Well, this is the place. After the introductory cutscenes, you — Ethan — pull up to a, well, you pull up to a tree. There’s a path in front of you that leads into the woods, though, so just ignore everything you learned from watching horror movies and follow it. 

The path will eventually lead you to a gate. Beyond the gate is a quaint little house that we’ll probably get to explore eventually, but not yet. The gate is chained shut and the intercom to the right doesn’t work either, so we’ll have to find another way in. Turn to your left and keep following the path. 

You’ll come across an abandoned van with a lot of gear scattered around. If you open the van, you’ll find a script on the seat for an episode of Sewer Gators — which you might recognize if you played the Resident Evil 7: Beginning Hour demo. Flip the script over for a cute invitation — we assume to an ice cream social — on the back. 

Keep following the path past the van and pass through the gate with the "ACCEPT HER GIFT" sign. Just keep following the path. Soon the path will veer a little to the right. If you follow it, you’ll get scared by some crows. Turn around from there, and you’ll be faced with some

lovely folk art. Crouch to pass through the dismembered cow leg and saw blade gate (we think this is called a "Louisiana welcome mat"). 

Keep following the path — you’ll know you’re going the right way when you walk past some dead crows. You’ll come to a ledge overlooking the back yard of a house. Drop down into the yard and walk over to the smoldering fire pit. Pick up the pocketbook you find there for some more practice using the investigation mechanic. You’ll find a driver’s license inside. 

Continue around to the left to find the back door of the house — this, too, should look familiar if you played the

demo. All the way to the left, you’ll see an open door and a pitch black room on the other side. Once again, ignore your self-preservation instincts and walk inside. 

The door closes and locks behind you, but thankfully you remembered to bring a flashlight. Continue down the hallway to the locked cabinet. There’s nothing you can do about it right now, but you’ll be coming back here a little later. 

Turn right into the kitchen. Make your way through — open up anything you can or want to, but there’s nothing (pleasant) to find in here. Through the door on the far

side of the kitchen, turn right again. There’s a hallway on the left side that continues back into the house, but we’ll be going that way in a minute. Instead, head upstairs. 

At the top of the stairs, you’ll find a room with a button that doesn’t work, a tape player and a VHS tape. Now, if you’re not an old, this room might be a little confusing. You see, tape players are what we used before CD players. And CD players are what we used before iPods. (iPods are what we used before smartphones.) The VHS is a similar story — it’s an archaic device for storing video. With that history lesson out of the way, let’s continue. The tape player is a save point, and the Derelict House Footage VHS tape is something to pick up. Pick it up, then head back downstairs. 

Turn right at the bottom of the stairs and continue along the hallway. The first door you pass on your right is to a

closet with nothing inside. The second door on your right is where we’re headed. Inside, you’ll find a cozy living room with a TV, some lovely family photos scattered around and a fuse box that’s missing the fuse labelled Stairs. Interact with the VCR and select the VHS tape out of your inventory to watch it. 

Again, if you played the demo, this will look familiar, but we’re going to walk through it again for anyone who skipped Resident Evil 7: Beginning Hour. 

In the tape/flashback, you are Clancy, the new cameraman for Pete and Andre’s ghost hunting show.

Your job is to just follow the pair through the house, but there’s also something you can do for Ethan. 

As soon as the you get control of Clancy, turn around and look at your feet to pick up the lock pick. When the crew makes their way into the kitchen, look to the right of the pot of stew on the table where there are two drawers. Use the lock pick on the one on the left. This doesn’t do you any good right now, but Ethan will appreciate it — this drawer will remain unlocked in the present and you can find your first antique coin inside. 

While you’re all in the kitchen, Ethan will wander off (because no one in this game has ever seen a movie before). Follow Pete as he goes looking for Andre. 

Follow Pete as he goes looking for Andre. He’ll eventually lead you to the living room where he’ll notice a hidden chain in the fireplace that reveals a secret passage to the right. Follow him through and then climb down the ladder as he suggests (insists). At the bottom, you’ll discover Ethan Blair Witch-ing against the wall. When you go to check on him, things don’t go well. Then the video ends. 

Armed with this knowledge back in the present, crouch by the fireplace to find Pete’s secret latch. Head down the secret passage to the ladder. Climbing down doesn’t go

very well this time, so you won’t be going back up that way. Instead, continue along the hallway. Not far down the hallway, it will flood, but you can continue along. Just keep pushing forward until you come to a door. 

Go through the door and keep following the only path available to you. (There are some distractions along the way, but there’s only one way for you to go.) You’ll come to a cell that is chained closed with someone lying on a cot inside. Turn to the left and look around the room there. On the bench, you’ll find a list of names to examine and a pair of bolt cutters. 

Take the bolt cutters back to the cell and cut the chain.

Head inside to have a very confusing conversation with Mia. She’ll lead you out and down a couple more hallways. Just keep following her. 

She’ll eventually lead you to her safe room, but she can’t find the exit. Explore a little bit, but something happens to Mia when you’re out of sight and she disappears. Luckily, this shows you where the door is. Head out of the "safe" room and up the stairs to get out of the basement. 

