Chapter order: Swamp road → Back Yard (Driver’s License) → Kitchen and 2F (Tape Recorder, tape) → “Derelict House Footage” tape (Lock Pick → Antique Coin #1) → fireplace lever → basement (Bolt Cutters, List of Names, Mia) → Front Corridor (map, 2 First Aid Med) → Mia with the knife and the axe → Zoe’s call → Fuse → Mia cuts off Ethan’s hand → “Stairs” button → 3F (M19 Handgun, 32 rounds) → Mia with the chainsaw → Jack.
Prepare: the Guest House has no Item Box (the first one is in the Main House Laundry Room, chapter 2), so everything you carry has to fit in the starting 12 slots. There are no Molded here and no enemy but Mia. The Survival Pack items are not within reach yet. Spend freely: the M19 Handgun and its ammo are taken from you at the end of the chapter. Before you touch the attic ladder, pick up all three ammo piles and save at the Tape Recorder. You don’t need to get through both Mia fights unhurt: according to a datamine of the game (a single source), taking no hits here raises the hidden difficulty rank before the Main House, and a higher rank means less damage per bullet for you and more damage from enemies (see “The hidden difficulty (rank)” on the Guide page).
Walkthrough
Road to the estate. Arriving in Louisiana pops the “She’s Alive” achievement. The gate is locked and the intercom is useless: the map shows a path to the left. The abandoned car holds a script for the TV crew with a creepy message on the back, and there is a similar message on an open gate. A man walks up the path and vanishes (it is Jack). Duck under the altar of animal remains with saw blades, walk past the dead crows and drop from the platform into the Back Yard.
Back Yard. Next to the small bonfire lies a handbag: inside is Mia’s Driver’s License. Examine it, turn it over and press to take the license out: that is the “A-ha!” achievement. Open the inventory (X) and examine the Email from Mia: it is file 1, and it only counts if you read it. (Switch 2 has no achievement system; in this guide the achievements of the other versions are optional challenges.) Go in through the back door, which locks behind you. Close any open door yourself to get “Behind Closed Doors”.
Back Corridor and Kitchen. The Back Corridor has a chained wardrobe next to the Kitchen door: you need something that cuts (the Fuse is inside, for later). The Kitchen has gross things to examine (maggot sink, crow in the microwave, fridge, pot) and two drawers opposite the sink. The drawer of the blue cabinet in the SW corner is locked: remember it, it holds Antique Coin #1. The other one has a scrap of photo.
Stairway Corridor and 2F (Upstairs). Go up. Upstairs are a red “Stairs” button with no power, the first Tape Recorder for saving and, on the chest of drawers in the corner, the “Derelict House Footage” tape. On 1F, the door under the stairs is boarded up and the far one is jammed. The Living Room has photos (table, floor, armchair), a picture over the fireplace, a piano that slams shut if you use it, a fuse box missing the “Stairs” fuse and the VHS Player on the TV. Put the tape in.
“Derelict House Footage” tape (you play Clancy, June 2017). As soon as it starts, turn around: on the ground next to your starting spot (Back Yard, SE corner) lies a Lock Pick. It only exists inside the tape and only works inside it. Clancy carries the Project Proposal in his inventory (the pitch for the Sewer Gators show): it has no use, but you can read it. Go to the Kitchen and use it on the blue cabinet drawer: in the tape you only find a picture, but back in the present that drawer is open with Antique Coin #1 inside. It is your only chance: if the tape ends without the pick being used, the coin is lost. Then follow the crew: Andre disappears; follow Pete to the Living Room. The fireplace hides a lever and a passage. Go down the stairs: the tape ends when you find out what happened to Andre. Back in the present, take the coin from the Kitchen drawer.
Hidden Passage and basement (B1). Pull the lever inside the Living Room fireplace and go down. The ladder breaks and you are stuck in the basement. Cross the Flooded Passage, squeeze through the gap (Andre’s body, missing-person flyers) and follow the mural to the Guard’s Area. On the workbench are the List of Names (Front) and, turned over, the List of Names (Back): files 2 and 3, and you can only take them now; Tamara and Travis are on that list, names that matter in chapter 2. The same bench has the Bolt Cutters (2 slots). Cut the chain on the cell: Mia.
After Mia (Surgical Area, Storage). Follow her through the Surgical Area and a back passage to a storage room with a couch (photo of a woman in a wheelchair marked “E-001”). In the next room, full of dolls, Mia disappears and a passage opens: stairs up to the 1F Front Corridor, at night, in the rain.
Front Corridor and Bathroom. The phone on the big chest of drawers has no tone yet. In the small chest of drawers with the lamp, mid-corridor, is the Guest House Map. The Bathroom on the left has 2 First Aid Med: one in the drawer left of the sink and one on top of the cabinet right of the sink. Take them: they are your cushion for both fights. You will hear banging on the basement door; head back towards the secret stairs and the first fight starts (see “Boss — Mia (axe)”).
