The goals for your first run are:

• to get acquainted with the game and combat;
  
• to learn the areas and the puzzles for subsequent playthroughs;
  
• to find and shoot all 16 Clockwork Castellans;
  
• to complete all side quests in the village (the first area);
  
• to amass as much gold as possible by the end;
  
• to get, if possible, Luis Sera and Leon w/rocket launcher charms.

Assisted is the best place to start in the remake. Ironically, it is not only the most newbie-friendly difficulty, but also one the most reminiscent of the original experience. You see, the difficulty mostly influences how bullet spongy the enemies are. On Assisted, they take a single headshot to stagger, but crank up the difficulty and they start taking up to 4, drastically changing the flow of combat. The less resources you waste - the more you'll have for the next playthrough.

Many unlocks in the game require completing the story with S+ rank, which is only achievable on a fresh save. A New Game+ (where you can carry over your upgraded weapons) works only for certain unlocks, so we'll be taking care of them first.

In addition to hunting down as many treasures as you can, be on the lookout for charms you can get through the Shooting Range. They are random for every playhrough and as such you're not guaranteed to see them right away, but ones we need are Luis Sera (+20% weapon resale value) and Leon w/rocket launcher (20% off rocket launchers).

The amount of gold you need for your second run is glorious 2 million ptas, down to 1.6 million if you have Leon w/rocket launcher charm. That's the amount of gold you'll need for the infinite rocket launcher. If you didn't get the charms or see that by Chapter 16 you're too far away from the goal - just buy a regular rocket launcher instead and hold onto it for a while.

Completing all side quests in the village is needed in order to have 30 spinels by the time you enter the second area, castle. So make sure to learn how to do all of them so you don't waste too much time on the subsequent runs. The use for spinels is explained in the Third run (Standard S+) section. For now you can just exchange them for whatever you want - preferably more treasures.

Make sure not to overwrite the save you get after completion - in case you don't get a lot of money (especially if you don't have Deluxe Edition for its Extended Map) you'll be able to do the Assisted New Game+ run instead before moving to the next step. If you decide to do an Assisted NG+ to farm more gold - mind that all treasures respawn, and in addition new ones spawn in place of weapons you picked up in the world (for example, gold bars where you found Red9 and LE5).

Shooting all Clockwork Castellans unlocks Primal Knife. Its final, exclusive upgrade makes it unbreakable. However, the main boon is that as a bonus weapon, the knife (same as other bonus weapons) will be available for any playthrough, including fresh saves, and you'll be able to sell it for 25.000 - in the early game that's nothing to sneeze at.

You start this run as New Game+ from your Assisted save. Now, one thing to realize is in RE4make difficulty is more balanced around your gear than your skill, so to make things easy on Professional (which is otherwise brutal) we'll need overpowered weapons.

You have two goals for this playthrough:

• buy the infinite rocket launcher as early into the run as possible (depends on how well you did with the treasures)
  
• complete the run with A rank (under 7 hours)

Basically, this is your first "speedrun". The timing of 7 hours is generous, but one thing to realize is a lot of game time is spent managing resources, collecting treasures etc. So in order to be able to successfully speedrun you will need weapons with infinite ammo, removing the need to manage resources from the equation.

If you don't have enough gold for an infinite rocket launcher early, you can still do fine on Professional with your fully upgraded guns from your previous run.

Completing the Professional A run will unlock the Chicago Sweeper - a machine gun that gets infinite ammo as its final, exclusive upgrade, thus enabling your first true speedruns.




You will also be able to unlock the Armor costume for Ashley. It makes her invulnerable to any kind of damage, while enemies also can't carry her away anymore. You will need the Armor to succeed on higher difficulties. While it is technically a Hardcore A rank unlock, it will be unlocked retroactively in the Professional run as well.


Completing the Professional run will also unlock the Gas Mask. This is mostly a cosmetic unlock though. While it provides the ability to use aim assist on any difficulty, it's pretty irrelevant for the PC players.

This is our first S+ run. The rules are simple - for S+ runs you need to start a fresh save, so you can't do New Game+ and bring your upgraded weapons.

