I am a human. That means I make mistakes. We all make mistakes. But we can learn from these moments of failure and even help others by sharing the knowledge we gain. So here I am, to share with you a simple tip I learned the hard way: Don’t sell the meat you get in Resident Evil Village!
If you’re super sensitive to spoilers, don’t go past this paragraph. All you need to know is you should watch out for animals that drop meat. When you get this meat, don’t sell it. Hold on to it. While the merchant will be happy to buy up any meat that the chickens and pigs drop, avoid this. I’ll tell you why in a moment, but first…
In Resident Evil Village you’ll encounter different animals, like fish and pigs. These animals can mostly be ignored, though pigs will attack if you get too close. Now, I am playing this game just like I played Resident Evil 4 because, well this game feels a lot like Resident Evil 4. I shoot crows because they drop loot and keep my eyes open for shiny gems in caves. Classic RE4 stuff. So when I saw some chickens in Village, I killed them, expecting some eggs to drop. Eggs in RE4 were valuable items to sell, especially the rare golden eggs. But the chickens dropped meat. I noticed some of this meat was classified as rare or juicy, and worth more to sell. I also was unable to eat any it. But it could all be sold to Duke, the merchant in Village.
So, I sold my meat. I sold a lot of meat. I cleared out the entire village of its animals using the in-game map as my guide. In return, I got a decent chunk of change. But shortly after that, I completed the next step in the game’s main storyline and that’s when The Duke told me about his ability to prepare and cook up different meals, using the ingredients I’d just made extinct. These meals offer permanent upgrades to your character, like more health.
At that moment I felt very dumb. I had sold everything and in the process lost out on some easy upgrades. The animals I killed don’t return after a few minutes either. In fact, from what I can tell, they never return. On the map, the chickens and pigs have been marked off as “completed.” So farming them isn’t an option.
Luckily for me, there are more animals that spawn in other areas of the game so I’ve finally gotten my first upgrade. But I imagine life would have been much easier if I hadn’t been so greedy at the start. So let this be a lesson: Don’t sell all your meat. Really, don’t even kill the animals and collect the meat until after The Duke tells you he can make tasty meals. This means you won’t have to waste valuable inventory space carrying around dead goats and pigs.
The more I think about it, the more I blame the Duke because he could have said something instead of just buying up everything I put in front of him. “Oh hey, Ethan, yeah, don’t sell these fish to me right now. Wait until you do that other thing and then come back and I’ll make you a nice soup that will let you block more damage. It will be rad, dude.” I’ll be leaving a terrible Google review after this, sir.
(Updated 3/3/22 with new details)