Resident Evil 4 Remake New Game Plus Guide: Endgame Unlocks Worth the Grind

Rolling credits on the 2023 remake is not the end of Resident Evil 4. It is the moment the game hands you a second set of rules. Finish Leon's campaign once and three things unlock at the same time: New Game Plus, a Challenges list worth 101 entries, and an Extra Content Shop full of weapons the base game never lets you touch. The problem is the game explains almost none of it, so most players beat it, see "New Game Plus," shrug, and never find out that a fully upgraded submachine gun with infinite bullets is sitting a few menus away.

This guide covers the Resident Evil 4 remake (2023) only. Every unlock, cost, and condition below is from the remake — the 2005 original had its own bonus weapons and a completely different unlock structure. If you are still learning the ropes of the main campaign, start with the beginner guide to surviving the village first, then come back here once the credits have rolled.

What New Game Plus actually carries over

New Game Plus is the game's replay mode: you start the story over from Chapter 1, but you keep almost everything you earned. Your weapons come with you. So do their upgrades, your money, your spinel, your treasures, your charms, and — crucially — any exclusive upgrades you paid for. What resets is the story itself: chapter progress, key items, and puzzles all go back to zero, so a fresh run plays out normally except that Leon is now walking into the village carrying a maxed-out arsenal.

You choose the difficulty when you start a New Game Plus run, and this is where the mode earns its keep. Beat the game on Standard, then start New Game Plus on Professional with your entire upgraded loadout intact. That turns the hardest difficulty from a punishing from-scratch grind into a victory lap you can actually win — which matters, because the best rewards in the game are gated behind Professional clears. Remember that Professional disables the autosave safety net entirely, so you are relying on typewriters and your own gear.

One important exception: bonus weapons you unlock through the Extra Content Shop do not count as "carried over" gear in the sense that matters for the Handcannon's unlock condition. More on that below, because it is a trap.

The three currencies you are now juggling

The base campaign runs on two currencies — pesetas and spinel. The endgame adds a third, and keeping them straight is half the battle.

Completion Points and the Extra Content Shop

Completion Points (CP) are the currency of the postgame. You earn them by clearing Challenges, a list of 101 objectives that unlocks once you finish the story a single time. Some are handed to you just for playing: completing each chapter pays out CP on a sliding scale, with the early chapters worth 300 CP each and the back half worth 500 CP each. Others ask for specific feats — stealth kills, knife parries, melee finishers, no-damage boss fights. You spend the CP you bank in the Extra Content Shop, which is where every bonus weapon and the infinite-ammo accessory live.

The math works out generously. Clearing the full challenge list gives you far more CP than you need to buy everything, so you are never forced to pick between unlocks — you are just deciding what to grind toward first.

Spinel and exclusive upgrade tickets

Spinel is the blue-gem currency you trade to the Merchant for his request rewards, and in the endgame it becomes the key to making bonus weapons broken. Most of the good bonus weapons hide their best trait behind an exclusive upgrade — the Handcannon's infinite ammo, the Chicago Sweeper's infinite ammo, the Primal Knife's indestructibility. You normally unlock an exclusive upgrade by fully maxing a weapon first, which is brutally expensive. The shortcut is an Exclusive Upgrade Ticket, bought from the Merchant for 30 or 40 spinel, which grants that exclusive upgrade regardless of the weapon's level. If you have been hoarding spinel, this is what it was for. The Merchant and spinel guide breaks down where to farm it.

The bonus weapons, ranked by whether they earn their slots

Not every unlock is worth the inventory space. Here is the honest breakdown.

Handcannon: the trophy that underperforms

The Handcannon is the game's ultimate flex, and unlocking it is a genuine achievement. You earn it one of two ways: beat the campaign on Professional without using any bonus weapons, or earn an S rank or higher on all three maps — Village, Castle, and Island — in The Mercenaries mode. Meet either condition and it unlocks in the Extra Content Shop for 1,000 CP, after which it appears on the Merchant's table for 50,000 pesetas.

Here is the uncomfortable truth: it is not very good. This magnum takes up eight inventory slots, has the slowest fire rate of any magnum in the game, and suffers from awful crosshair bloom that makes it miss shots your aim genuinely earned. Its exclusive upgrade grants infinite ammo, which is the whole point, but the Broken Butterfly hits harder and handles better. Unlock the Handcannon for the bragging rights. Do not expect it to replace your real magnum.

Chicago Sweeper: infinite ammo, finally done right

The Chicago Sweeper is the bonus weapon most people actually keep equipped. It is a submachine gun unlocked by clearing Professional with an A rank or higher, then bought in the Extra Content Shop and pulled from any typewriter box once you load a New Game Plus save. Before it is upgraded it is a mess — inaccurate, slow to reload, enormous in your case at 21 slots, and the single most expensive weapon in the game to fully max. But its exclusive upgrade grants infinite ammo, and an SMG that never reloads and never runs dry is a completely different animal from a magnum you fire once a fight. If you want one infinite-ammo weapon to carry you through a Professional cleanup run, this is the one.

