Chapter order: Storybook cutscene (Mia reads “Village of Shadows” to Rose) → living room → stairs → Rose’s room (crib) → junk room (Old News Clipping) → study (Ethan’s Diary, Medical Checkup Report) → ball into the study → kitchen (Fridge Memo) → Mia → cutscenes: Chris and his team → you wake at the crash (chapter 2).
Prepare: before you press “New Game”, decide three things; the first cannot be changed later. Difficulty: Casual, Standard, Hardcore or Village of Shadows (the Gold Edition includes the Trauma Pack, which unlocks Village of Shadows from your first playthrough). This guide uses Standard. Difficulty is locked for the whole run; the only exception is that on Standard, after you die, the “YOU ARE DEAD” screen offers a drop to Casual, and there is no way back. View: the third-person camera (Third Person Mode) is under Options > Camera > View Mode. The manual says it can be switched at any time, but Nintendo Insider reports having to go back to the main menu to switch it on Switch 2: pick it before you start and, if it won’t change later, save, quit to the main menu and reload (cutscenes stay first-person). Controls: there are 4 types (Options > Controls); this guide uses Type A, the default: ZL aim, ZR attack, L guard, R heal, X inventory, Y reload, A interact, left-stick click run, right-stick click crouch, left stick down + B 180° quick turn, D-pad: quick-slot weapons (assign them from the inventory), − map. Under Options > Special you can turn the typewriters into the RE7 tape recorder and switch on the “Go Tell Aunt Rhody” music (Trauma Pack). This chapter has no enemies, weapons or items: only files and a challenge.
Walkthrough
The storybook. Mia reads Rose “Village of Shadows”, the tale of the village, the girl and the witch. It is not filler: the book foreshadows the whole plot of the game. When it ends you take control of Ethan with Rose in his arms in the downstairs living room. Mia is in the kitchen: don’t talk to her yet, because she is the one who starts the final cutscenes.
Stairs and Rose’s room. Leave the living room and go up the stairs. At the top turn left: Rose’s room is the door on the right at the end of the hallway. Interact with the crib to put her down. Check the floor: one guide puts the yellow ball for the “Goooaaal!” challenge here (see below). With your hands free, explore the upper floor at your leisure: there is no danger and no timer here.
Junk room (upstairs). Go back to the top of the stairs, turn around and walk to the end of the hallway behind the stairs. It is a cluttered spare room full of boxes. In the far corner lies a newspaper: Old News Clipping, file 2. It is the official version of RE7: the Dulvey “gas incident” in 2017, the Baker family dead, and Ethan and his wife’s whereabouts unknown.
Study (the laptop room). Another room on the upper floor, next to the Winters’ bedroom, has a laptop: examine it to read Ethan’s Diary, file 3 (Ethan and Mia argue about Louisiana; they now live in Europe). It is not the Winters’ bedroom, the one with the double bed, where the ball is. In the chest of drawers to the right of the laptop is the Medical Checkup Report, file 4: Rosemary Winters’ checkup; she is healthy, and there are “fungal pathogen tests” to be provided by the BSAA. Read both.
The ball (“Goooaaal!” challenge, 3,000 CP). In the Winters’ bedroom, next to the study, there is a yellow ball. The challenge literally asks you to “move the ball from the Winterses’ bedroom into the study”. Walk into the ball to push it, in short steps, until it rolls into the laptop room. One guide places the ball in Rose’s room; if it is not in the bedroom, look there and push it into the study all the same. Switch 2 has no trophies: the game’s Challenges pay CP (points) for the extras shop and can be checked under Bonuses > Challenges after you finish the story.
Kitchen. Head downstairs with the 3 upstairs files and the ball done. Before talking to Mia, go to the fridge: the Fridge Memo is stuck on its door. It is file 1 of 47: Rose’s February meal plan, with a “no sugar or honey, and NO mushrooms” that is no coincidence. Files are saved to your profile the moment you read them, so they count toward the “Bookworm” challenge (all 47) on every later playthrough. Now talk to Mia. From here on it is all cutscenes: dinner, then Chris Redfield and his team storming the house. There is nothing to do until Ethan wakes up next to an overturned truck: chapter 2 begins.
What the diary holds. Ethan’s Diary (in the Journal: open the map and switch tabs with L/R) is an automatic story log and is not one of the 47 files; it starts filling in chapter 2. The files you pick up here do show up in the Files tab.
Replaying the prologue. There is no chapter select and no free roam after the credits. The only way back into this house is a new game or a New Game+. Since files are saved to the profile, a missed file can be picked up on any later playthrough; the ball challenge can also be done in New Game+.
Don’t leave without: the 4 files (Fridge Memo on the fridge, Old News Clipping in the corner of the junk room, Ethan’s Diary on the laptop, Medical Checkup Report in the drawers to its right) and the yellow ball in the study. All of it is gone once you talk to Mia in the kitchen, until your next playthrough.