Turn right at the top of the stairs and start down the hallway. Check the table on your left to find the Guest House map. Keep heading along the hall and go into the

first door you find on your left. 

In the bathroom, pick up the two First Aid Med bottles. Back in the hallway, the only other door available to you is locked, so you have to ask yourself, "What would I scream at a character in a horror movie for doing?" That’s right. Go back to the basement. 

Mia meets you on the stairs. The reunion doesn’t go quite as well this time, though. There’s some stabbing involved. 

After she knocks herself out, catch your breath, maybe pour some medicine on your stabbed hand, then try to walk past her. She’ll wake up again and toss you through

a wall into a new room. When you sit up, you’ll look to your right and pick up the axe that’s conveniently laying there. At this point, there’s really nothing to do but fight back. Just mash away on the attack button until she falls. 

When she’s defeated, the phone will ring at the end of the hall. Go down and answer it. Zoe will tell you to try to get out of the house via the attic. (Surely it’ll be just that simple!) When you turn around, Mia’s body is gone. That can’t be good. The good news is, she left your axe behind and she opened the door at the end of the hall for you. Pick up the axe and go through the door. You’ll find yourself in the hallway next to the stairs. 

You’ve seen all the steps you need to take to get to the attic — the button labelled "Stairs" on the second floor and the fuse box in the living room — you just don’t have the fuse that needs to be replaced. What you have this time that you didn’t have the last time you were here, though, is a pair of bolt cutters. Head back through the kitchen to that locked cabinet in the first hallway. Use the bolt cutters to cut the chain and pick up the fuse inside. Take the fuse back to the living room and install it in the fuse box. Hey! This is going well! 

When you head for the stairs, Mia will jump you. You can

try to do your best to fight back, but there’s only one way this fight ends. Don’t worry though, you’re going to be alright. 

When Mia leaves, take your stump up the stairs (sadly, it doesn’t seem like your hand can be added to your inventory). Hit the save point, then push the button to lower the attic stairs. Go up the stairs into the attic and turn right. Turn right again into the first room you see to pick up the M19 Handgun and some ammo. There’s no other way out of this room, so head back into the hallway. 

Continue along the main hall the way you were going

and take the right at the end. This will lead to another door that leads into the main room of the attic. Head toward the ladder, but don’t climb up it yet. Turn to the right and go through the door you see in front of you — in the demo, this is where you picked up the Dirty Coin. Inside, you’ll find 20 more rounds of ammo for your gun. Head back out and climb the ladder to freedom. 

Haha. NOPE. 

Mia meets you for one final showdown. Since you’ve got this shiny new gun and a bunch of bullets (and because you’re already missing a hand), make sure it’s equipped. Your focus in this fight is to shoot Mia in the face. She’s going to be rushing at you waving her chainsaw and

there’s a lot of clutter in the attic, so now’s the time to practice your headshots — they’ll end the fight quicker by dealing more damage and it staggers her, giving you time to put some space between you. It’s still going to take several shots to bring her down, so try not to panic and just keep picking away at her. When she falls, climb the ladder to freedom.Haha. NOPE. Jack Baker welcomes you to the family (son) and encourages you to take a hard-earned nap.

Technically, you did escape the attic, so good job! In Resident Evil 7 biohazard's next location, the Main House, things happen fast and there’s a lot going on, so we’re going to break it into multiple sections.

When you come to, you’re having a nice meal with your new family. After the worst game of "here comes the airplane!" ever, the phone rings and it’s time for you to get out of there.

You’ve got a couple seconds to breathe before everything goes sideways again, so poke around some. You can explore the kitchen, the pantry and the living room without being harassed. Let’s start in the living room. Turn right from the dinner table and start walking toward the living room. Right before you go in, turn left and approach the back side of the kitchen cabinets to pick up a File — the receipt pinned there for a completely normal set of things to buy at a hardware store. Now you can continue into the living room.

The first important thing to notice is the clock against the wall on your left — there’s nothing you can do now (it’s missing its pendulum), but this is something we’ll be coming back to later. Continue around the room clockwise. There is some ammo in the table in the back right corner. If you crouch down right there and look behind the speaker, you’ll find a green herb. Check the newspaper on the coffee table for an article about the Sewer Gators’ disappearance.

Next, check out the kitchen. There are three disturbing notes on the refrigerator and some questionable foodstuffs inside. Turn around and pick up the green herb out of the trash. Go ahead an open the door from the kitchen to the hallway — you’re going to be using it in a few minutes and you don’t want it to slow you down.

Continue through to the pantry. There are only two things of note in here. Against the wall on your right, you’ll find a boot with the name Eveline written on it. The other, more important thing, is the locked hatch in the floor in the back left corner. This is your escape. You can’t open it yet, but this is where you’re going to be running in a second.

Now, it’s time to face Jack Baker. Go back to the dining room and open the doors into the hallway. Turn right and ignore the stairs down to the garage for now. Continue down the hall. At the end, on the left, you’ll find a locked door — you’ll be opening this in a minute. Follow the hallway around to the right. Before you make it very far down the hall, you’ll see Jack stumble into view. He’s carrying a shovel and that’s not a good thing. Things are going to happen fast now, so read ahead a little and try to prepare.

