Resident Evil 7 contains any number of difficult puzzles, but there’s one in particular that might give you a bit of trouble. You should try it yourself first, but if you’re stuck and you need help finding the solution, here’s how to get out of this sticky situation.
Obviously, this guide and the video below, which contains a complete visual walkthrough, should be considered heavy spoilers for the game. If you’d rather read through the steps, here’s what you need to do. Spoilers ahead!
- This is for the Happy Birthday puzzle. If see a screen with the words “Happy Birthday!!” and “Experiment: Can trespassing idiots solve puzzles?” appears on-screen, you’re in the right place.
- After getting dragged into the room, turn around and grabbed the candle from the body behind you.
- Continue on to the kitchen and towards the dripping water and birthday cake. Your light will go out, but that’s OK! A ceiling light will come on after your candle is extinguished.
- Go back through the kitchen to where you started, which is now also lit up. You should see a less-than-sanitary looking bathroom; head inside.
- Flush the handle, which will cause the water to overflow. This allows you to grab a dirty telescope from the bowl.
- Head back towards the kitchen, but this time continue through to the bank of monitors hanging on the wall.
- When you look at them through the telescope, you’ll notice that certain figures light up more prominently than others. These are the clues you need to unlock the combination lock in the cake room.
- Head back to the cake room and enter the following symbols onto the lock: hanging person, gravestone, fetus.
- Open the cabinet and grab the straw doll. Head into the kitchen, turn on the stove, and light up the flammable doll. This will give a new item: the dummy finger.
- Take the dummy finger over to the body that you originally grabbed the candle from, and attach the finger to the corpse’s hand.
- Now head back to the kitchen and light your candle on the stove.
- Return to the room with the bank of monitors and head over to the door locked with a piece of rope. Use the candle to burn the rope and unlock the door.
- You’ll enter a room filled with inflated balloons; in the corner to your right will be a smaller deflated one you can pick up.
- Head back towards the kitchen, and walk up to the wall with pipe sticking out that’s leaking gas. Use the balloon on the leaky pipe to inflate the spiky balloon until it pops.
- This will send a nail flying into your hand and a quill into your stomach. Your character will pull out both items but will only keep the quill pen.
- Head back to where you started. Now that your candle friend has a full set of fingers, maybe you can give him the pen?
- Return to the cake room, but head over to the keg in the corner and use the winding key in order to take it. The black liquid is suspicious, but nothing you need to worry about.
- Head back to the body, insert the winding key, and enjoy his playful antics as he gives you a nice tattoo.
- The word he tattoos on your arm is the combination you need for the lock back in the balloon room. Head to the back of the balloon room and enter the secret word: Loser.
- In this new room, you’ll find a valve handle on the wall underneath scrawled letters that say “here.”
- Head back to the cake room. Immediately on your left when you enter is a pipe that needs a valve handle. Attach and turn to shut off the flow of water.
- Now you can head back to the kitchen, light the candle on the stove, and then go to the cake and put the candle on it.
- Happy birthday!
- You can head over to the valve and try to turn the water back on, but you’re too late.
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