Primal Knife: the last knife repair bill you'll ever pay

The remake turned the knife into a resource with a repair bill, which is exactly why the Primal Knife is such a relief. You unlock it by destroying all 16 Clockwork Castellans hidden across the campaign, after which it costs 1,000 CP in the Extra Content Shop. Its damage sits between the Combat Knife and the Fighting Knife, but its exclusive upgrade makes it indestructible — no durability, no repairs, ever. If you have read the weapon upgrade guide and internalized how much money knife repairs quietly drain, you understand why an unbreakable blade is worth more than its raw stats suggest. It parries forever and finishes downed enemies for free.

Infinite Rocket Launcher: the two-million-peseta delete button

This one is not bought with CP — it is bought with an absurd pile of pesetas. Finish the main campaign on any difficulty and the Infinite Rocket Launcher becomes available from the Merchant in New Game Plus for a flat 2,000,000 pesetas. It deletes bosses. It takes 16 inventory slots, which is a lot, but you only bring it out for the fights that matter. There is a discount worth knowing: equip the "Leon with rocket launcher" charm and the price drops to 1,600,000 pesetas at the moment of purchase. The charms guide covers how to roll for it. Buy this once and Professional stops being scary.

Cat Ears: infinite ammo for (almost) everything

The Cat Ears are the endgame's crown jewel and its hardest unlock. You earn them by completing the main story on Professional with an S+ rank — the highest rank the game awards, which demands you finish inside a time limit without leaning on bonus weapons. Do it and the Cat Ears accessory unlocks in the Extra Content Shop.

Equip them and every weapon you carry has infinite ammo — with four deliberate exceptions: the Rocket Launcher, the Bolt Thrower, hand grenades, and the knife. In other words, your handguns, shotguns, rifles, and magnums all become bottomless, while the game keeps its genuinely game-ending tools on a leash. This is the accessory that turns a victory-lap run into pure playground mode. If you are chasing the same reward in the DLC, note that Ada's Separate Ways campaign has its own version, the Cat Set, unlocked by clearing that story on Professional with S+.

Don't wipe your save on the Clockwork Castellans

The single most common way players lock themselves out of a reward: the 16 Clockwork Castellans. These are wind-up dolls hidden across the campaign that chirp when you get close. Shoot one and it is destroyed permanently — and here is the trap, they stay destroyed even if you start a brand-new game from the main menu. Destroying all 16 is the sole unlock condition for the Primal Knife, so if you smash a few on one save and then wipe it to start fresh, those specific dolls are gone for good and you can never complete the set on that profile.

The practical rule: if you care about the Primal Knife, either commit to finding all 16 in a single playthrough or knock them out during a relaxed New Game Plus run where you are already overpowered and can afford to explore. Do not casually pop one or two and forget about it.

A sane order to chase all of this

There is a natural sequence that avoids double work:

1. Finish the story once on Standard. This unlocks Challenges, the Extra Content Shop, New Game Plus, and the Infinite Rocket Launcher for purchase.
2. Start New Game Plus on Professional with your upgraded loadout. You are far stronger than a fresh Professional run, which makes the hard unlocks realistic.
3. Grab the Infinite Rocket Launcher early in that run if you can afford it — 2,000,000 pesetas, less with the charm. It makes the Professional clear dramatically safer.
4. Clear all 16 Clockwork Castellans on this same run so you never have to hunt them twice, then buy the Primal Knife.
5. Aim for the S+ Professional clear to unlock the Cat Ears. This is the capstone.
6. Spend leftover CP on the Handcannon and Chicago Sweeper once the pressure is off.

Do it in that order and every hard requirement — Professional, S+, the Castellans — gets satisfied on runs where you are already strong enough to enjoy them.

Quick Action Checklist

• New Game Plus keeps your weapons, upgrades, exclusive upgrades, money, spinel, treasures, and charms. Only story progress resets.
• Beat the game once to unlock the Extra Content Shop, Challenges, and the Infinite Rocket Launcher.
• CP comes from Challenges; chapter clears alone pay 300 to 500 CP each. Spend it in the Extra Content Shop.
• Use spinel on Exclusive Upgrade Tickets (30 or 40 each) to unlock a weapon's exclusive perk without maxing it first.
• Handcannon: Professional clear with no bonus weapons, or S rank on all three Mercenaries maps. Great trophy, mediocre gun.
• Chicago Sweeper: Professional A rank. The best everyday infinite-ammo weapon once its exclusive upgrade is on.
• Primal Knife: destroy all 16 Clockwork Castellans, then buy for 1,000 CP. Its exclusive upgrade makes it indestructible.
• Infinite Rocket Launcher: 2,000,000 pesetas in New Game Plus, or 1,600,000 with the rocket launcher charm equipped.
• Cat Ears: Professional S+ clear. Infinite ammo for everything except the Rocket Launcher, Bolt Thrower, grenades, and knife.
• Never wipe a save mid-collection — destroyed Clockwork Castellans do not respawn, even on a fresh game.