Zoe’s call and the Fuse. After the fight the phone rings: a woman (Zoe, not named yet) tells you to escape through the attic. The jammed door at the end of the hall now opens. Mia’s body is gone, but the Axe lies on the floor where she fell: pick it up again, it is your plan B for the attic. Use the Bolt Cutters on the chained wardrobe in the Back Corridor: the Fuse is inside. Put it in the Living Room fuse box.
The chainsaw. Leaving the Living Room, Mia ambushes you with a chainsaw in the Stairway Corridor and cuts off Ethan’s left hand. It is a scene: you cannot avoid it. Pick up the Hand from the floor (a key item with no use for now) and heal right away with a First Aid Med (R button). Limp up to 2F, save and press the “Stairs” button: the staircase to 3F comes down.
3F and the attic (Store Room A, Attic, Store Room B). Take everything before you touch the attic ladder, because climbing it starts the fight:
- Store Room A (first door on the right): M19 Handgun (7-round magazine), Handgun Ammo ×5 and 1 First Aid Med, all on the table.
- Attic: Handgun Ammo ×7 on the table near the entrance.
- Store Room B (small room off the attic): Handgun Ammo ×20 on the table.
On Normal that is 32 spare rounds and 1 more First Aid Med (the same on Easy). Put the M19 in the top row of the inventory, keep the Axe, go back to the 2F Tape Recorder, save and climb the attic ladder.
Ending. After the attic fight Mia calms down for a moment, lets go of the chainsaw with one hand and says “I love you”. As you try to leave, Jack knocks Ethan out. Achievement “Welcome to the Family, Son”. The M19 Handgun does not carry over to chapter 2.
On Madhouse. Each Tape Recorder uses up a Cassette Tape (there are 2 on 2F, next to the recorder) and autosaves are much rarer. There is less ammo on 3F: M19 + 2 rounds + First Aid Med in Store Room A, 3 rounds on the attic table and 5 on a TV by the ladder, and 10 rounds + 1 First Aid Med on the floor by the Store Room B door. That is 20 rounds instead of 32. The tape coin exists too (it is Madhouse coin M1).
Boss — Mia (axe)
First she attacks you with a knife in the hallway to the basement; then she throws you through the wall into an empty room (Vacant Room) with an Axe on the floor, on the right. It is the melee and guard tutorial. According to the game data she has about 700 HP: the axe does 100 per normal swing and 150 per heavy swing (aim + attack), so 5–7 hits are enough.
- Knife struggle: press the button shown on screen to push her back. You take damage whatever you do; heal if the screen turns red.
- She collapses. When you walk past her she throws you through the wall. Grab the Axe at once.
- Guard with L (hold) when she raises her arm. After the block, a single axe swing (ZR), then guard again. Repeat: block, hit, block.
- Alternative: wait for her wind-up and swing first to interrupt it.
- Your first block earns the “Arms in the Air” achievement.
- Reward: the fight ends with Mia down; the Axe stays where she fell (pick it up again after the call).
Boss — Mia (chainsaw)
The attic: a wide room with support pillars and crates, plus the 3F hallway and side rooms, whose doors she has to saw through to follow you. Weak point: the head (double damage). She has about 2000 HP; on Normal with the M19, count on about 10–15 headshots depending on your rank. Every few headshots she staggers (body shots need 5–6 for the same).
- Climb the ladder towards the attic window: Mia comes up with the chainsaw. Let go of the ladder at once and run to the far end of the room.
- Keep a pillar or crates between you and her. She walks slowly and saws through whatever is in the way: while she cuts through an obstacle or a door, take free headshots. Step out into the hallway or a side room, close the door and let her saw it down.
- Straight-line charge: sprint sideways (click the left stick) or guard it with L. Blocking the charge saves you most of the damage and stuns her briefly: shoot her in the head.
- Use the quick 180° turn (left stick down + A) to gain distance and turn to shoot.
- Her chainsaw swipes hit enormously hard: a few of them kill you. Heal as soon as one lands (R).
- Don’t save ammo: the M19 disappears when it ends. If you run dry, finish with the Axe, but it is risky: block, hit and back off.
- Reward: the chapter’s final scene and the “Welcome to the Family, Son” achievement.
On Madhouse it is one of the hardest fights in the game: 20 rounds, harder hits. Save first (it costs a Cassette Tape), take the Axe and use the door-and-pillar tactic without taking risks.
Don’t leave without: the Lock Pick behind you in the tape and Antique Coin #1 from the blue Kitchen drawer (lost if the tape ends without the pick being used) · files 1–3 (Email from Mia in the inventory, both sides of the List of Names in the basement) · the Axe again before the attic · all three attic ammo piles before you touch the ladder.
