Resident Evil 4 Remake launched on March 24th 2023 and is a fantastic remake of one of the most revered games ever created. As with the original Resident Evil 4, there are multiple difficulties and if you want to obtain every Trophy, you’ll need to play on every one of them. This page will give you all the details you need to know about Professional Mode.

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Professional Mode is the ultimate difficulty in Resident Evil 4 Remake.

What is Professional Mode?¶

When you begin Resident Evil 4 Remake for the first time, you’ll have three difficulty modes available for you to choose from. Assisted, Standard, and Hardcore, and outside of Assisted, you’ll need to beat the game in various ways on both Standard and Hardcore for Trophies/Achievements.

Once you finish the game once on any difficulty, you’ll unlock Professional Mode, the toughest difficulty in RE4 Remake. If you wish to unlock some of the more powerful bonus weapons, such as the Handcannon, you’re going to need to play through Professional Mode.

To begin a game on Professional Mode, you can either hit New Game and select it from there, this will be classed as a fresh Professional Mode playthrough with nothing carried over. Alternatively, you can do a New Game Plus on Professional Mode and carry over all of your weapons and other such goodies by loading your Game Clear save and choosing Professional Mode from there.

What Differences Does Professional Mode Bring?¶

The Professional Mode brings a whole host of changes to RE4 Remake, making it a much tougher game to see to its conclusion. For starters, kiss goodbye to autosaves, as they’re gone so you’ll need to make sure you save your game. If you’re going for the higher ranks, you’ll need to be even more selective about the limited number of saves you have.

If you’ve been relying on Parrying in your first playthrough, you’ll now have to be even more precise on Professional as only Perfect Parries will count. On top of enemies being far more aggressive and dealing more damage, this can cause a world of hurt.

There is one upside to all of this, all weapon modifications are available from the start, so you can work on your loadout that much sooner rather than waiting for them to unlock later in the campaign.

Bonus Weapons from Professional Mode¶

One of the main reasons to play through Professional Mode is some of the unlockables. Of special note are the two Bonus Weapons you can unlock from the mode. The first weapon is the Chicago Sweeper, a slight redesign of the Chicago Typewriter from the original Resident Evil 4. It’s not as powerful, but it is still useful, and the Exclusive upgrade will give you infinite ammo. To unlock it, you’ll need to beat Professional Mode with at least an A rank.

The other weapon, and perhaps the strongest weapon in the game (especially when fully upgraded), is the Handcannon. This is one mean Mangum that can kill any enemy with ease and, once again, the exclusive will grant you infinite ammo. This is even tougher to unlock though, you’ll need to beat Professional Mode without using any of the Bonus Weapons (such as the Infinite Rocket Launcher or Primal Knife).

Professional Mode Tips¶

If you’re willing to undertake the challenge of Professional Mode, there are some key pointers you should keep in mind.

• If you’re looking to clear it for the Chicago Sweeper, then use a Bonus Weapon like the Infinite Rocket Launcher to trivialize most of the combat encounters.

• Whenever you die, return to the title screen and reload the game from there, this will prevent it from counting as a death on your post-game rankings.

• Shotguns are not as useful as they were on the other difficulties. Instead, have a fully maxed out weapon like the Red 9 and a maxed out Rifle (like the Stingray), these will help massively.

• Purchase the First Aid Sprays from the Merchant whenever available, you’ll want as many healing options as possible.

• If not going for the Handcannon, make use of Accessories. The Chicken Hat you get from an S+ Rank on Hardcore will decrease the damage you take.

• Only look to Parry if you can be sure you can Perfect Parry. The difference in missing a parry on Professional Mode can often spell death.

• Stock up on Flash Grenades. Parasites are deadlier than ever so making use of Flash Grenades to instantly kill them is a massive boon.