Overview
Check here to see exactly what you are and are not allowed to do in order to earn the Episode 1 Knife Only achievement.
What you CAN do
- Slash with the knife as either Claire or Barry. You can get through Claire’s half of the episode without ever even attacking an enemy, except for the very first scripted QTE encounter.
- If your partner throws a brick or shines a flashlight, or if you’re playing as Moira/ Natalia and Claire/Barry fires at an enemy due to having unlocked the Unholstered perk, that’s okay.
- Heal yourself with herbs and other healing items.
- Shine a flashlight/ point at items to collect them.
- Use any of the rotating blades and the flamethrower.
What you CANNOT do
- Fire a gun (duh)
- Throw a sub-weapon as any character
- Use the Crobar, Flashlight, or Brick on any enemy.
- Use any follow up attack. If you get the Right Trigger prompt to attack an enemy, you cannot do it. Whether they are dazed or on the ground, or even a stealth attack. It doesn’t make any sense, and it’s never clearly stated. Just don’t do it.
Other tips
- You can earn this on any difficulty, in any order (you can go through it with Barry, then go through with Claire and it will unlock.)
- It’s easiest on casual. You don’t have to attack a single enemy in Claire’s half, and only have to kill that first Revenant as Barry. It’s easiest to just run past every enemy.
- Use this run as an opportunity to get the Barry medals for not firing a shot in the detention center, and for getting through the woods in under 40 seconds. Also, there are many easy to kill enemies in the detention center as Barry, so you could use that as a safe area to grind for knife kills.
- Avoiding every enemy in both halves of the episode only takes about 30 minutes on casual.
- Consider using Natalia to run through areas with Revenants as they cannot grab her.
- You technically don’t need to kill the first Revenant, but it’s so much safer and easier to do so. I would advise against trying to brute force the door open with it still alive.
- Even reloading a save might not undo actions done to prevent the achievement from unlocking.
If you have any questions or suggestions for additions, let me know in the comments.
Thanks, and happy knifing!