After spending a full evening stuck in Rhodes Hill, I realized the most stressful thing wasn’t the enemies – it was walking through that quartz door and discovering I’d left with only 14 antique coins. No way back, no way to buy the last Playroom upgrade, and my Grace Ashcroft was permanently weaker for the rest of the game.
On my next run I treated antique coins like a main objective, not just a side collectible. I mapped out every coin in the care center, double-checked each room before moving the story forward, and ended up with 21 coins on Standard difficulty – enough to buy every Playroom reward (you only need 17) and still have a few spare.
This guide walks you room-by-room through Rhodes Hill, showing you where every antique coin is and when you can safely grab them without getting shredded. I’ll also explain how the Playroom (sometimes called the Parlor) works, which rewards to prioritize, and the exact point after which you can’t spend these coins anymore.
All of Grace’s permanent upgrades in Rhodes Hill are locked behind the Playroom – a small bar-style room in the west wing ground floor. You can’t access it immediately. First, you need the ruby from the unicorn jewelry box in the President’s (Director’s) Office on the first floor, then use that to unlock the Playroom door downstairs.
Inside, along the left wall, are four locked cabinets. Each one opens once you’ve fed enough antique coins into the mechanism. Here’s what you can buy and what each upgrade does:
That’s a total of 17 coins required for every Playroom reward. You can find more than that in Rhodes Hill; on my run I picked up 21. Anything above 17 is basically bonus – handy if you miss one or two along the way, and later in the game you’ll unlock a way to convert leftovers into crafting scrap.
Critical warning: Antique coins can only be spent in Rhodes Hill. Once you leave the care center and push the story forward, you cannot come back and you cannot buy these upgrades later. I strongly recommend keeping a manual save before you insert all three quartz into the main hall door, just in case you realize you missed something.
To keep things practical, I’ll list the coins in the rough order you can first reach them during Grace’s Rhodes Hill section. You don’t have to grab them in this exact order, but following it will naturally line up with when you can afford each Playroom reward.
Areas covered:
If you follow this route carefully, you’ll walk out of Rhodes Hill with every permanent upgrade for Grace and a couple of spare coins in your pocket.
The very first coin is basically the game’s tutorial for this collectible. When you enter the Guard Office (where you see your first save point as Grace), look immediately to the right-hand desk. The coin is sitting out in the open.
Don’t make my early mistake of rushing to the typewriter and leaving; grab this before you heal or sort your inventory, or you’ll forget it’s even there.
From the dining area with the zombies feeding, you push through into a corridor that has the Archive Room on the left. Instead of ducking into the Archive immediately, walk all the way to the end of the corridor. There’s a small cabinet or shelf at the dead end, and your second coin is resting on top.
I lost this one on my first run because I sprinted past in panic while kiting enemies. If things are too hot, clear the corridor first, then backtrack calmly to loot it.
Once you’ve progressed far enough to visit the President’s Office on the first floor, open the unicorn jewelry box, grab the ruby, and use it to unlock the Playroom in the west wing ground floor. Inside there are three coins:
By the time you pick these up, you should have five coins total. I strongly recommend immediately buying the Hip Pouch (3 coins). The extra inventory slots will make the rest of Rhodes Hill much smoother. You’ll be left with two coins banked toward your next upgrade.
Head upstairs in the west wing to the Bar Lounge. As you enter, there’s a piano in the main area. Move in slowly if you don’t want to wake every corpse in the room at once. On the piano keys themselves, there’s an antique coin waiting.
If you’re low on ammo, you can actually sneak to the piano, grab the coin, then pull back to funnel any alerted zombies through the doorway instead of fighting in the open floor.
In the same Bar Lounge, there’s a distinctive zombie “singer” by the mic. When you’re ready (don’t rush this in hardcore mode), put her down. Search her corpse on the floor and you’ll find another coin.
During one run I actually killed her as Leon, then forgot to come back as Grace to loot the body. The corpse and its loot persist, but remember: coins only count for Grace, and only she can spend them in the Playroom.
