Days Gone Remastered: How to Unlock the “This Is Not a Knife” Trophy
Struggling with the This Is Not a Knife trophy in Days Gone Remastered? Learn how to take down a heavy Freaker with your boot knife using these skills, missions, and tips.
Getting the Platinum in Days Gone Remastered is doable but definitely comes with a few tricky moments. One of the more specific trophies—“This Is Not a Knife”—asks players to kill a heavy Freaker (Breaker, Reacher, or Rager) using only Deacon’s boot knife. Sounds brutal? It kind of is… unless you go in prepared.
This guide breaks down exactly how to earn the trophy, what Freakers count, and the best ways to pull it off without breaking a sweat (or a controller).
🔪 What Counts as a Heavy Freaker?
You’ll only unlock the trophy if you take down one of these three enemies with your boot knife:
- Breaker – A massive, roided-up Freaker (think ex-bodybuilder).
- Reacher – A fast, white-haired mutant Freaker with strong attacks and evasion.
- Rager – Yep, that’s the infected bear. Big, angry, and very tanky.
Don’t worry—you don’t need to do the entire fight with the knife. You just need to land the final blow using it.
🏆 Tips to Get the Trophy Without the Headache
✅ 1. Unlock the Executioner Skill (Best Method)
This is your easiest path to victory. The Executioner skill (final tier of the Melee Skill tree) allows you to stealth kill heavy Freakers—and those stealth kills are always performed with the boot knife.
Here’s how to do it:
- Get the Executioner skill first.
- Sneak up behind a heavy Freaker (Breaker, Reacher, or Rager).
- Toss a rock to distract them if needed.
- When the prompt appears, press 🔺 to perform a stealth kill.
🧠 Pro Tip: You can trigger this during certain story missions too—get the skill early and use it on boss encounters before the fight starts.
✅ 2. Use the Switch It Up Skill
If stealth isn’t an option or you don’t have Executioner yet, go for Switch It Up. It doubles your boot knife combo damage, making it more viable to finish a weakened Freaker in a close-up brawl.
Here’s the game plan:
- Weaken the Freaker using your regular weapons (guns, explosives, crafted melee).
- Stop once their health is very low—don’t overdo it.
- Switch to the boot knife and finish the job.
- Be patient, dodge often, and stab when it’s safe.
✅ 3. Use Story Missions with Heavy Freakers
Some missions guarantee a heavy Freaker spawn and give you a health bar for easy tracking—perfect for timing your finishing strike.
Here are the best missions to try this on:
- Breaker: Playing All Night
- Rager: Mayday! Mayday!
- Reacher: What It Takes to Survive
🎯 If you already have Executioner before any of these missions, try to sneak up and end the fight before it even starts.
🧤 Final Tips
- Save before the fight so you can reload if you mess up.
- Don’t rely on traps or environmental hazards if you’re trying for this trophy—they can steal the final blow.
- If you’re going with brute force, be extra cautious when their health gets low—switch to the boot knife early to avoid accidentally killing them too soon.
With the right skills and a little patience, the This Is Not a Knife trophy is totally manageable—and a satisfying milestone on your way to Platinum.
Related Article:
- Days Gone Remastered Skill Tree Guide: All 45 Skills Explained
- Days Gone Remastered Crafting Guide: How to Unlock Every Recipe
- Days Gone Remastered Difficulty Guide: All Modes & Which One to Choose
- Days Gone Remastered Fast Travel Guide: How It Works & How to Unlock It
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