Take out this early enemy in Resident Evil Requiem to give Grace a much-needed damage boost

Despite being an FBI agent, Grace is, for lack of a better word, kind of weak. Not mentally, mind you—plenty happens to her in Resident Evil Requiem that would leave me a gibbering wreck. No, I mean purely in damage terms. The balance is clear: Grace is the more vulnerable first-person horror character. She's not really meant to brutalize zombies with quite the same murderous efficiency as Leon with his hatchet.

It makes some parts of Resident Evil Requiem quite tough, especially on the higher difficulties, where zombies take more of a bite out of your health bar, or bullets to dispatch. If you're like me, you'll likely grow tired of sneaking around and instead decide to clear some of the infected chaff wandering the halls, especially in the Rhodes Hill Care Center. If you want a nice little damage buff for Grace early on, then heed my words.

After you escape The Girl and venture into the West Wing of the Care Center for the first time, you'll enter a kitchen area with a big hulking zombie wielding a cleaver. It's quite clear that Grace can't take him in a fight, and so you'll sneak through the kitchen and exit. However, when you return to the West Wing later, the chef will now be wandering the corridors of the lower floor, which makes him a real nuisance.

That's why you should kill the chef. Though it's scary to fight him in the corridors, you can draw him towards the door to Central Hall, which he can't go through. In fact, he'll try to turn around and return to his patrol route if you do, letting you blast him repeatedly in the head.

You'll hopefully still have the one Requiem shot that Leon gave you, so I suggest using that here. After you visit the Blood Lab in the East Wing, you'll also be able to craft handgun ammo with scraps and Infected Blood, which will let you accrue more bullets to murder him with.

After enough shots to head, the chef will drop, and he'll also drop the Pantry Key. This is where the damage bonus comes in. Return to the kitchen on the bottom floor of the West Wing and unlock the Pantry door to find some great loot. In-particular, you want to grab the Stakeout Takeout Charm on the shelves at the back by the case—this increases both knife durability and damage for Grace.

If you're an experienced Resident Evil player, you'll know that the efficient way to dispatch a zombie is push it over, in this case, shooting in the face a couple of times, pushing it down, and then shanking it on the floor till it stops moving, saving some bullets. This charm will make your precious makeshift knives go that much further before breaking.

Also make sure to grab the Requiem bullet in the case next to the charm, refunding the one you used to blast the chef.