However, you will still have whatever you've unlocked so far. Make sure to equip Armor costume to Ashley before starting the run (every run from this point assumes she's wearing Armor). You are free to sell your Primal Knife for easy 25.000 ptas, but stick to the Chicago Sweeper.

In order to get S+ on Standard, you'll need to finish it in 5 hours.

Here's how we're gonna do this. First, make sure to complete all side quests in the village - you should have at least 30 spinels after the Mendez fight. Then, as soon as you enter the castle area, you'll be able to trade it for an Exclusive Upgrade Ticket - this is something that gets you access the weapon's final upgrade without having to upgrade it all the way before. For Chicago Sweeper, that upgrade is infinite ammo. Conveniently, you are allowed to use infinite ammo weapons for S+ playthroughs.

Get the upgrade, then sweep through the game.

Oh, by the way, you can turn the side quests in without reading about them. For example, instead of sailing all the way to Lakeside Settlement you can just go for the Lunker Bass right away and then sell it - the side quest will be completed either way.

The unlock for this run is Deer Antlers, an accessory that greatly increases your damage with knives. While niche, this can be very useful during Krauser and El Gigante fights.

After what we accomplished so far, this run would be trivial, except for one caveat - to get S+ on Assisted, you'll need to finish in 4 hours. So it's a good chance of honing your speedrunning skills.

The strategy is the same - do side quests in the village, trade spinels for the upgrade on Chicago Sweeper, sweep through the run.

Wolf Tail is your unlock for the Assisted S+ run. It greatly increases your melee (aka kick) damage. As such, it's very useful on higher difficulties in the early game when the enemies are bullet sponges and your ammo is scarce.




Some players report that completing S+ on Professional unlocks all previous cosmetics retroactively, while it seems Standard S+ doesn't do that for Assisted S+ unlock. For us however this is of little practical value - we'll need all the cosmetics to make our life easier on Professional S+.

One reason I recommend doing Assisted S+ after Standard S+ is you'll be able to make use of Deer Antlers to greatly boost your knife damage. The Assisted AI is probably the only one that allows to make extensive use of the knife offensively. You will also be able to knife a Garrador for a challenge no problem. Another reason is some players find speedrunning in general challenging, and so could use more experience with a less demanding time of 5 hours before doing this one.

Okay, time to take a break from speedruns. This run will be slow and methodical. And the reason for that is:

• you need to start a fresh save for this (just like S+ runs);
  
• you can't use the bonus weapons* you've unlocked so far;
  
• the completion time is irrelevant here - you just have to finish it.

* "bonus weapons" means in-game unlocks: Primal Knife, Chicago Sweeper and Handcannon. You're still good to use Deluxe/DLC weapons like Sentinel Nine and Skull Shaker.

The rationale behind this run is while infinite Chicago Sweeper is good for S+ on Standard and Assisted, its damage and spread make it suboptimal for Hardcore and Professional runs. So to remedy this, we are getting the Handcannon.



We can't have an infinite rocket launcher and we can't have bonus weapons. So how are we gonna survive on Professional? Well:

• by looting all the treasures and doing sidequests, beating enemies with the sheer economic power;
  
• by making use of accessories we previously unlocked to tip the scales in our favor;
  
• even though we can't use Primal Knife and Chicago Sweeper, we can still sell them, and that's 50.000 in the early game.

One cool thing about accessories is unlike costumes, you don't have to commit to them for the whole run and can switch them "on the fly". So you can use Wolf Tail for most of the run, swapping it out for Deer Antlers for Krauser and El Gigante fights.

Professional might be the hardest difficulty, but one huge boon it offers is the ability to fully upgrade your weapons from the start. Combined with 50.000 gold from selling bonus weapons, it means you can greatly boost the damage and firing rate of your pistol to offset the increased enemy bullet spongyness.

Not gonna lie, this will probably be the hardest run of them all. But as you get more gold and further upgrade your gear, you slowly start to overpower any opposition.

Back to speedruns. To get S+ on Hardcore you'll need to finish in 5 and a half hours.

This run is needed for 3 reasons:

• to learn how to handle Handcannon in combat - aiming's all over the place;
  
• to unlock the Chicken Hat;
  
• as a final rehearsal before your Professional S+ run.

