Wrenwood Hotel Walkthrough — Resident Evil Requiem (RE9)

Grace, a journalist, arrives at the abandoned Wrenwood Hotel investigating the Raccoon Strain outbreak. This RE9 walkthrough covers her intro chapter — first weapon pickups, the optional Safe #1 in the Manager's Office, and the rooftop escape to Rhodes Hill.

Chapter overview: Grace's introduction

Wrenwood Hotel is the opening chapter of Resident Evil Requiem and serves as Grace's tutorial run. The pacing is deliberately slow: you learn to walk, look, examine, reload, and fight a single zombie before the chapter ends. Expect to spend roughly 25–35 minutes on a first-time playthrough, or around 8 minutes if you skip the optional safe and rush the rooftop. There are no boss fights and only six total enemies in the entire chapter.

Starting point: Hotel lobby

The chapter opens with Grace's car stalling on the rain-soaked driveway. After the introductory cinematic, she enters Wrenwood Hotel through the cracked-open front door. The lobby is dark, the power is half-out, and the front desk bell is the first interactable object. Ring it once — it triggers a small atmospheric scare but no enemy spawn — then begin pickup sweep.

// Pickup checklist

• Handgun (mandatory): Inside the cracked display case behind the front desk — Grace's first firearm
• Combat Knife (mandatory): Stuck in the wooden bellhop trolley near the elevators
• Green Herb ×2: Potted plants flanking the staircase — both are pickable
• Handgun Ammo ×8: Concierge drawer (open the cash register first to unlock the drawer prompt)
• File #1 "Hotel Registry": Open ledger on the front desk — see files guide

1F lobby + check-in counter

With the Handgun and Combat Knife equipped, sweep the rest of the ground floor before going upstairs. The dining hall to the west is empty but holds two herb pickups and a Mr. Raccoon doll on top of the piano — see the raccoon guide for the full list. The bar to the east is locked from this side; you'll loop back to it from the boiler room later.

Pop the cash register on the front desk to find the brass Service Elevator Key. This unlocks the manual elevator panel that takes Grace to 2F. Stairs are also available but the elevator is faster and there are no enemies in either path.

1. Sweep the dining hall for green herbs and Mr. Raccoon #1.
2. Examine the lobby paintings — one hides a wall safe (covered below).
3. Open the cash register to receive the Service Elevator Key.
4. Approach the elevator panel and choose "2F — Guest Floor."
5. Reload the Handgun before the doors open — the elevator chime is your audio cue.

2F Manager's Office: optional Safe #1

Step out of the elevator on 2F and head left down the corridor. The Manager's Office is the second door on the right, behind a half-open frosted glass panel. Inside is a desk, a filing cabinet, a wall-mounted painting hiding Safe #1, and a single shambler zombie sleeping on the office couch.

Knife the sleeping zombie for a stealth kill — it dies in one hit while prone — then approach the painting. The combination for Safe #1 is in our all 5 safe codes guide. The reward is 8× Handgun Ammo and a Custom Grip part for the Handgun, which boosts reload speed by 15%.

3F suites: first zombie encounters

The corridor to the 3F suites is your knife combat tutorial. The game spawns three zombies in increasing difficulty: one prone (one-knife-hit), one stumbling (two-knife-hits or one headshot), and one charging from Suite 302. Use this stretch to internalize Grace's parry timing — the game's on-screen prompt only appears for the first charging zombie, then never again.

Suites 301 and 303 contain pickups; Suite 302 is the trigger room for the charging zombie and holds File #2 "Guest Complaint." Suite 304 at the end of the corridor is locked and never opens during this chapter — ignore it.

1. Suite 301: Knife the prone zombie under the bed; loot 1× Green Herb + 6× Handgun Ammo.
2. Suite 303: Knife or shoot the stumbling zombie in the bathroom; loot Red Herb (your first).
3. Suite 302: Tutorial parry — wait for the on-screen prompt, press the parry button, then critical-stab the staggered zombie.
4. Loot Suite 302: File #2 on the writing desk, plus the Stairwell Key on the corpse.
5. Use the Stairwell Key on the locked stairwell door at the end of the corridor — descend to the Boiler Room.

Boiler Room basement: first save room

The Boiler Room is RE9's first proper save room and the only one in this chapter. The typewriter sits on a workbench against the far wall, flanked by an item box and a small whiteboard with a hand-drawn map of the hotel. There are no enemies in the save room and the door auto-locks behind you, so it's a safe spot to plan the rooftop run.

Roof escape and transition to Rhodes Hill

The stairs from the Boiler Room loop back up through the bar (now unlocked from this side) and out to the fire escape on the hotel's east wall. The fire escape climbs all six floors to the rooftop, with no enemies along the way. On the rooftop, Grace finds an abandoned news van and the chapter-ending cinematic plays automatically as she examines the van's open driver door.

The cutscene shows Grace driving away from Wrenwood as the hotel collapses in the rear-view mirror — a foreshadowing shot of the Raccoon Strain's spread. The screen fades to black and the chapter ends. There is no further input required.

What comes next: Rhodes Hill

The next chapter is the Rhodes Hill Care Center walkthrough, where Grace explores the West Wing before handing off to Leon S. Kennedy for the East Wing. Care Center is significantly larger than Wrenwood and includes the first optional boss (The Chef), the first NPC, and four safes. Pick up the beginner's guide before continuing if this is your first Resident Evil game.

Your Wrenwood loadout — Handgun + Custom Grip + Combat Knife + a stack of herbs — carries directly into Care Center, so don't burn the ammo on the boiler-room exit shamblers. Save it for the West Wing pantry.