Combat Knife

Combat Knife
jp name	コンバットナイフ
Item Information
Item type	Sub-weapon
Other
Appears in	Resident Evil 2 (2019)

For other uses, see Knife.

"A standard military-grade knife. Sure to come in handy in a pinch." — Inventory description

"ミリタリーナイフ。 いざという時に役立つ武器。" — Inventory description - Japanese

The Combat Knife is a sub-weapon in the Resident Evil 2 remake.

Gameplay

Whilst in the character's inventory, the knife can be used as both a melee weapon and tool in the environment, such as cutting tapes in order to unlock new areas.

Statistic-wise, each hit from a knife deals around 80 damage on lower difficulty and only around 40 on the higher difficulty. Each slash will see Leon or Claire swings the knife horizontally from left to right. It should be noting that the knife deals damage not per slash, but per tic. The longer the knife is able to remain in contact with the enemy, the more hit it does and the more damage it deals. For example, approaching a crawling zombie from the side and slash it horizontally from legs to head would deal more damage than approaching it from the front and slash it across the head.

When grabbed by an enemy, it can be used as a defensive item to free the player from the creature's grip. This deals a flat 150 damage on all enemies and will never kills, only leaving them at 1 HP. The knife will remain embedded in the monster and unlike the other defensive weapons in the game, the character will be able to retrieve the weapon after killing it.

The knife also has a durability gauge located in the inventory screen below its icon, and once depleted, the knife will break. However, there are many knives that can be found throughout the game, such as inside the Library and the Safety Deposit Room. Using the knives as defense weapons is especially risky as it severely drops their durability compared to using them as a proper weapon/ tool to delimb downed zombies.

Outside of its defensive purposes the knife is also quite viable as a weapon in its own right, easily able to slash the arms and legs off of zombies, making them less dangerous by hindering their speed. Furthermore, it is quite good as a way to check downed zombies to see whether or not they have been permanently killed. Lastly, it is surprisingly effective against Lickers as each slash of the knife will stun a Licker, making it possible to stun-lock it and easily dispose of it.

Further notes

• The Combat Knife originally had no durability gauge and as such would never break.
• The Combat Knife is the only subweapon to doubled as a key item. In the 1st playthough, it is a requirement for cutting the tape to open the lever box that raises the shutter to the Reception Room. Even if the player has unlocked The Infinite Knife, The normal Combat Knife is still needed for this purpose.
• One hidden, highly technical quirk on the Combat Knife is that its damage is tied to the framerate. And since higher framerate allows the game to count more tics, this means the knife would be able to hit more often than it should be possible. As a result, the knife damage exponentially multiplies and in some extreme cases, dealing as much as twenty times its normal damage in one swing.
• In the Resident Evil 4 remake, it is revealed that Leon Scott Kennedy still retained the very knife he received from Marvin Branagh during the events of the Resident Evil 2 remake, carrying it with him and still using it, as his go-to weapon six years later.

Gallery

Durability gauge depletion after several usages.

Combat Knife melee attack.

Combat Knife counterattack indicator.

Combat Knife counterattack.

Combat Knife retrieval.

The knife can also be used as a defensive item against higher tier enemies like William Birkin.