The strategy is the same as before. Side quests into Exclusive Upgrade Ticket, but now you'll enjoy infinite Handcannon rather than Chicago Sweeper.

Chicken Hat you unlock for this run considerably decreases damage received, which will be a boon against the more obnoxious enemies and bosses.

We've come this far. The time to finish is the same - 5 and a half hours. However, there's no autosave and you're only allowed to save up to 15 times.

This is Professional, and you don't have all the time in the world to farm treasures. And you can't sell the Handcannon, because you'll need it for the usual strategy.

This means the early game will be a bit brutal. This is why you should use Wolf Tail, Deer Antlers and Chicken Hat to give yourself an edge. Once you get to the castle for your Handcannon infinite ammo, it will be easy, especially with all your experience.

Another thing is parry on Professional is only limited to perfect parry - it will be harder to pull it off. One advice I can give is watch not the enemy but the interface and wait for a "space" button to briefly appear - that's your small parry window.

Here are my suggestions for the 15 saves, you can do whatever works best for you:

• After recovering your gear
  
• Before Del Lago
  
• Before cabin siege
  
• After siege
  
• After Mendez fight
  
• Before battlements El Gigante
  
• Start of Chapter 10
  
• Before Verdugo
  
• Before Krauser 1st fight
  
• Before Salazar fight
  
• Enter facility 1
  
• Before wrecking ball
  
• Before ruins (Krauser 2nd fight)
  
• Start of Chapter 15
  
• Before Saddler fight

Cat Ears is the ultimate unlock that gives you infinite ammo (technically, infinite reloads without consuming ammo).

From this point forward, you can clear whatever challenges you still have left and have fun with whatever weapons you had no opportunity to try before.

The Mercenaries update dropped, with its main point of giving you an easy, more feasible way of unlocking the Handcannon.

Handcannon is unlocked by getting an S rank or higher on every of 3 stages, regardless of the character. To get an S rank or higher, you need to score at least 200,000 points in a single run.




Considering I scored over 900,000 points on my first attempt and the mode's challenge is roughly equal to Assisted, I can say it's indeed very easy to unlock the Handcannon this way and I can recommend it.

Let's talk about the implications of this update for the plan. Does it fall apart and become obsolete because of that? Yes, and no.

While you could theoretically now go for unlocking everything in as little as two runs, with the second run being Professional S+, in reality this can be problematic to pull off for a casual player:

• you won't have the armor for Ashley;
  
• you won't have any accessories, giving you an edge on Professional;
  
• you won't have Chicago Sweeper, so you won't be able to sell it for 25.000 gold early on;
  
• finally, you simply won't have enough experience in regards to both combat, puzzles and speedrunning to confidently do it.

Long story short, I wouldn't recommend this. Instead, I suggest you do at least 3 runs.

First run is Assisted. You are still learning the game, learning the areas, learning the puzzles, not to mention the locations for all village side quests for 30 spinels you will need to get the Exclusive upgrade ticket to get infinite ammo for your Handcannon as you reach the castle. The key change is you now don't need to farm 2 million gold for the infinite rocket launcher as we won't be relying on it any longer.

Unlocking Primal Knife by shooting 16 Clockwork Castellans is still something you should do on your first run, even if just to be able to sell it for easy 25.000 ptas on the more difficult runs.




Second run is Hardcore S+. You will need to do it from a fresh save (no New Game+) under 5 and a half hours. Do it making use of the usual strategy - do all the side quests in the village, get at least 30 spinels, trade them for Exclusive ticket as you reach castle, get infinite ammo for Handcannon then cheese through the run.

You will get Ashley's armor skin from this run, which will be super useful on Professional S+ since Ashley dying can set you back many segments (there is, after all, no autosave on Professional)




You will also get the Chicken Hat - this is arguably the most useful accessory on Professional, since it lowers the damage you take from enemies.





After that, you can tackle Professional S+ as your third run. Everything in the 7th run chapter of the original guide applies here - outside the fact you haven't unlocked Chicago Sweeper and won't be able to sell it for 25.000 gold early on. As for cosmetics, this time you will simply unlock retroactively whatever you haven't unlocked so far - including Deer Antlers and Wolf Tail.