Jack is going to chase you, but he’s not fast. Your goal is to stay out of reach of his shovel and just outmaneuver him — you don’t have any weapons to fight back with anyway. To reiterate (because we tried several, increasingly frustrating times), there’s no fighting back here — you goal is simply to run away.

There are two things you can practice using here — sprinting by clicking the left thumbstick and rapidly turning around by pulling back on the left thumbstick and pressing circle/B.

Kite Jack back along the hallway, around the corner and past the door to the kitchen. Lead him all the way back to the dining room doors and put the table between you. Jack will destroy the table, giving you your window. Sprint past him to the right, into the kitchen and out through the (open) door into the hallway. Follow the hallway right.

You’re not going to get far before Jack Kool-Aid Man-s his way through the wall. Just kite him back toward the dining room again. There’s no table to distract him this time, so your goal is to wait until

he’s in the hall between the kitchen and dining room doors, then sprint through the kitchen and into the pantry. Go through the convenient door he just created in the wall and turn right into the hallway. Follow the hall all the way to the end and pick up the Hatch Key from the table. There are other things to look at in the hallway down to your right, but let’s focus on the homicidal maniac wielding a shovel first.

Turn around and pause for a second. Jack is going to be taunting you, but if you keep a cool head, you can figure out where he is without him noticing you. This has suddenly become a stealth mission. Crouch and creep back toward the hole in the wall. If Jack sees you, focus on your dining room kiting loop again. If he doesn’t, wait until he leaves the pantry (or just moves out of sight) and, staying crouched, move quickly into the pantry and to the hatch in the floor. Unlock the hatch and drop inside.

If Jack does catch you, your goal remains the same — get away from him. Use the rooms and the hallways to get some distance and break line of sight. You might even be treated to a weird scene where Jack further reduces your original limb count. But don’t get (too) distracted. You need to grab the key and get to the hatch.

Under the floor, you’re safe for the moment so you can catch your breath. Start moving forward. Watch for the bottle of HeyBro laundry detergent(?). Stop next to it and turn left. There is a lawnmower against the far wall (which is a weird place to keep a lawnmower) with an antique coin on the deck. Continue along the path to its end.

You’ll climb up inside a laundry room — this room is behind the locked door you saw earlier in the hallway. Explore the room and grab anything not nailed down. You’ll find the Main House map on the tables in the middle. On the far side of the room from where you entered, open the filing cabinet to find some chem fluid and another green herb — these items can be combined in your inventory to create a first aid med. Next, head to the shelves immediately right of the door. There’s a box to pick up and examine. Rotate it around until you can interact with the latch and open it to pick up a lock pick.

Now, turn your attention to the large green create behind the tables. This is your Item Box — it’s a storage locker and gift center all in one. Pre-order bonuses and the Dirty Coin from the demo are found here. You may have noticed that your inventory is rather small — only eight slots — so this is where you can store your extra items when you’re playing inventory Tetris. Right now, you’re probably okay on space, so you shouldn’t have to worry about shuffling anything around.

When you’re done looking around the laundry room, hit the tape recorder to save. Now it’s time to head back into the house. Before you make it into the hallway, though, the phone rings again. Talk to Zoe, who will tell you your new goal is to make it out of the house via the Main Hall — a room you can’t get to yet. She’s a hell-of-a-girl.

The cop

Out in the main hallway, head toward the dining room doors. Jack’s wandered off, so you’re in the clear for the time being. There’s a locked drawer to the right of the doors that you can open with your fancy new lock pick. Open it up for a first aid med. Poke around in the dining room and kitchen for a minute — there’s nothing to find, you’re just waiting for the next event to trigger.

You’ll hear a banging and see a flashlight through the window at the end of the hall (to the left of the dining room doors). Go to it and talk to the cop outside. He’s less than helpful, but you eventually convince him to give you a knife. He wants to meet you in the garage. That will surely go well.

Before you head down to the garage, it’s time to put that knife to use and explore a little while we’re at it. Turn around from the window and follow the hallway all the way around to where you picked up the Hatch Key. Turn right again and explore the hallway here. There are some pictures on the tables along the way to look at (and comment on). The main thing we’re here to learn about is the locked door to the Main Hall. There’s nothing you can do about it just yet, but you’re going to be coming back here in a few minutes, so it’s good to know your surroundings. The door is locked with some elaborate statue-based mechanism that seems to be missing a piece. Good to know. Continue down the hall to the end to find your first Mr. Everywhere to destroy. There are 20 of these bobble-head statues scattered throughout the game. Destroying them all unlocks the Mr. Nowhere trophy. (We’ll point out the obvious ones in this walkthrough, but we’ll be writing up a full collectibles guide in the days to come.)

Go back along the hallway and into the laundry room again. Crouch in front of the tape recorder for the second Mr. Nowhere. While you’re here, go ahead and save again because things are about to get interesting.