RE4 Remake Small Key Locations: All 8 Locked Drawers

Eight Small Keys, eight locked drawers, and not one key to spare. That is the whole design of the drawer hunt in the Resident Evil 4 remake, and it is why a drawer you walk past costs more than it looks. Every other drawer already has a key coming to it, so the one you skipped leaves a key with nothing to open, and the treasure inside goes when the region closes behind you.

Game8, PowerPyx and Evil Resource all list the same eight keys and the same eight drawers. At base sale prices the drawers hold 68,000 pesetas between them. Below is where every key is, what every drawer holds, the order that never leaves a key stranded, and the five extra drawers Ada opens in Separate Ways with keys she has to buy.

Eight keys, eight drawers, no spares

The key's own item text is half the rulebook: "A small, simple key. Can only be used once." The guides that mapped them supply the rest:

• Any key opens any drawer. PowerPyx says the order you use them in "doesn't matter," and GamerGuides says any Small Key fits any locked drawer.
• The split is five and three. Evil Resource lists five drawers in the village and three in the castle, and none on the island. The keys split the same way: Game8 and PowerPyx find five in Chapters 2 to 4 and three in Chapters 8, 9 and 12.
• Every drawer holds a treasure. The cheapest is worth 5,000 pesetas bare, the most expensive 12,000.

A key you never use is not quite worthless. Evil Resource lists a 3,000-peseta sell price, and the wiki's item page says a key still in your case when you reach the island can be sold to the Merchant. Against a 5,000-to-12,000 drawer, selling instead of opening loses you 2,000 to 9,000 pesetas.

All 8 Small Key locations

In the order you find them. Game8, PowerPyx, Evil Resource and GamerGuides describe the same eight spots; the directions below combine Evil Resource's, PowerPyx's and Game8's wording.

Two of these sit behind other key items. The Forest Altar is past the gate that the Insignia Key opens, and Evil Resource puts that key in the desk drawer of the manor's upstairs bedroom. The same detour also holds Chapter 4's doll, so pair it with the Clockwork Castellan route. The church key is inside the church you open with the Church Insignia; getting that is in the puzzle solutions guide.

All 8 locked drawers and what they hold

The village five come to 38,000 and the castle three to 30,000. Sale prices are from the Resident Evil Wiki's item pages and match Evil Resource's. Two drawers hold a Gold Bar and two hold a Brass Pocket Watch, so the eight drawers give you six different treasures.

The chapter column is when PowerPyx's route opens each drawer, not the only chapter you can. Game8 files two of them a chapter later: the dock drawer under Chapter 4 and the Lakeside Settlement drawer under Chapter 5. Some drawers turn up before you have a key for them. Game8 notes the Village Square one is there in Chapter 1, before any key exists, and PowerPyx passes the Audience Chamber one in Chapter 7 and the Battlements one in Chapter 8, coming back for both later.

The route that never strands a key

Since any key fits any drawer, the whole trick is spending each key on the nearest shut drawer before the story moves you on. PowerPyx's chronological route does exactly that:

1. Chapter 2, Valley key → Abandoned Factory. Go back past the Merchant and into the factory. The drawer is behind the gate where you recovered your equipment.
2. End of Chapter 2, manor key → Village Square. Carry it into Chapter 3, when PowerPyx is back on the square.
3. Chapter 3, Fish Farm key → the quarry dock. PowerPyx's instruction is blunt: "Do not escape with the boat yet." Backtrack to the Merchant and drop down the ladder next to him.
4. Chapter 4, Forest Altar key → Lakeside Settlement. Go into the settlement's house and open the drawer in the first room on the left.
5. Chapter 4, church key → the church's typewriter room. PowerPyx spends it on the drawer in the church's save room.
6. Chapter 8, the key past the stone puzzle → the Bindery. Backtrack from the corridor beyond the puzzle.
7. Chapter 9, the Armory-passage key → the Audience Chamber. PowerPyx rides the golden gondola from the Merchant room and walks back to the chamber; Game8 describes the same trip as a trolley ride from the Grand Hall Merchant. The chamber also has a Square Lock Box, which the Cubic Device opens (the puzzle guide covers where that is). PowerPyx collects both treasures on the same visit.
8. Chapter 12, the gondola-platform key → the Battlements. This is the drawer that has been shut since Chapter 8.

