RE4 Remake Sentinel Nine and Skull Shaker: Worth Using?

Eleven case slots. That is the gap between the Skull Shaker and the W-870 you pick up in the Village Square, and it is the best reason to care about the two guns Capcom sells for the Resident Evil 4 remake as "Deluxe weapons." The other one, the Sentinel Nine, is Leon's starting pistol with a much bigger magazine, and it out-hits the original only at level 1.

If you own Gold Edition, you already have both. They are part of the Extra DLC Pack, which ships inside Gold Edition — the only edition of the remake on Capcom's Switch 2 lineup page, dated October 16, 2026. So here they are, stat for stat against the guns they replace: what each costs to finish, how much case each eats, where you can and cannot use them, and the one rules question Capcom's own text leaves open.

Two guns, claimed from Storage

Neither gun is found in the world. Capcom's Steam listing for each says "Deluxe weapons can be claimed from the Storage menu at any typewriter," and the Resident Evil Wiki notes both are available from the beginning of the game, so on a fresh save they are waiting at the first typewriter you reach.

That last row is Capcom's wording, not an inference. Both Steam pages say the content "can only be used in the main story of Resident Evil 4. It cannot be used in the paid extra game, Separate Ways." The wiki lists only the main game as each weapon's mode, so neither turns up in The Mercenaries either, where characters start with preset loadouts — the Mercenaries guide has those. I found no source that says either way whether they work in VR Mode.

One caveat if you are buying on Switch 2. Capcom's Switch 2 page says Gold Edition includes Separate Ways and "a wealth of existing downloadable content," and does not itemise it. Steam's Gold Edition listing does, and both weapons are on it. The Switch 2 release date guide covers the rest of that bundle.

The Sentinel Nine is an SG-09 R with a bigger magazine

Put the Sentinel Nine next to Leon's starting SG-09 R and most of the stat line is identical: the same 2x3 footprint, the same 4.00 precision, Laser Sight compatibility on both, and the same exclusive upgrade — five times the critical hit rate, for 80,000 pesetas. The wiki's own description says it "acts similarly to the SG-09 R in terms of stats." The differences sit in four rows. Both guns' figures match on the wiki's upgrade charts and Game8's weapon pages.

Read the Power row one level at a time, with what each gun charges to get there, and the comparison flips partway up:

Out of the box the Sentinel Nine hits harder. They tie at level 2. From level 3 on it hits 0.10 softer at every level and costs more to get there. A higher reload number is a faster reload, so it also reloads a step slower at every level — less of a problem when the magazine you are refilling holds 31 rounds instead of 18.

That makes it a capacity-and-fire-rate gun rather than a damage gun. Fully upgraded it carries 13 more rounds than the SG-09 R and fires about 32% faster, 2.00 against 1.52. Since the two share the crit exclusive, the faster gun also gets more chances at a crit per second; that is arithmetic on the listed stats, not a damage test.

One timing rule applies to both. Game8's pages for each put levels 4 and 5, and the exclusive upgrade, behind Chapter 9. For the first eight chapters, the comparison that matters is levels 1 to 3 — where the Sentinel Nine's magazine is at least 19 rounds and the SG-09 R's tops out at 14.

Where it sits among Leon's six handguns

Game8's weapon list gives Leon six handguns in the main campaign. Here is the Sentinel Nine against all of them, on the wiki's charts:

Three things come out of that table:

• It has the biggest magazine of the six at level 1 and at level 5. Only an exclusive beats it: the Matilda's doubles its 30 to 60.
• Its 1.90 maximum power ties the Punisher for the lowest of the six.
• Its 2.00 maximum rate of fire is second only to the Blacktail's 2.20.

Game8's verdict is that it is a decent starter that the Red9 outclasses from Chapter 4, when the Red9 turns up in a chest in the middle of the lake. The weapon upgrade guide makes the case for where long-term handgun money should go; this post does not re-run it.

Two places where the magazine matters more than the power:

• The Minimalist challenge (1,500 CP) asks you to finish the main story using only knives and handguns, specific battles excepted. The Sentinel Nine is a handgun, and its 19-round level-1 magazine, the largest of the six, is available from the first typewriter of a new save.
• The Laser Sight fits three of Leon's handguns, per the wiki: the SG-09 R, the Punisher and the Sentinel Nine. It is a 10-spinel Merchant trade, and the wiki's SG-09 R page says it keeps the reticle fully focused even while you move. Moving your main pistol from the SG-09 R to the Sentinel Nine keeps the attachment on the table.

The Skull Shaker buys back 11 case slots

Game8 lists four shotguns in Leon's campaign. All four fire Shotgun Shells. Here they are on the wiki's charts:

What that says:

• It is half the size of the next-smallest shotgun. Five slots against the Striker's 10 and the 16 the W-870 and Riot Gun each take. The 11 slots it saves over the W-870 are nearly two 6-slot handguns' worth of case.
• It has the lowest power of the four at every level. Game8 says so plainly, and the chart agrees: 5.40 against the W-870's 5.60 at level 1, 9.07 against 10.1 at level 5.
• Its exclusive is the W-870's. Both double power for 80,000 pesetas. That takes a maxed Skull Shaker to 18.14 — above a maxed Striker's 16.2, whose exclusive doubles ammo instead, and about 94% of a maxed Riot Gun's 19.2, in under a third of the case space.
• It fires faster than the W-870 at every level, 0.96 against 0.85 at the top, though the Riot Gun and Striker are faster again.
• At level 5 it reloads in one action. The wiki's chart tracks how many shells Leon loads at a time, and the Skull Shaker's goes 1 to 6, matching its 6-shell maximum. A maxed W-870 loads 5 at a time into a 10-shell tube.

