What's the Resident Evil Maiden demo necklace for?
The Resident Evil Maiden demo includes a mystery necklace but is there a solution to this new puzzle?
If you've played the demo then you're probably running about trying to rub the Resident Evil Maiden necklace on everything, hoping to find a solution for the puzzle of what it's for. The object arrived in the Resident Evil Maiden demo, and, after the last demo for Resident Evil 7 featured a tricky puzzle involving a finger, everyone's quickly latched on to this one object in Maiden that doesn't seem to do anything. So what's going on?
What's the Resident Evil Maiden necklace for?
Currently, the Resident Evil Maiden necklace does nothing. You can pick it up near the start of the demo, not long after you get out of the dungeon. It's on a table just by where you exit the hole in the wall you've crawled through to escape confinement and reach the castle of the Resident Evil vampire lady. There aren't many things to interact with - bolt cutters, a ring, some keys and lock picks, etc - but this necklace conspicuously doesn't yet have a purpose.
However, that doesn't mean it won't have a use one day. The last Resident Evil 7 demo featured a mysterious severed finger that baffled fans for months. Over time different endings were patched in, and eventually a whole new area. Eventually, after a final update, people were able to work out how to solve the Resident Evil 7 finger puzzle.
While the Resident Evil Maiden demo currently isn't anyway near as deep as the Resident Evil 7 option - which included lots of items, puzzles, stages, and multiple endings - there are several doors at the moment that look like they should open but don't. There's also these two locked doors in the main hall - the left one has 'new area' written all over it, while the front door could provide an alternate route of escape at a later stage.
There's also mention of a very specific bottle of 'Maiden's Blood wine' kept in a "special ornate bottle decorated with intricate silver flowers". The fact that it's described so precisely suggests it's something to look out for, but so far you can't find it anywhere.
So, for the time being, there's little else to be done in the demo except wait for patches. If it's anything like the last demo, each new update brought a flurry of new activity as people raced to see what, if anything, had been added.
The description of the necklace does at least give us some idea of it's purpose:
"Necklace of animal bones used to ward off evil. Taken from me when I was thrown in that dungeon."
The main character in the demo appears to be someone that's been kidnapped from the village, so we might find this sort of necklace in the main game as some sort of protection. As it stands in the demo, it provides zero protection from either Lady Dimitrescu or her insect daughters, but maybe it will later and help you escape? The old demo also rewarded you with an coin that carried over into the main game and could be used to get a head start on upgrades. Village has different currency this time it doesn't seem like a likely reward this time. But if the necklace does have protective qualities it could be the reward itself. Nothing to do now but wait...
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I'm GamesRadar's Managing Editor for guides, which means I run GamesRadar's guides and tips content. I also write reviews, previews and features, largely about horror, action adventure, FPS and open world games. I previously worked on Kotaku, and the Official PlayStation Magazine and website.