Still in the Bar Lounge, there’s a safe tucked behind the bar area. Once you’ve found the relevant safe code file elsewhere in Rhodes Hill, you can crack it open. Inside you’ll get three antique coins at once.
This is one of the biggest single coin jackpots in the care center. After clearing the lounge and opening the safe, you should have more than enough to pick up the Stabilizer (4 coins) on your next Playroom visit, greatly improving Grace’s gun handling for the tougher east wing fights.
When you first reach the East Wing Waiting Room from the east side, look straight ahead as you enter. There’s a small table directly in front of you; a coin is lying on its surface.
This is easy to miss if you’re focused on the enemies and exits. I got into the habit of doing a slow 360° sweep of each new room before I started looting bodies or opening doors.
In the same Waiting Room, there’s a zombie with a blood bag blocking a side area. Take it out carefully (aim for the bag if you want to stagger it), then go behind the counter it was guarding. You’ll find an open chest there containing two more antique coins.
This pair is easy to forget because you might kill the zombie from range and never walk into its corner. Always check behind counters and inside open containers in Rhodes Hill; the devs love hiding coins there.
From the East Waiting Room, head into the small room that leads to the staircase up to the first floor. Before climbing, look around the ground level: there’s a low table or small coffee table with an antique coin resting on it.
I skipped this one my first time by bee-lining up the stairs as soon as I saw them. Make it a rule: if there’s a staircase, explore around its base before you go up.
Now climb the stairs in that same east wing area. In the stairwell itself, keep an eye out for a decorative vase placed near a Mr. Raccoon toy. Smash the vase (knife works fine) and you’ll uncover another hidden coin.
This is very similar to the hidden Playroom pot coin. If you see breakable pottery in Rhodes Hill, assume there’s a good chance it’s hiding either ammo or an antique coin.
On the first floor of the east wing, enter the Conference Room. As you walk in, look to your right-hand side furniture – there’s a cabinet or sideboard with yet another coin on top.
Nothing tricky here; just make sure you loot the room fully before you move on, especially if you’re low on resources and tempted to sprint through.
Yes, there’s another “singer” zombie in this Conference Room, echoing the Bar Lounge encounter. Once you take her down, loot her corpse on the floor to grab coin #17.
Between the cabinet coin and this drop, this room alone represents a decent chunk of your Playroom budget. After clearing the east first floor, it’s a perfect time to backtrack to the Playroom and buy the Steroids (4 coins) if you haven’t already. By now you should easily have the 11 coins needed to own Hip Pouch, Stabilizer, and Steroids.
Still in the east wing first floor, find the Examination Room with a safe inside. Once you’ve picked up the relevant document with the combination, open the safe to receive three antique coins at once.
This safe is the final big push you need to afford the Override Manual / blood collector upgrade. Even if you somehow missed a coin or two earlier, this triple payout plus the earlier Bar Lounge safe reward will comfortably push you past the 17-coin threshold.
Once you’ve collected all three quartz stones and opened the main hall door to the courtyard, step outside and look to your left-hand staircase. At the base of those stairs, there’s a lonely chair with an antique coin sitting on it.
This coin is special because it’s effectively your last chance to top up your Playroom budget. You can still backtrack inside to the Playroom for a short window after stepping into the courtyard, but once the story pushes you away from Rhodes Hill, that’s it – coins become useless for upgrades.
Based on my playthroughs, this is the most efficient purchase order for the Playroom:
As long as you’ve collected at least 17 coins before you fully leave Rhodes Hill, you can buy everything. On my 21-coin run, I still had a few left over – nice insurance in case you miss one or two under pressure.
Here are the habits that finally stopped me from missing antique coins:
If I can walk out of Rhodes Hill with every single Playroom upgrade unlocked, you can too. Treat coins as a priority objective, follow this room-by-room checklist, and Grace Ashcroft will be in the best possible shape for everything that comes after the care center.
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