How to complete the Resident Evil 4 headless statue puzzle

Resident Evil 4 Remake headless statue in the Grand Hall completed with golden heads

The Resident Evil 4 headless statue puzzle blocks your way through the Grand Hall, preventing you from getting further into the castle. You need to collect three golden animal heads – a lion, a snake, and a goat – that have, for some reason, been removed from the chimera statue to keep a door locked. Unfortunately, the three Resident Evil 4 Remake heads are scattered in the rooms that branch off from the Grand Hall, so you’ll need to do a fair bit of exploring (and fighting) to add them to the statue. Below, we’ve laid out exactly how you obtain all three animal heads to easily complete the Resident Evil 4 headless statue puzzle in the Grand Hall during Chapter 9.

Resident Evil 4 Grand Hall headless statue puzzle guide

(Image credit: Capcom)

You need to retrieve a snake head from the Dining Hall, a lion head from the Armory, and a goat head from the Gallery to complete the Resident Evil 4 headless statue puzzle – you don’t need to collect them in this order either. Placing all three heads will open the nearby door to the right of the statue, allowing you to advance.

Resident Evil 4 snake head location

(Image credit: Capcom)

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To get the snake head, you need to head through the door to the left of the chimera statue in the Grand Hall – that’s north on the map. This’ll lead into the Dining Hall and you should immediately spot the gold snake head behind bars in a large box.

To lower the bars and collect the snake head, you need to solve a puzzle involving the dining table seating and the two painted portraits at the end of the room – we’ve got a separate Resident Evil 4 dining hall puzzle guide that thoroughly explains the solution, but in short, you need to match the seating arrangements depicted in the portraits. If you’ve seated Leon and Ashely in the correct spaces, the bars will lower so that you can collect the gold snake head and place it on the Resident Evil 4 headless statue.

Resident Evil 4 lion head location

(Image credit: Capcom)

Now to get the lion head for the headless statue, you need to head to the Armory:

1. Get to the Armory through the north door on the Grand Hall’s upper level. Go up the nearby stairs, then head through the north door. Follow the corridor all the way to get to the Armory, but along the way there’s a Resident Evil 4 small key to collect too.
2. Jump down into the Armory and collect the lion head from the statue. Too easy, one might say.
3. Defeat all the animated suits of armor. The knight armor can only be damaged by shooting the plagas parasite where the armor’s neck is. Don’t let them get too close as their sword attacks deal a lot of damage too.
4. Help Ashley down and open the exit door together. As you head through the corrido that leads back in the Grand Hall, be sure to collect the cubic device from the chest, which is required to unlock the Resident Evil 4 square lock boxes found in the castle.

Now that you’re back in the Grand Hall, you can slot the lion head onto the headless chimera statue and then get the goat head.

Resident Evil 4 goat head location

(Image credit: Capcom)

To retrieve the goat head for the headless Resident Evil 4 statue, you need to use the Grand Hall’s upper level again, this time to get inside the Gallery.

1. Get to the Gallery through the south door on the Grand Hall’s upper level. Go up the nearby stairs and go through the south door to get to the Gallery.
2. Start crossing the Gallery bridge to trigger the next combat encounter. You can see that the goat head is attached to another statue at the end of this bridge, but walking along it causes lots of zealots to pour into the room and lower the bridge.
3. Pull the lever on the upper level to raise the bridge. Use the ladder on the west side of the Gallery to reach the upper level, then run along the balcony and throw the lever. Bear in mind that zealots will be constantly trying to attack Leon and kidnap Ashley, so you need to kill a lot of enemies and act quickly. There will also be a red zealot who will mutate the regular zealots, and flashbangs are really effective against these enemies.
4. Go up the north stairs to reach the bridge and cross it to get the goat head. Once you’ve collected the head, go back the way you came to the Grand Hall.

With the goat head in hand, place it on the headless statue in the Grand Hall to complete the chimera and open the door to the right. However, not everything goes smoothly, and now you’ll need to solve the Resident Evil 4 clock puzzle.

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