Effectively, the Mercenaries plan makes it much faster to unlock everything - 4 playthroughs less than otherwise. This is because we no longer need separate runs to unlock Chicago Sweeper, Handcannon, Deer Antlers and Wolf Tail - those things are either unlocked retroactively after completing Professional S+, or become available in the Mercenaries mode.

This guide was originally created with the intent of suggesting you an easy way to unlock everything organically. While I don't support and don't recommend throwing money at a game in order to break its balance and economy, these cheat items are a big elephant in the room - even if I ignored them, you would still mention them in the comments and stuff. So, ultimately, I'm just gonna list the effects this items would have on your game plan, and you do you.

Exclusive upgrade tickets - normally, you can obtain one of those after completing all side quests in the village area, roughly 2 hours into a playthrough. But if you purchase one of these as DLC, you'll be able to get the Exclusive upgrade as soon as you first meet the Merchant in Chapter 2.

For your Professional S+ runs it means you will be able to get infinite ammo on your Chicago Sweeper/Handcannon super early into the game - as a result both trivializing the early game challenge and making speedruns that much easier. For example, in my Silent Stranger run where I played through the village with infinite ammo I was able to arrive at the castle in 1 hour rather than 2.

For your first playthrough you will be more interested in the fact you can just sell those tickets for 80.000 ptas each - it's a lot of money for the early game, enough to buy a rocket launcher to cheese a boss or get a lot of weapon upgrades in the opening hours. This is arguably the most beneficial to the Fifth (Professional) run, which you can still go for if you find the Mercenaries game too hard to unlock the Handcannon through it. Early in this run, you will be able to sell the ticket and two bonus weapons for up to 130.000 ptas - allowing you to invest heavily into gun upgrades and making the Professional difficulty that much easier.

Extended Map - this is something that places additional treasures in the game that wouldn't be there otherwise. On the whole you'll be getting about 250.000 ptas throughout the game, not to mention spinels which you can trade for stuff including Exclusive upgrade tickets and gold and silver tokens, which you'll be able to trade for useful charms at the shooting range, without having to actually engage with the shooting range minigame at all (effectively meaning you can have some charms even on a speedrun). The map is arguably the most impactful during the castle part of the game, giving you an additional Elegant Crown during the backtracking segment (railcar ride with Ashley). Of course, 250.000 ptas is a lot and will have a serious impact on how challenging the game will be for you.

Sentinel Nine - while the Skull Shaker shotgun is essentially a sidegrade to W-870 you will find in your first hour, this pistol is a straight upgrade over your starting one. It features higher damage, much higher rate of fire as well as a double capacity clip. Critically, its reticle closes much faster after every shot, ensuring smoother gunplay if you don't have a laser sight installed.

Sentinel Nine is a Mary Sue of pistols and I was able to breeze through my first 2 hours on Professional S+ with it. You see, on Professional you can upgrade your guns all the way from the start, and gold becomes the only limit to that. A limit that is removed thanks to other microtransactions. Leading to you having an overpowered pistol in the early game, which you will be able to use to trivialize the tougher segments such as the cabin siege.

So how does this change things compared to the Alternative (Mercenaries) plan? To be honest, it doesn't.

You will still need your first Assisted run to unlock Professional difficulty at the very least. After that, while you could go for Professional S+ right away, your only advantage would be an infinite ammo Handcannon (if you unlocked it through Mercenaries before) in the early game. However, you wouldn't have Ashley's armor to keep her safe. You wouldn't have Chicken Hat for reduced damage taken. So even with microtransactions, chances are the Professional S+ run would still be too challenging for you to tackle right away.

Which brings us back to the 3-playthroughs plan I outlined in the Alternative (Mercenaries) section - or even the legacy 7-playthroughs plan:

• Assisted run (Primal Knife)
  
• Hardcore S+ run (Ashley armor, Chicken Hat)
  
• Professional S+ run (everything else)

All in all, the main advantage microtransactions bring you is the ability to get infinite ammo on the Handcannon/Chicago Sweeper very early on - you would be able to breeze through the village, arrive at the castle much earlier than the usual ~2 hours mark, making your speedrun playthroughs much more relaxed. Is it worth it? Decide for yourself.