever I really needed it. It's not a big deal if you waste a few bullets by shooting wide or dump a few into a deathless bullet sponge like Tyrant. But Don't Bother Shooting Tyrant You can stagger him, but that's about it. All good things come to those who wait (and keep running). Boss Strategy Basics: They Aren't Always Killed by Bullets In fact, bosses you kill exclusively with firepower are rare. Shootable weak points are always really obvious in Resident Evil 2, so if you don't know what to shoot, there's a good chance something in the environment can help you defeat the boss. Check Out Reticle Deceleration in the Control Settings There's not a done of control tweaking in Resident Evil 2. The three different control schemes mostly just shuffle around the run and quick turn buttons. But there is one setting that massively alters play difficulty without actually missing with the game's three difficulty settings: Reticle Deceleration. Crank this up and your aiming reticle will slow down when it's over a target. This makes aiming a lot easier. An actual Aim Assist setting is only available in the "Assisted" game mode. Camera speed when aiming can also be adjusted under the Camera settings. Finally, you can also change the aiming reticle's color, though it's hard to imagine doing much better than White if visibility is your priority. How to Find Out Your Play Time in Resident Evil 2 Pause the menu and your total playtime appears in the top-left corner. They Get Back Up You know who I'm talking about. The HUD Can Be Disabled: Here's How Look under display settings. This also disables your aiming reticle. It's tough, and probably best suited for experienced or hardcore players. Check the Records Menu for Unlockables There's a lot to unlock in Resident Evil 2 and you can see most of it in the Records menu. There are dozens of challenges, each with a reward. For instance, shoot a zombie dog or licker out of the air to successfully pass the "Like Skeet Shooting" challenge, for which you'll be rewarded a Zombie Dog model. Or find hidden items to get the "Treasure Hunter" record. Some objectives are secret, but there are many that you can actively pursue as you play. Shoot Those Raccoons! Destroying the Mr. Raccoon figures you'll find hidden (and often out in the open) throughout Resident Evil 2 can yield Rewards. Check them out under Records in the pause menu. Spend Wood, Not Too Wisely Since inventory space is so precious in Resident Evil 2, it's best not to waste a slot on the wood used to board up windows. This is a zombie emergency—would Ben from Night of the Living Dead carefully tuck away boards and nails as the undead pour in through the windows?<doc-sep>
Whether you’re returning to Racoon City or a first time visitor, Resident Evil 2’s mixture of horror and action can be daunting. If you don’t want to get your neck-flesh literally torn off in the new remake, here are a few tips to help you survive. Play On Normal Difficulty After you die a few times, Resident Evil 2 will ask if you want to play the “assisted” mode. It adds aim-assist, weakens the enemies, and gives the protagonists some minor health regeneration. It’s totally valid to play in this mode, but I suggest playing it on the normal difficulty. Part of the fun of Resident Evil games is having to really struggle for survival. Resident Evil 2’s revamped controls already give players a huge leg up on zombies. Stick with the normal mode and summon up some courage. You’ll do just fine. Only Adjust Brightness If You Need To Resident Evil 2 is a dark game, but that darkness is key to the atmosphere and horror. If you’re having a lot of trouble seeing or are really, really nervous, it’s okay to turn up the brightness but I suggest leaving it alone if you can manage it. Play as Whoever You Want You can play as either rookie cop Leon Kennedy or tough-as-nails college student Claire Redfield when you start a new game. Claire and Leon have access to different weapons and some different story moments, but neither of them is the “right” choice for your first playthrough. Pick your poison and enjoy the ride! Save Often Unlike old-school Resident Evil games, you don’t need ink ribbons to save your game if you’re playing on the normal difficulty . If you find yourself needing to take a break or even if you’ve just snagged a new item don’t be afraid to save. It seems to affect your end of game ranking, but you shouldn’t worry about that on your first playthrough anyway. There’s some checkpointing throughout the game, but it’s better to be safe than sorry. Explore Everywhere I don’t care if that room has tons of zombies in it, you need to go in there and check out every corner. Open every door, check all the lockers you find, and make sure to take in your surroundings deeply. You’ll find ammo, crafting materials, and even safe combinations. Resident Evil 2 has a lot packed into a relatively small game; be sure to look around. When In Doubt, Check Your Map The map isn’t simply good at helping you find a specific room. It’s also good for knowing what else you need to explore. Red rooms still have items in them. If you’re looking for a key or unsure of where to go next, try heading for rooms you haven’t cleared. Craft Ammo ASAP You’ll find gunpowder throughout Raccoon City, which you can combine to make bullets and other types of ammo. It’s tempting to stockpile this for when you “need” it or want to make special ammo. But the truth is that Resident Evil 2 is so generous with these materials that you’re better using them as you progress and having ammo right away. Even if you’re twitchy, you’ll have tons of bullets and even grenade launcher ammo by the end. Pick Up Everything Even if it looks like garbage, it isn’t. If you have the inventory room, take it. If you don’t know what to do with it, store it in an item box and use it when you do. Examine Items Closely More than most games in the series, Resident Evil 2 likes to hide items within items. If you find a book, go into your menu and open it. That badge you found? There’s a button on the back that totally changes what it does. Examine everything you find to make sure you’re not missing a puzzle solution or key item. Discard Useless Items Some keys and special items are useless once they’ve unlocked all their corresponding doors. If you look in your inventory and see a red X over the item, select it and choose “discard.” You’ll free up coveted inventory space that you can use for ammo and other goodies. Combine Herbs Herbs can be combined for a variety of useful effect. The most standard combination is Green+Red, which creates a mixture that will heal you to full health. You can also combine Blue with Red to get rid of poison and gain temporary resistance to status effects.