Code Vein

General Tips

The majority of hidden items and sections are found by dropping down from ledges, so look down them regularly if you want to find extra goodies. There are no illusionary walls of any sort.

The main method for permanently learning new Gifts is by killing enemies with the appropriate Blood Code equipped, but this Gift learning progress starts slowing down as you start outleveling the zone you're in, so striking a balance between spending Haze on Gift unlocks and level ups is recommended.

Certain zone bosses have an NPC standing outside the boss room who offers to repair a vestige from vestige fragments scattered in that zone. While doing so is optional, it can only be done before defeating the boss and not doing it first has both story and gameplay ramifications. Broadly speaking it's not a bad idea to try to restore all or at least most of them if possible, especially if you plan on only playing through the game once.

Giving gifts to your base NPCs can let you trade for some handy stuff from them like unique weapons, weapon transform materials or items that temporarily increase your maximum Ichor, but nothing critical to beating the game. Different NPCs like different gifts, and these gifts can also be bought with "Old World Materials" from a merchant who appears at the end of the first zone once the boss there is defeated.

The Depths side challenge areas can be unlocked by finding maps for them, and they tend to be worth clearing whenever you unlock new ones. Some maps are rewards from side quests which can be acquired from NPCs in previously cleared zones, so if you want to unlock all of them it's worth going around checking old zones for any new quest NPCs whenever you beat the end boss of one. This can eventually get kinda laborous, but side quest NPCs do at least immediately show up on the map without having to look for them.

Enemies tend to not pay attention to your AI partner before a fight starts. Additionally, if you draw an enemy away with a bayonet shot/dagger/projectile gift and you're a distance away, you can peel your target from a group and draw them somewhere else to deal with them. This can lead into situations where you can let your partner hit the enemy you targeted while the rest don't act at all, which can be handy if there's a troublesome ambush group that you fell for earlier that you want to deal with.

The game is balanced around having an NPC follower with you, so while going solo is possible, it should be considered an optional extra challenge.

The training dummy in your home base is very handy for testing out weapons and Gifts. Also, different weapons even in the same weapon category can have different movesets or abilities, so it's usually worth giving new weapons a few swings to see how you like them.

The fastest Quick dodge is a dash that you don't have recovery/standing-up time from, though even the mid-weight Normal dodge does the job quite well. The Gift "Hasten" acquired from a relatively early Blood Code improves your dodge level and can be worth slotting in especially with heavy gear.

There are many good swords in the game but slashing weapons tend to do poor damage against armored enemies, so having a piercing or crushing one as backup is not a bad idea when facing them.

The Gift "Shifting Hollow" which teleports you a short distance forward and is learnable from one of the starting Blood Codes can remain very useful all throughout the game with some practice, in essence acting as an instant forward dodge with a good invulnerability period at the cost of 1 Ichor (MP).

In addition to their numerical differences, Blood Veils (armor) are divided into 4 categories (Ogre, Hound, Stinger & Ivy) which governs their parry and drain attack animations. Notably the Ivy type which spawns blades striking up from the ground is a special case in that its charged-up drain attack can actually be moved around freely before releasing it, allowing for long-range enemy pulls even from long distances or around corners.

Gear upgrade materials are a pretty common find and all except the final +10 upgrade ones can eventually be bought from the store, so don't be too hesitant about upgrading your favorite stuff. Gear infusion items are more limited and mostly available from NPC trading, but these are not very important for a standard playthrough. If you want to go full tank mode though, infusing a very high-defense weapon like the Zweihander with Fortification can bring it up to 100% physical resistance when blocking.

A weapon's Drain Rating governs how quickly you recover spent Ichor when attacking an enemy, and is worth paying attention to especially on builds that cast things a lot. It's also not to be confused with the Drain Attack stat which governs the damage of drain attacks.

In a similar vein, the Light and Dark Gift stats for the most part only govern the direct damage dealt with Gifts of the appropriate type, and not the duration or effect of buffs. A couple of notable exception to this later in the game are the Drain Rating buff "Bloodsucking Blades" and the damage buff "Bridge to Glory", both of which can get very potent with high caster stats.