On that route, every key is spent in the chapter you find it or, for the manor key, the one after. Six of the eight steps — the factory, the square, the dock, the Bindery, the Audience Chamber and the Battlements — are a backtrack or a return in PowerPyx's own wording. That is the step to plan for: the drawer is behind you, not ahead.

Two drawers fill one treasure

The first drawer on the route and the last one in the village belong together. The Abandoned Factory's Elegant Mask has, in its own item text, "three round recesses on the brow," and sells for 5,000 bare. The church drawer's Yellow Diamond is a round-cut gem, worth 7,000 on its own.

The wiki's maximum for the Mask is 36,400, and the treasure guide gets there with three Yellow Diamonds: (5,000 + 21,000) × 1.4. One of those three comes out of a locked drawer two chapters later. Do not sell either one at the first Merchant. The treasure guide has the full combination table.

A shut drawer costs Bandit or Burglar

Steam's achievement list has one treasure award per region:

GamerGuides says the drawer treasures count toward Bandit and Burglar. PowerPyx agrees: its village and castle treasure lists, which it builds around the treasure-map awards, number each drawer treasure alongside the chests. So one shut drawer is a failed award for that run. Raider is the only one of the three with no drawer in it.

The windows are short. PowerPyx says the village is playable only in Chapters 1 to 6 and the castle only in Chapters 7 to 12, that areas become inaccessible gradually as the story advances, and that there is "no Chapter Select and no Free-Roam after the story." All three awards say "in a single playthrough," and PowerPyx adds that treasure progress does not carry over into the next playthrough, so a drawer missed in Chapter 4 cannot be made up later. The next attempt starts from zero. The challenges guide covers the treasure maps you buy from the Merchant to track all three.

Separate Ways: Ada buys her keys

Ada never finds a Small Key. The wiki says they cannot be found in Separate Ways, only traded for spinel. PowerPyx and Evil Resource both list five for sale, at 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 spinel — 20 for the set. Evil Resource has two of them stocked from Chapter 2, one from Chapter 3, another from Chapter 3 once you have explored the Abandoned Factory, and the last from Chapter 4.

Two of them sit in Leon's rooms. Evil Resource places Ada's Village Square and Abandoned Factory drawers in the same rooms as Leon's, and PowerPyx has them holding a Gold Bangle and a Gold Bar where Leon's hold a Vintage Compass and an Elegant Mask.

At base prices that is 64,000 pesetas for 20 spinel, 3,200 pesetas a spinel. Unlike Leon's set, PowerPyx says no Separate Ways treasure is needed for a trophy, so this is a straight money trade. Weigh it against what else Ada spends spinel on. The Merchant requests guide covers where her spinel comes from, and the Separate Ways guide has her shopping order. PowerPyx recommends the 2-spinel treasure map Ada can buy from Chapter 2, which adds a treasure-progress counter to each region's map.

One thing not to mix up: the key in that image is the Hidden Key, a different item. Evil Resource puts it in a wall recess behind a picture in the Chief's Manor dining room. The wiki says it opens a drawer holding a file, not a treasure, and that once used it sells for 2,500 pesetas, the price Evil Resource also lists.

Quick Action Checklist

• Eight keys, eight drawers, single use, any key in any drawer. There is no spare.
• Village keys: Valley and Village Chief's Manor (Chapter 2), Fish Farm (3), Forest Altar and church (4).
• Village drawers: Abandoned Factory, Village Square, the quarry Merchant's dock, the Lakeside Settlement cottage, the church typewriter room.
• Castle keys: past the Bindery stone puzzle (Chapter 8), the Armory passage (9), the gondola platform (12). Castle drawers: Bindery, Audience Chamber, Battlements.
• The eight drawers are worth 68,000 pesetas at base. A leftover key sells for 3,000 once you reach the island, less than the cheapest drawer.
• Keep the factory's Elegant Mask and the church drawer's Yellow Diamond. The gem fits the Mask.
• Open each drawer at the first chance: areas close off as the story advances, the village for good after Chapter 6 and the castle after Chapter 12. A shut drawer in either region fails Bandit or Burglar for that run.
• Separate Ways: five keys for 2 to 6 spinel (20 total), five drawers worth 64,000 at base, no trophy attached.