Here’s a bold statement: one of the most baffling puzzles in gaming history has just been ‘solved’—but not in the way you’d expect. Resident Evil Requiem’s ‘Final Puzzle’ has left players scratching their heads since the game’s release, with its seemingly impossible steps and cryptic clues. And this is the part most people miss: someone claims to have cracked it, but only by cheating. Yes, you read that right.
The puzzle, which has become the stuff of legend among fans, involves a series of bizarre tasks that feel more like a riddle wrapped in an enigma. Players have been tirelessly trying to decipher Capcom’s intentions since the game launched, but as of now, the official solution remains a mystery. That is, until a Pokémon YouTuber named Gengar Collects stumbled upon a workaround—accidentally. In a video that’s now gone viral, they revealed how they unlocked the puzzle’s achievement by sheer luck and some unconventional methods.
But here’s where it gets controversial: to replicate their ‘solution,’ you’d need to perform a series of steps that feel more like a glitch than a legitimate puzzle. First, you must acquire Marie’s Doll, an item that only appears after you’ve spent 15 minutes in the meat-packing area, waiting for zombie bodies to drop into a vat. Yes, you read that right—15 minutes of waiting. Then, you have to flush a toilet eight times. Eight. Times. Only after this bizarre ritual does the doll appear, following Grace’s escape from Rhodes Hill Care Center.
Once you’ve stored the doll in your inventory and started a New Game+, the real ‘fun’ begins. You must bring the doll and Emily, a blind girl from the care center, to a locked safe in the lead researcher’s office. There, you input a code—but here’s the kicker: the code itself is part of the puzzle players are still trying to solve legitimately. If you get it right, you’ll hear a child’s laughter, signaling the puzzle’s completion. But is this really solving it, or just bypassing it?
The method was discovered through datamining and brute force, which means no one’s entirely sure what Capcom actually intended. Where’s the clue for the 15-minute wait? Why flush a toilet eight times? These questions remain unanswered, leaving fans to wonder if the ‘solution’ is more of a hack than a genuine breakthrough. Despite this, players have been obsessively dissecting every detail, even creating a subreddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/thefinalpuzzle/) dedicated to cracking the code.
So, here’s the big question: Does datamining and brute force count as solving a puzzle, or is it just cheating? Some argue it’s a valid way to uncover hidden mechanics, while others insist it undermines the developer’s vision. What do you think? Is this a clever workaround, or does it miss the point entirely? Let’s debate it in the comments—because if there’s one thing gamers love more than solving puzzles, it’s arguing about how to solve them.