Two shells is not a shotgun yet

The catch is the starting line. A level-1 Skull Shaker holds two shells, and the wiki says the same thing about its rate of fire and reload: low and slow until you pay. Its capacity track runs 8,000, 11,000, 15,000 and 19,000 pesetas, and Game8's Skull Shaker and W-870 pages both put levels 4 and 5 behind Chapter 9. So for the first eight chapters those two top out at level 3, shown here with a level-3 Riot Gun for scale:

That is the early-game trade in one table: 19,000 pesetas of capacity upgrades gets the Skull Shaker to four shells in 5 slots, while 18,000 (8,000 then 10,000) gets the free W-870 to seven shells in 16. If case space is what is killing you in the village, it is a good trade. If you keep running out of shells mid-fight, it is not.

The bill to finish is close to the W-870's. Its four tracks come to 284,000 pesetas, 364,000 with the exclusive — 12,000 more than the W-870 and 36,000 less than the Riot Gun's upgrades, or 64,000 less once you add the Riot Gun's 28,000 purchase price.

The Exclusive Upgrade Ticket changes the early numbers. The Merchant trades one for 30 or 40 spinel, and its item text grants a weapon's exclusive upgrade "regardless of the weapon's level" — you still pay the 80,000 pesetas. On a level-1 Skull Shaker that is 10.80 power, more than a fully upgraded W-870 without its own exclusive (10.1). Game8 and the wiki don't say whether a ticket also gets around the Chapter 9 gate, but PowerPyx's trophy roadmap has you buy one for 30 spinel from Chapter 7 and redeem it on the Handcannon straight away, two chapters early. And the same ticket on a level-1 W-870 lands at 11.20, so the Skull Shaker's case for a ticket is the slots, not the damage. The best rifle guide runs the same ticket arithmetic for the SR M1903, and the Merchant requests guide covers where the spinel comes from.

Do they count as bonus weapons?

This one matters for the Handcannon. Professional Agent asks you to "complete a new game in the main story on Professional mode without using any bonus weapons," pays 2,500 CP, and — per PowerPyx's trophy guide and the challenges guide — is one of the two ways to unlock the Handcannon. The other is S ranks on the Village, Castle and Island maps in The Mercenaries.

Capcom uses two different names for two different things that you collect from the same menu:

• Bonus Weapons are an Extra Content Shop category bought with CP, per the Official Web Manual's Challenges page. Its Typewriters page adds that "bonus weapons can also be obtained via the Storage menu at any typewriter after purchase."
• Deluxe weapons is the store's name for these two. Same Storage menu, different source.

Neither the challenge text, the web manual nor the two Steam store pages say whether Deluxe weapons count against Professional Agent. What exists is player reports. In replies to a Steam Community thread in April 2023, one player says they have been using the Sentinel Nine on their run for the Handcannon and that the gun "doesn't count as bonus weapon," and a second says they can confirm shooting it does not void Professional Agent. In a second Steam thread, another player says they used the Sentinel Nine through the run and got the Handcannon. None of the replies I read describes a run with the Skull Shaker.

So: the Sentinel Nine has first-hand reports behind it. The Skull Shaker is the same kind of item, from the same pack, collected the same way, but nobody I found has said they cleared Professional Agent with it. If the Handcannon is the point of the run, carry the W-870 or the Riot Gun and remove the question.

Which one to actually carry

• The Skull Shaker: yes, if case space is your constraint. Take it from the first typewriter, put the first 19,000 pesetas into its capacity track, and leave the W-870 in Storage after you pick it up. By Chapter 6 you will have put money in, and the Riot Gun's edge at full build is 6 more shells and 1.06 more power for a bill 64,000 higher and 11 more slots. Keeping the Skull Shaker is a defensible call; switching is too, if shells are your problem rather than space.
• The Sentinel Nine: carry it instead of the SG-09 R early, but think before you pay for it. Same 6 slots, a 19-round magazine against 10, and more power at level 1. If you want a long-term crit pistol, the SG-09 R gets you 0.10 more power for 17,000 pesetas less; the Sentinel Nine gets you 13 more rounds and faster fire. If your long-term handgun is the Red9 or the Blacktail, keep upgrade money off both.
• On a Professional Agent run: the Sentinel Nine has first-hand player reports saying it is safe. The Skull Shaker has only general replies that Deluxe weapons don't count, with no first-hand clear behind them.
• In Separate Ways: neither. Capcom's store text rules both out.

For the rest of the arsenal, the best knife and best SMG guides run the same comparison for their classes.

Quick Action Checklist

• Claim both from the Storage menu at any typewriter. They are there from the start of a new game if you own the Extra DLC Pack, Deluxe Edition or Gold Edition, or bought them at $1.99 each on Steam.
• They work in the main story only — not Separate Ways, and the wiki lists neither for The Mercenaries.
• Skull Shaker: 5 slots against 16 for the W-870 and Riot Gun. It starts at 2 shells, so put 19,000 into capacity first; before Chapter 9 it tops out at 4.
• Maxed with its 2x power exclusive, the Skull Shaker reaches 18.14 power, about 94% of a maxed Riot Gun's 19.2.
• Sentinel Nine: the SG-09 R's slots, precision and crit exclusive, with a 31-round maximum magazine and 2.00 rate of fire — but 1.90 maximum power and a 17,000-peseta bigger upgrade bill.
• Levels 4 and 5 and both exclusives (without a ticket) open in Chapter 9.
• For Professional Agent and the Handcannon, the Sentinel Nine has first-hand player reports that it does not count as a bonus weapon. Nobody I found has reported clearing it with the Skull Shaker.